Episode 4 - How to Stop Sabotaging Yourself

Recorded on August, 15th 2022

In this episode, I talk about how we sabotage ourselves as writers when we’re trying to reach our goals: how we do it, why we do it, and how to stop doing it by journaling. I also tell you how I’ve been sabotaging myself since I started working on the fourth draft of my novel and how I was able to get back on track!

Mentioned in this episode:

• Lit Match Podcast by Abigail K. Perry
• Horror Writers Association Mentoring Program
• Stephanie Ellis

The questions to journal about are:

• How am I sabotaging myself?
• Why am I sabotaging myself?
• What are the goals I’m trying to attain? Why did I set those goals to myself in the first place?
• What actions can I take tomorrow to stop sabotaging myself?

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to Leftyobase Writing Podcast, where I share with vulnerability and positivity my journey towards making all of my writing dreams come true. I hope you learn with me as I go from the things that go well and what doesn't go so well. But mainly I wish it inspires you to pursue your own writing dreams. Now let's begin. Hello writers, thank you so much for being here with me again this week. Uh so today for the episode, the topic is going to be how to stop sabotaging yourself when you're trying to reach your writing goals. So I'm going to cover the ways that you could be sabotaging yourself without even realizing it, um, and how you can stop it by using journaling. And also at the end of the episode, I'm going to share how I was sabotaging myself since I started working on this last draft of my novel before I start querying, how I realized I was doing it, why I was doing it, and how I get out of it. Um, so stay tuned for that. Uh, but just before we go into the update uh for this week, I just want to give a little shout out to Abigail K. Perry. She has a podcast that I found so useful this week, especially the previous weeks. Um, our podcast is called Lit Match. And if you're querying or about to query, uh, it is a must lesson. She did a series, a three-part series, about how to write a query letter. And she has lots of experience. She's worked for a literary agency, she's read file, so so she's seen it, and she's a great editor, she's really amazing, and she did a three-part series. Each episode was on each of the paragraphs of the query letter, and she gave just such amazing advice for each and every one of those paragraphs. So I really recommend that if you are querying right now or close to querying, that you go and give a listen to those episodes. Even if you think your query is strong, just go and give a listen. Uh, I'm sure you're going to learn something and learn a way that you can make your query stronger. So I will put a link in the show notes as always. So now for my updates. Uh, so last week I was back from uh my vacation. So after two weeks of net writing, it was really getting back into it. Uh so the the first morning, like Monday, it was just like finding myself back into the project. I reread like all the comments I had on my novels so far from my writers' friends and my mentor just to get myself back into the editing mode. Uh, and then I got a cold. Uh so the next day, like I didn't write. So basically, I just wrote like Wednesday and Thursday when usually like I write every weekday morning. So I didn't progress a lot. Uh, I managed to finish chapter two completely, uh, and it's now completely done. So yeah, I didn't do much work during that week and nothing else basically happened writing wise. So yeah, I'm still working on the line editing. Um, but as you can see, like it was clear from this week how I was sabotaging myself. And yeah, uh, I didn't write on Friday because I've been working on the podcast too late on Thursday, and like I wake up at four o'clock in the morning to write because I have a day job and two kids, so it's really like the best time for me to write is in the morning. That's when my brain is the most like awake, um, creative, and I know that if I write first thing in the morning, there's nothing that could happen in my day that will interfere with that with my writing. But you know, I need to get to bed like early in order to be able to wake up this early. So because I went to bed too late for the podcast, I didn't manage to wake up the next morning. So, not the most predictive week, as you may see, but you know, I will share more in detail uh how that got me to understand that I was sabotaging myself and that I had been since I started working on this last draft. Um so yeah, that's about it for my updates this week. So before I go into all the ways that I've been sabotaging myself in the past, and that you could be right now sabotaging yourself without realizing it, I'm going to share why I wanted to talk about this this week in link to my update, which is that I realized that I was sabotaging myself. So it's been some time now that I'm better at not sabotaging myself. Uh, I've been working on this a lot, and to be honest, if you asked me like two months ago if I was still doing it, I would have said no. Like, I've got my things together, like I'm okay, I'm on the right path, and I'm working toward my goals. Um but uh since I started working on the last draft of my novel before I'm starting to query, I've been not making much progress. And like I know that I can make more progress than I'm doing right now, but I've been coming up with all those excuses to explain why I was not doing progress, and just so you can have a perspective on that. I started working on the this draft, the fourth draft, the line editing one, at the beginning of the month of July. So it will be like a month and a half soon. Like, yes, I took two weeks off, but still, let's say that it's been a month that I've been working on this, and I'm not even done with three old chapters, so I'm maybe at like 5,000 words edited in a month. And saying it all loud right now is kind of scary. And you know, maybe it's because it's harder to rewrite the first scene than all the other ones. Maybe that's it. Maybe there could be all those reasons, but deep down inside I knew that I was sabotaging myself, and it took like my partner asking me a question, the right question, for me to really say, to really see it, to really say, Oh yes, I'm still sabotaging myself. And the way that I've been doing it is by not making the most out of the writing time that I have. I have some time available that I put aside every day for writing, but I was not using this time as effectively as I could have. And I know that with my goals, with where I want to go, this is not what I want to do, and I know that I can act differently. And this could look for me like taking too much time when I wake up in the morning to get to my desk, even though there is no reason for me to like I would scroll through Instagram when I could there was no right reason for me to do that. I would check my emails, or when I was actually at my desk, it would be overthinking. Like, yes, it's important to really think about every word and every sentence when you're learning, but there is a point where which you just really need to trust yourself and trust your knowledge and trust the work that you've done and say, okay, this is alright, this is not, this is the right word, and move on. But I was just like taking way too much time and overthinking everything to the extent that it was taking me that long to get to actually a finished scene that I could show to my mentor. So that was really how I was not using the most of my time, and where I had other little opportunities during the day to write, um, I would not be using them. I was making excuses that I could not write. Now I'm not saying that I should be writing all the time. Uh it's important to rest and to take some self-care, but there was a moment that I knew that I could write and I would have enjoyed writing if I but I was giving myself excuses. Um, so I think deep down we can know when we really need to rest and when we're just making an excuses. I think we can see the difference between those two. But anyway, so that's how I saw that I was sabotaging myself. And if I wanted my goal, if I wanted to reach my goal, I needed to make a change, I needed to refocus. Um, so my goal is to finish this draft of my first ever novel that I will have finished so that I can query it, so that I can get an agent and a book deal and get to where I want to go. If I want to become a full-time writer with a traditional deal, that's what I need to do to get there. But at the same time, finishing this novel, finishing my first novel ever, means I will have to query. And I know that it will come with rejection. So a part of me was incredibly scared of that because I know how much rejection hurt when it's a short story, and I've never spent more than like maybe like I don't call it my novella because this is a part, but for short stories, like I've never put more than a month on them, and it hurt like hell to get rejection on them. So I was like, this novel I've been working on for three years, I've been putting my soul in this novel. So what am I going to do if it's rejected? What am I going to do if I don't get an agent? And so by not making the most out of out of my writing time unconsciously, I was preventing myself from finishing so that I could prevent myself from the pain of the upcoming rejection that I know will come. Because it's impossible that every single agent that I query, no matter how well I do my work in searching for agent and writing my query letter, it's absolutely impossible that they will all request my book and all give me offer of representation. It's impossible. So I know that I will get rejected, and that's incredibly scary. So unconsciously, I was preventing myself from that. But at the same time, I'm also preventing myself from accomplishing the goals that I want to accomplish. And I'm also preventing myself from having this book out, having people reading this book, and I know that this novel could make someone feel good. I know that this novel could entertain someone, make someone think, make someone reflect, make someone feel something, make someone feel seen. And that's why I want to share it. And if I never finish it, yes, I will never get rejection, but I will also never be able to share with. So those were all the reflections that I did, and I ended up recommitting myself to okay, you're waking up at four every weekday. That part, like it's okay, I got nailed, but as soon as you're up, you don't touch your phone, except for doing like my usual story on Instagram where I share, like when I start writing, I I like doing those. This is a part of me, this is a way for me to stay accountable. So I share this and then I put the phone away, and then I'm fully into my writing up until the moment when it's time to wake up the kids and get on with my day. And I really recommend it to that. And I also committed to I'm trusting myself. I know that I can line at it. I know that I can make this writing flow and be as strong as it can be, so that it the writing is least distracting to the reader so that they can really immerse themselves in the story. That's my goal with my writing. I'm not this type of writer who writes just beautiful sentences. I know that it's not my strength. I'm not a literary writer. What I want is my is for my writing to disappear completely so that the right the reader can immerse themselves into my story. And I know that I have the capacity to do that. I know that I've learned enough and that I can apply those things enough. And also I have the incredible support of my mentor, Stephanie Ellis, and she's helping me on those times when I don't cut myself. She's there to tell me. So I'm at the perfect place to be able to do what I'm aiming to do. I just need to focus and to trust myself and to stop overthinking everything all the time. So that's what I'm committed to. And now we are Monday, so I only did it this morning. Um, but already I could feel the forward motion. Yes, I could feel the difference. So, you know, I'll tell you next week if it ended up like making the difference, either externally, like in my productivity, how much I've moved forward in a novel, or internally how I felt, but just today, like I know that I feel better because of it. So that was my my you know personal story of sabotaging myself right now. But before I've been sabotaging myself in so many ways, and you could be right now. Um, so just before I give you the list of the seven ways you could be sabotaging yourself right now, I just want you to take a moment to just be really honest with yourself. I really ask you the question: Am I sabotaging myself towards making my writing goal right now? Is there a way that unconsciously I've been preventing myself from reaching those goals? Um it just a yes or no here. Just really be honest with yourself. And if the answer is no, then be super proud of yourself. Like you've done the work and you're on the right path, and I'm really proud of you. But if the answer is yes, I think I'm sabotaging myself, then just listen to the list I'm going to give and see what resonates with you as a way that you could be right now sabotaging yourself. So I'm just going to give you the seven ways, like really fast, the seven ways that you could be sabotaging yourself with your writing. And then when I'm going to go on to why we are sabotaging yourself when we're trying to accomplish our writing goals, I'm going to go a little bit deeper on those ways. But for now, here's the seven ways that you could be sabotaging yourself. So you don't finish either a first draft or any other draft that comes after it, you don't revise, you don't learn the craft of the or the business of publishing, you don't ask for feedback, you don't submit or publish your stories, you don't write as much as you could, and you're not making the most out of your writing time. So this is the way that I was sabotaging myself later. So all of those ways they just come down to the two same things. So they come out of fear or out of a feeling of not being deserving for the goals you're trying to attain. So it could be the fear of the work itself. So for sometimes you will not learn a craft because you think it's too hard, it's too difficult, um, and it's going to take too much work to after it put in the work in your draft to revise it and to make it better. So that's also why you're not revising, because you think it's going to take too much work to go back into this entire draft that you took so long to write, and to make it better, you're saying, oh my god, it's going to take me years. So because you're afraid of the work that it's going to take you, you're just not doing it. And this way you're never finishing and you're not attaining your goals. Um, but most of the time it will be out of fear of rejection, fear of failure, fear of not reaching your goal. So if you never finish anything, you cannot submit them. If you never finish your novel, you cannot submit your novel, therefore, you cannot get rejected. So that was exactly the fear I was in this week. Um, but it could be the same thing with you don't ask for feedback because you're afraid that people are going to tell you that your writing is not good. So subconsciously, you're telling yourself, oh, I don't know much writers in my jar, or anything like that. You're coming up with excuses for why you should not be asking for feedback. But it could be just really that you're afraid that the feedback is going to be bad, or you're afraid of the work that you're going to do once you get the feedback. It's the same thing with publishing. You're or submitted your work to either an aid to query an agent or submit to uh a market for put to publish your short story traditionally, you're afraid of rejection. So if you never submit your stories and you just pile them on your computer, then of course you're never going to get rejection. So it's the way that your brain is protecting you from rejection. Not writing enough or not making the most out of your writing time could just be again because you're afraid of what if you don't get those goals? Again, what if you get rejected once you are trying to attain those goals? What if you publish this book and then no one reads it? Or if it gets a bad review, and what if your agent drops you because the sales have been so low and now you cannot sell you a second project? All of those fears can come in, and so you will start writing less and less, you will start not using your writing time the most effectively, all of this unconsciously in a way to protect yourself. Um, and also you can feel like you're not deserving of those goals. So if your goal is to become a published author and have your books be read by people, you can feel deep down like you're not good enough for that. You're not a good enough writer, you're not a good enough person, your stories don't matter, you have nothing to say, it's not interesting. So therefore, you're preventing yourself from actually finishing, from actually writing something good by learning the craft and revising and asking for feedback so that you can never get your stories out there because you don't think you deserve them. Um, so those could be like the the two ways. And for me personally, it has always been like a variation of fear. Uh I want this so badly that I'm always I always get so afraid that it's not going to work out, and then all of this work that I've put in like would be for nothing. So now all of this is all good, but how do we get out of it? Because it's possible. Like when you realize that there's a problem, then you can change it, you can fix it. Um, so the way that I found that the most helpful to stop sabotaging myself when I was getting caught up in all of those ways, because I've been like there for almost all of those ways, uh, and it's to get out those notebooks that you've buyed and you've never written in, or your normal journal that you like to write in, and to journal on those questions. I really think that journaling is the best way to really stop sabotaging yourself because no matter what everything I could tell you today, every single person is different, and the only way you're going to go into your specific reason for sabotaging yourself and your specific way of doing it, you will never be able to get out of it because we are all different. So I shared with you my specific story about it this week, but it's going to be completely different for every single one of you. So by journaling on the question I'm going I'm about to share with you, you will be able to get down to really the specific way, and you will be able to get out of it. Trust me. So here we go. Here's the question uh that you're going to journal about in your journal in order to. stop sabotaging yourself. So first you're going to journal about this question, which is how am I sabotaging yourself? So you will go back and think about the ways that I've mentioned. Also there could be other ways too that I haven't experienced that I haven't heard, but that you are right now sabotaging yourself. So really let it out in the journal and really write down what comes up when you're asking yourself the question how am I sabotaging myself with my writing right now? So it can be a page, it can be a paragraph, it can be two pages, like really go as far as you want with this. Then once you've figured out exactly how you're sabotaging yourself right now, ask the question why am I sabotaging myself? So I've mentioned the two biggest reasons that I've seen which are fear of the feeling that you're not deserving of your goals but really go deep into your specific reason for why you think right now you're sabotaging yourself. So once you're really nail down why you're sabotaging yourself right now go back to those goals that you're trying to reach and that you think you're sabotaging yourself right now into attaining ask yourself why did I want those things in the first place? Why did I set those goals for myself? So for me the goal is to finish this draft of my novel so that I can query. So like I said before I want to query because I want to get an agent and a book deal so that I can share this book with readers because I think that it will have an impact on them. And I think there is something in this story that needs to be shared and I want to share it. And also this is what I love to do the most and I want to be a full-time writer so that I can do it all the time so that this can be my main source of income so that I can do it even more. And for that I need to have a book out like this is just a step toward this life that I want and I know is made for me. So that was the answer for me to those questions. But really ask yourself again why do I want those things? Why do I want to reach those goals and why did I set those goals in the first place to really go back to the the the root of what you set up those goals and if you can tell anymore if you're not sure anymore like maybe you're not really sabotaging yourself maybe it's just because your goals are no longer aligned with what you really want to achieve. So that could be it too so really go again deep with this question. And the last question you're going to journal about in order to stop sabotaging yourself what was the whole point of this episode and it's now that I know how I'm sabotaging myself why and why do I care about this? Why do I want to stop sabotaging myself you're going to write down what you're going to do differently from now. So there's need to be some action taken out of this journaling. So if it's just journaling and nothing comes out of it like it's not going to make any difference. So if you're sabotaging yourself but not learning the craft the first step could be to buy a book about writing craft. It could be to listen to a podcast episode about craft. It could be listening to a YouTube video about a writer explaining a craft technique like about story structure or anything. So really go and see what action you can take tomorrow to stop sabotaging yourself. Keeping in mind what your goals are why you're doing them and also like when you're asking yourself the why you're sabotaging yourself when you're going beep to this also write down why those reasons are bullshit why this fear is not toward you sabotaging yourself basically why you should not listen to those reasons that you're doing this um this could also be like a side side question that could help you to just get yourself out of those fears. So for example if it's the fear of rejection the way to get you out of this and to say yes I'm preventing myself from getting rejected but I'm also preventing myself from getting accepted so it's irrational to keep on sabotaging myself basically so I really hope that this journey helps you to stop sabotaging yourself so that you can reach those amazing goals that you set for yourself. And if this episode helps you in any way please let me know write me an email or send me a DM on Instagram and let me know how it helps you. I really genuinely want to know if the content is helpful to you and I would be so happy if it does. So please uh let me know. Don't be afraid to reach out um so that's it for the episode this week if you've enjoyed the episode or the past episode you can always take a screenshot and you can share it on social media. Don't forget to tag me I'm on Twitter and Instagram at lefty o bay so L E F T I A U B E you can find the link uh in my show notes for my social media profile I prefer Instagram so if you tag me there uh I'll be sure to to share it back. I'm so happy to know when you enjoy the the podcast. Also if you like what I'm doing and you want me to keep on doing this that you want to help me on my writing journey and you have the financial means too please consider supporting me on my Ko Fi page which you will find in the show notes too. Every single dollar is super appreciated. So thank you so much for being here today and I'm wishing you a lovely week of writing