I jumped at the idea of writing a book for millennial when
it first came to me. As the idea sank, I was overwhelmed with fear.
‘Am I good enough?’, ‘Do people care about what I say?’,
‘How will people judge me?’, ‘Will it hurt?’
These thoughts sucked the excitement of new adventure out of
me. I became doubtful of my work.
Then I started to observe my thoughts in order to figure out
how to be ‘good’.
Win the mind game
Nobody ever tells me that I am a bad writer. I laughed at myself when this moment of truth stroke.
If we dive deeper into all our self-manufactured and
self-limiting thoughts, we will find that we are afraid of failure and
judgement.
When I was a kid, whenever I got hurt, mum would come to me
with worries spilling all over her face. It was pure love, but we learned how
to react from parents’ reaction.
As I grew up, screwed up and fell in life, I learned that every
mistake imparts invaluable lesson.
So I have to change my script. It is my responsibility to
create positive vibe so that I don’t let self doubt stops me from taking action.
It is all in my head and I have to win this mind game.
Know your ‘why’
When I told people about writing a book, some people told me it will not make money and advised me not to waste my time.
Everyone sees your best interest through the paradigm of
their lives, and that’s okay.
If you believe in your power to make changes; you have to be
so strong, so resilient, so fearless and so unshakable that nothing could stop
you from putting your work out there.
‘It doesn’t matter what happens to you or where you come from, it matters what you do with what happens and what you’ve been given.’ Ryan holiday
I write because I want to evoke emotion, inspire action, and
create ripples in people’s life.
Tell your story in your unique way
Lisa Nicols said that we connect with people when we are able to be vulnerable and share the dark moments in our life.
I lost my uncle recently. Through the loss I realised that
it is too late to tell our loved ones ‘thank you, I love you’ at the end of
their life.
When I wrote about it, I wished people could see what I see
and start expressing love and gratitude to people who matter to them.
I am not the best writer to craft a compelling story, but I
can be the best in telling my own story.
Focus inwards
Sometimes we are too occupied with everyday life that we never ask ourselves, ‘what is my life about?’, ‘what makes me happy?’, ‘what am I good at?’, ‘how can I help people?’
We need time and space to figure out what is important to us.
We need to understand the combination of different strengths that make up our
unique personality ‘DNA’.
When we have deep understanding of ourselves, we are able to
take control of success and happiness and put them within us.
I feel triumphed when my articles get published, tweeted,
shared or recommended. It warms my heart when people thank me for writing articles
that resonate with their life.
These little things might not be important to many people,
but they fuel me from within knowing that my words have positive impacts in
people’s life.
Am I good enough?
When we do things that scare us, it means that we are expanding our comfort zone and transforming into a new level.
It is natural to have our inner critical voice raising self
doubt as a form of self protection. Those voices are meant to protect us from
failures and mistakes, because they hurt.
Our job is not to eliminate critical voice, but to develop
another voice that overpowers self doubt.
This voice is filled with love and care. It is free from ego
and judgement. It carries passion and purpose. It is authentic and
unpretentious.
This new voice screams ‘I can, and I will’. We have to
always remind ourselves to keep it loud and firm, so that the critical voice could
never stop us from doing what we do.
The Interview
This article was originally published in Medium and it landed me an interview with Millennial Report, a new broadcast channel based in the U.S. I was stoked when the producer approached me even though I've never done live interview in my life.
I thought that maybe I can do it, maybe I can't; but I'm excited to be given a chance and I'll just give it a go.
So here we go.
Beautifully written.
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