There were two seasons in my life when I lived on a ship. One was when I was a baby, until I was about eight years old…and the other was when I had just turned thirteen until my senior year of high school.
Something that really mattered to me when I was about seven years old, was that I dreamed of being a writer. I would make up stories and write them down on paper. My dad would send them to friends back in Canada to read to their kids. This dream of writing and telling stories has been inside of me for years. Then as I got older these lies that I couldn’t write and that I wasn’t good enough started creeping up inside of me. Those lies turned into questions like, “Who am I to be writing stories or even publishing a book?” Maybe you can relate.
Thank you to so many of you who supported me through the lies as I wrote, published, and launched my new book “ADRIFT.” Sometimes when we have dreams or visions of things we want to do, lies pop up telling us that we can’t have our hearts desires or that it’s not time and that we should wait.
To gain courage we must act.
I have this saying pinned up in my office so that I see it every day. The reason I look at this sentence every single day is because so often it’s easier for us to wait for courage or wait for the perfect timing before doing the things that are really important.
I know there have been times when I felt I was being told that I needed to get better or stronger before I did what I really wanted to do.
I now know that…
To gain courage, we must act.
Everything worth doing is worth doing scared.
Everything worth doing is worth doing imperfectly.
When we act, we gain courage and clarity.
We must act rather than let the lies dictate what we work on. We get our courage from actually stepping out and starting to do the work. The lies will continue, even while we work. Recognizing and ignoring the lies is how we achieve our dreams and goals.
Adrift is the first book in my memoir series. It is a story that I’ve been afraid to share ever since I went through moving back to a missionary ship after creating a so-called normal life in Germany. I had just turned 13 years old. I was expected to drop everything and leave my special group of girlfriends, girls who had also been on missionary ships.
This was a story that I desperately wanted to tell and yet was afraid I’d be judged as being a bad Christian for questioning God. I was feeling so many emotions leaving all of my girlfriends behind. I knew at the time it was really coming from a place of I want people to understand what this was like. It was also coming from a place of really struggling to have words to put all these thoughts and feelings down on paper.
Many of the lies that I believed as a result of that experience were not because I didn’t have good parents or because I wasn’t loved. It wasn’t any of those reasons. It was because I lacked the courage to speak up and I didn’t have the words to capture what was going on inside of me.
I love writing and not because writing comes easily to me. Sometimes it’s actually incredibly hard to write.
I feel really deeply about everything and I mean everything…even my earrings, lipstick, and what I’m going to wear. I think about those things and there’s normally a story attached to how I feel about those decisions. I even think in pictures and come up with metaphors.
That’s probably why I find such great joy when I do find the right words. Like when I do finish a story about something that was previously escaping me and how to go about expressing it.
To gain courage, we must act, spurred me on to publish books again. Something you may not know is that the weekend before I published ADRIFT, I was full of feelings that created questions. I was wondering if it was good enough.
Should I have published it?
Could I have done a few things differently in the way I launched it?
We can all improve. Our books can be better. It’s really true what they say, that you’re really never done writing a book. The thing is…we won’t get better without action and release.
You can edit and wordsmith forever and a day. Let it go and send it out into the world. It does feel scary and you will have doubts. Do it anyways. Release is a wonderful feeling.
If you have not gotten a copy yet, it’s not too late! Click here for the Ebook and here for the paperback.
The first 2 weeks are really important for the success of your book. Every single purchase made, impacts how many people will see it. Every single review put on Amazon also impacts how many people see it. I really appreciate all of you who have already gotten a copy! The reviews are starting to come in as well. So thank you for taking the time to leave those reviews on Amazon: every review matters!
Remember, everything worth doing is worth doing imperfectly. It’s also worth it doing things scared. We gain courage when we act.
If you have a special project you’re working on or a book burning inside of you or a story you are ready to tell…I encourage you to take one small step today towards that dream.
When we acknowledge the lies of feeling scared or feeling unworthy or not good enough by saying, “Okay, I hear you, I see you, I feel you” we are able to move forward. Every single project that we create and release into the world is a stepping stone for future projects. This is how we bring growth and maturity to the next project.
As creatives, it’s really important to remember that we are not defined by anyone’s story, not even our own. We are also not defined by any one piece of work. In fact, once we release something into the world it takes on a life of its own and is no longer ours.
So again I encourage you to take action, because when we take action, that is where we gain clarity and courage.
I would love to know what you’re working on and what courageous step you are willing to take. Tell me in the comments!