Excuse me while I drag my latest batch of dark thoughts to the Kitchen Table so we can excavate it…

The most recent?

My book is going to fail.

My original intention was to sit down and write a nice piece on my book process to inspire you and share some of the strategic pieces that are working best for me. I caught myself, though, because that would be Dining Table conversation, not Kitchen Table conversation.

If you’re new here, quick catch-you-up…

Dining Table = the place in your life where you keep up appearances, present well, and perform a bit.

Kitchen Table = the place in your life where you drag your sorry butt to the table, unkempt and unabashed, and spill the most real, raw truths of your life. You can read all about it here.

So, since my commitment here is Kitchen Table Conversations, I saved my little update and tips and tricks and instead decided to write what’s really bubbling under the surface, the real drama.

I’ve been one match strike away from burning this whole thing to the ground.

Alright, first, enter Naive Me, three years ago post near death experience. After a few months of wallowing, physically healing, and nursing myself back to life, I got the spark to finally write the book. In full. Naive Me thinks this book will be done – like, done-done, in a few months and into the market a few months after that.

Cynical Me gets a real kick out of Naive Me. She thinks Naive Me is an absolute hoot, with her adorable timelines and short-sighted thinking. Fast forward a pregnancy, new baby, cross-country move, a horrific editing experience, and massive life-overhaul later, we have arrived at Current Day Me. Not sure what to label her yet, exactly, but I’ll tell you what she’s been through lately.

Some context for you… I’ve been working on this book for what feels like ten lifetimes. I rewrote the entire thing from scratch a few months back after gutting it down to the studs (I am, apparently, a glutton for punishment). I’ve poured myself into it in a way I haven’t poured myself into anything in years. And then somewhere in the last few weeks, I noticed I was sort of… taking my foot off the gas. Doing the work, but not the work with everything I have. Not pushing into the next phase the way I would have pushed into anything else in my career that I was sure was going to land. In fact, I found myself chopping down the plan I started with, minimizing wherever I could.

No, we don’t need a launch party.

I don’t think I need to do that many podcasts and speaking engagements.

I don’t want to bug my friends to ask them to read it or share it.

At first I told myself it was the season. Postpartum brain, sleepless nights, the general softness that comes with mothering a baby and homeschooling five kids and running a business. But underneath the season, when I sat with it long enough, I caught a belief I hadn’t given my conscious permission to take root – I don’t really think my book will be a success.

Woah. Weird! Where did that come from? The thought was as clear as a bell in my mind. Not anxious or sad, not even comparing. It was almost as though it was a fact someone else had told me that I fully believed.

Well, crap. That’s a bit of a problem.

This one thought was destroying my latest calling on my life.

As someone who is often hired to help successful people break through their most upper limits as they meet the newest version of themselves, I could see that this one thought was totally destroying any shot at living out this latest calling on my life. I knew I had work to do.

I know that our beliefs run our behavior whether we’ve consciously chosen them or not. You can want something with every fiber of your being and still sabotage yourself right out of it if you’ve absorbed, somewhere underneath your awareness, a story that says you’re not going to get it or that you’re not worthy of it.

The brutal part is you’ll usually have no idea that is what’s happening, and maybe you’ll notice you’re not bringing the same intensity to it. Then you start treating something that should be your most important work like a maybe-someday project. It’s easy to blame circumstances, the season, your bandwidth, your tiredness, but really there’s a deep belief rerouting your energy, effort, and focus.

So at the same time I’m sharing my gutter-level thoughts, I also want to share what I’ve done to get up out of them.

Since I had allowed this belief – I don’t really think my book will be a success (whatever that even means) – to take root in my mind, it was time to find evidence to the contrary. I did some digging, and if you’re looking for a simple but effective way to rewire negative thoughts to make way for your own Big Next in your life, take note of this next part.

Anytime I find my mind stuck in an unproductive thought or belief, I block a few hours on my calendar to work through it. So that’s what I did. I steal work hours, not family hours, as this book is a big part of my career path.

During that time I asked myself a simple question:

I thought back to a time more than a decade ago, in the first few years of my entrepreneurial career, that I wanted to qualify to attend a specific mastermind event. You had to have earned $100,000 in one year, a goal I had not yet hit. Two weeks out from the deadline, I was still $50,000 short. I mentally disqualified myself. I hadn’t earned that much in almost a year, let alone two weeks.

I write about this story in detail in my book, Your Big Next, because it was a massive tipping point in my life. Just as I was about to call it quits, my mentor asked me a question that shifted my paradigm…

This hadn’t even occurred to me at the time because circumstantially, believing it was possible didn’t make sense. But I was willing to try it.

Spoiler alert, I achieved the goal. I did in those two weeks what I hadn’t even done in a full year. So then the question became:

Really pulling this answer was going to be key. Although it’s not necessary, because I remember it quite well, like the hoarder I am, I still had my stacks of journals from earlier years. I pulled the one that coincided with that period of time, and low and behold, my answer was written there in my messy penmanship…

“I will be at this event.”

There was nothing in those pages that mirrored the belief I was having today around my book. There was no “let’s shrink this down in case it doesn’t work out”. Everything was all-in belief that big things were coming. And similar to the season I’m in now, exploring my edges and leaping into new territory, I was doing the very same in premise all those years ago.

There’s quite a bit of scientific evidence to back up the fact that our thoughts become our feelings, which then become our actions, which then validate our thoughts, and the cycle continues. It was easy to see that despite the fact that I hadn’t yet done it, choosing to believe I would created a positive spiral for me.

Because I’m not a believer that we can sit on our lazy cans and manifest our wildest dreams without effort, I then wanted to dig into what had to be done to see a change.

What was I actually doing during that period of time?

The evidence blew me away and was a bit of a harsh wake up call to how differently I was playing the game this time around compared to back then. Along with my journal I found my planner, which was booked solid with sales conversations, gym time, early wake ups, and regular check-ins with my mentor. I was primed for a win, waking up to read books that fueled my belief, talking almost daily with someone who was reminding me of my goal and challenging me to stay accountable, and doing the work that was going to lead directly into the result I wanted.

Hard work is kind of my thing. I’ve always prided myself on the fact that I can outwork the next guy, but lately… my belief that it’s not going to work out anyway was dictating how I spent my time. Why would I do any of the work if I didn’t think it would bear fruit?

And finally, I needed to determine how I felt during that season of pushing for that goal.

In short, as evidenced by pictures, journal entries, and even a few videos I stumbled upon… ALIVE.

I was alive. Alive with hope, possibility, faith, and energy for the mission at hand.

I was generating the energy and passion that was driving me into this next version of me, which I remember carried me into a whole new season of life accessed only because I was willing to fully believe and leap.

I had given myself a gift back then, and again as I revisited that period of time.

After answering those questions, I closed my journal and opened my computer. I texted my mentor… I’ll see you in two weeks. I booked my flights to Utah where I will be sitting with my mentor and his mentor, one of the greatest authors and legends in the space of authorship. While I’m there, I’ll be speaking on five in person podcasts.

Sometimes to leap forward, we need to go back to a version of ourselves where the spark was lit so we can assess, why?

What was different then? Not in terms of circumstances, but in who we were.

And then how can we bring that spark into today’s great leap in our lives? How can we believe, act, and feel as the version of ourselves God is calling us to become?

Sometimes we assume we’re so far away from where we want to be. I was convinced of that, too, until this reflection. Then I realized that I’m not far away, I’m right there, but I couldn’t see the door that was begging to be opened. The answer was within me, but I had to choose it.

I’ll report back from this latest book adventure in Utah, but the spark is re-lit! All in God’s perfect timing, I’m sure.

Love + Prayers

Liz