Do It YOUR Way

One of the things I'm learning from the book, "The Power," by Rhonda Byrne, is that our lives can go any number of ways.  Things can unfold in countless different scenarios.  How things go are due, in large part, to how we think they'll go, and our belief about life and everything in it.

One take-away from this is to not take someone else's reality as your own...if it's not what you desire or see for yourself.

There are people all over the place telling you what to do and how to do it.  Most of them are doing so with the best of intentions.  They genuinely want to help others by sharing what they've learned along their path.  And that's great.  We certainly can learn a lot from other people.  As they say, You don't need to reinvent the wheel.

But, be careful of assuming how things went for someone else is how they'll go for you.

I'm a writer.  My dream is to make a living through my writing, and even more specifically, through my fiction novels.  That is my dream and my goal.

I enjoy hearing other people's "how I made it" stories.  But how Stephen King "made it," or how Jodi Picoult "made it," or how any other successful novelist "made it" could be (and likely will be) different from how I "make it."

I know part of what launched Nicholas Sparks's career is when a producer bought the rights to make his novel, "The Notebook," into a movie.  Nicholas was also using an agent in that process.  I also read that Hugh Howey launched his series, "Wool," with a few short stories that he priced very cheaply on Amazon, for kindle.  People bought them, loved them, and demanded more.  Sales took off.

Just those two successful writers alone may have different advice to aspiring writers.  One may advocate for finding a good agent, the other may push for self-publishing and pricing low, so more readers can afford to buy your books.

The same can be true for you, in whatever career path you're in, or want to be in.

Each of us has to tune into our own guides.  I believe it was Liz DiAlto who wrote a recent article about spirit guides on TheDailyLove.com.  Every one of us has our own unique guide.  Whether you believe in angels and spirit guides as such doesn't matter.  We all have our inner intuition.  That is, or should be, our ultimate guide.

Other animals follow their intuition every second of their lives.  It leads them to water, shelter, food, and keeps them safe from danger.  But humans have developed a bad habit of ignoring our inner voice, in favor of thoughtful reason and analyzing.

Analyzing and reason have their place, certainly.  But I believe we need to tune more into our intuition, and use that as our guide more often.  Even if our reasoning mind may not understand right away.

I think that's a hang-up for a lot of us.  Intuitively, we can know what to do in an instant.  But once we get our minds involved, it gets muddy.  We become uncertain and unclear.  Then we try to think ourselves out the doubt and into clarity... when we came from a place of clarity to begin with.

This is what I'm trying to do in regards to my career as an author.  I'm still listening to webinars, reading articles, and open to suggestions and input.  But I'm trying to listen to my inner voice above all others.  Do what feels right for me, whether someone else thinks that's the way to go or not.

It's not easy.  But the reason it's not easy is because we are absolutely inundated with input from outside sources.  And everyone claims to have the proven "keys to success."

So my encouragement to you (and myself) is this:  Listen to YOU more.  Tune into YOUR inner voice, inner knowing.  Do what feels right to you.  Find your path.  Do it YOUR way.

You have every bit of likelihood of succeeding doing it your way as following someone else's advice. Believe in yourself.  Trust your inner spirit to guide you towards your own success and happiness.

In peace and love,
Sarah