Doing the work

It’s incredibly powerful, if a bit unnerving, when you share a piece of writing for the first time. I’ve known clients spend hours with their finger hovering over the send button before they can bring themselves to do it.

Whether you have written a blog post, are seeking feedback from a book mentor, sending your book out for peer review, or pressing the publish button on your book, most of us want validation of our work and what we have to say.

That’s why one of the things we do on our writing retreat in Spain is to challenge our clients (and ourselves) to write a piece to share. On the last evening, over a glass or two of the local cava, as part of our final celebrations, we all read our pieces aloud to the rest of the group.

And yes, there were nerves. Some were astounded by the power of their words. It’s also easy to be apologetic if you feel you’re not ready, you don’t feel prepared or are worried you haven’t edited it well enough.

But the whole experience helps with the vulnerability of being an author, when you are sharing your truth.

It reminded me that when many people write a book, they ‘do the work’.

You work on yourself.

You start to realise what you need to do differently if you are to teach your stuff.

You start to live and breathe your writing. Even when you’re not actually writing, this happens through the conversations you have and the things you observe.

You are raw, vulnerable. You walk your talk, and take your own learning to a deeper level.

Feeling uncomfortable, you stretch, you grow.

You do the work.

Here’s my raw unedited piece from the writing retreat. I hope you enjoy it. This is me doing the work – let me know what you think!

Byron Katie talks about ‘doing the work’, which is probably one of the hardest parts of the book writing journey. Very few coaches and book mentors talk about it.

For most people, they write a book about something they know, which makes perfect sense if you’re writing a book to build your business and become an authority. This may stem from an experience or experiences you’ve been through, wisdom you’ve learnt, or both.

But many don’t appreciate the work they have to do to achieve the goal of becoming a published author.

You have to dig deep to uncover the diamonds in your message and the true value of what you know.

You have to explore how you do you, so that you can explain the things you find easy. This will help you to distil it into the component parts and source the stories that will benefit others.

And there are huge shifts that happen when you realise the work you still need to do to tell your truth, be role model and show up as your best you every single day.

And believe me, there will be days when you realise that your mask is truly stuck on and you may need a gentle nudge to remove it. Or you catch yourself comparing yourself to others because they do things differently to you. And there will be times when, quite frankly, it’s tough to be resilient and you want to throw in the towel, and you want to do f**k all.

But we are all human. Realise how far you’ve come and keep doing the work.

In Byron Katie’s version of doing the work she said:

Every time you do ‘The Work’ you are becoming enlightened to who and what you are, the true nature of being. To question what you believe is an amazing gift to give yourself, and you can have it all the days of your life. The answers are always inside you, just waiting to be heard.

What do you need to do to keep doing the work?

I’d love to know what you think and how you can do the work. Please comment below and get in touch if I can help you with your book.