If you want to be an author, don't start writing (and other curiously related activities) right away.
What Does It Take to Be a Published Author Who Is Successful?
Take a look at this article.
Take, for example, the desire to be a published novelist. Cal Newport, author of four books, including the best-selling So Good They Can't Ignore You, chatted with me.
He informed me that the majority of rookie authors commit a deadly errors. That blunder? They begin work on the book.
Aspiring authors are well aware that getting a book published is a difficult task. Naturally, they examine the issue and break it down as clearly as possible: if you want to publish a great book, you must first produce a fantastic book.
As a result, this person sets the goal of writing five pages every day, squeezing in time to type a book. This individual could even participate in a writing challenge like National Novel Writing Month to compel oneself to keep to a writing schedule and finish a novel.
Cal r to this type of idea as a feel-productive project. It's a strategy for getting you to accomplish some job that you enjoy. This relieves the burden of worrying that you aren't doing enough to develop your profession. However, feel-productive initiatives aren't always the best way to get to the next level.
Writing every day, in this case, is not a good project. Why? Because that isn't how the company works, according to Cal Newport.
Finding an agent and collaborating with them to pitch a book to publishers is a more productive technique. After then, and only then, should you begin drafting the manuscript. It's mostly a waste of time to write the book ahead of time.
Why Do We Get Caught Up in Feel-Producing Projects?
Why do individuals waste so much time and effort on career goals that are so ineffective?
My hypothesis is that it's a mix of two factors:
first, they have a poor understanding of how their profession operates. You wouldn't create a project of writing a chapter of the manuscript every day if you genuinely knew how the business of having a nonfiction book published works.
Second, the actual job that has to be done is frequently difficult and frightening. It's difficult, but not impossible, to write every day. It makes you feel productive, but it doesn't push you out of your comfort zone. Finding an agent and pitching a new book idea might be intimidating, so even if you think it's vital, you could ignore it in favor of simply writing a lot.
What is the best way to avoid this issue?
Investigating and comprehending how success in your profession is achieved.
You may easily eliminate low-impact, feel-productive tasks from your future plans if you conduct thorough investigation. You won't even start on them because you know they won't work and aren't suggested.
Second, by conducting thorough study, you'll be able to determine how to break down and address the specific tasks required to advance your profession. You can turn intimidating and difficult processes like "getting an agent" and "pitching to a publisher" into a step-by-step process that you can follow.
Chris, the Database Designer, is the subject of a case study based on extensive research.
Knowing how to do research appropriately can provide spectacular outcomes. Cal and I had Chris as a student in our career mastery pilot program. He worked as a database programmer for an airline firm and was happy there. But he secretly wished for more.
Chris desired to collaborate with the finest in his area, to be on the cutting edge, and to be the greatest.
Chris aspired to work with the finest in his profession, to be on the leading edge, and to be the type of person who is invited to deliver keynotes at conferences or produces authoritative books on the computer language he specialized in.
Chris, on the other hand, had no idea how to move from where he was to becoming a high performer.
Chris gained a greater understanding of how individuals he respected got to where they are, what steps he could take to follow in their footsteps, and which things he was doing now that weren't working.
One thing Chris found was that answering programming questions on Stack Exchange, which he had been doing a lot of, wasn't the most effective method to advance. Instead, he took up a new hobby: creating programming tests for a prominent website dedicated to the programming language he specialized in.
There were two benefits to this new project. For starters, it compelled him to master the language in which he worked. Second, it exposed him to the website's administrators, putting him in touch with a global network of the greatest experts in his area.
Chris informed me that he was offered a job despite just putting in a few hours each week for several months. Working with many of the conference presenters and writers Chris loved was a big part of this job. Despite the fact that Chris claims he would have accepted this new position
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