Hi everyone,
Like most of us, I live and grew up in a culture where success as a result of hard work and sacrifice was celebrated and success that came easily was somehow tainted or privileged and therefore, something to feel guilty or embarrassed about.
So, as a result, I now recognize how much of my life I have spent making things harder than they needed to be. How much I have struggled because I have created that struggle. How much I have celebrated the successes that came after immense challenges and personal cost, but completely failed to even acknowledge the successes that came as a result of effort, but not heartbreak.
Last year, with the help of an amazing mentor, I started recognizing—and changing—this pattern in myself.
I decided that I would start allowing money to be effortless.
I had no idea how I was going to do this, mind you, but like everything else, I figured the details could come later. The important thing was that I made a commitment to stopping the self-flagellation and start embracing ease.
Almost six months to the day, in late December, I discovered that I’d had the best month ever in my business. While I was in India on holiday.
The more I practice this work—mostly mindset, but I’ll talk about the practicality of it in a minute as well—the more I see how effortless things can be if I allow them to be. When I’m in that state, I often find that people are almost asking me to take their money.
Two months ago, an editor who had raised my rate by 20% emailed to say that my invoice reflected the lower rate and could I resubmit with the higher one. Then she went on to give some additional work that week and my monthly billings for her rose by 50%. I had my coaching spots sell out within a week of launch last month. And I’ve had editors at my favorite publications get really excited now that I’m back in India and are keen to see pitches from me again.
This is not something I attribute to random chance or coincidence. I have, in the past, completely attracted broke clients, people who struggled to pay, and each time it has been because I myself have been in scarcity and so that was the kind of person I was most comfortable being around. Now, however, I believe that the clients who are the right fit for me will love me, appreciate me, and—this is important—enjoy paying me to ease their burden.
Because I believe this so truly and deeply, it is frequently mirrored in the kinds of people—clients, readers, and students—I attract. And this plays out practically, too. Because when I do end up talking to someone who is the opposite of all I stand for, we’re so repelled by each other that there’s not a chance in hell that I’d agree to work with them.
By choosing to be clear about who I am and what I do in the world, my choices become exceptionally easy.
And while, sure, it means that the people saying no are loud, vocal, and often aggressive, it also means that the YES, when it comes, is so much more clear, more resounding, and completely aligned.
I like to tell the story of how, after one conversation with my now-literary agent, I emailed the many other agents who wanted to get on the phone to discuss representation, and told them I had decided to sign with someone else. I had found my agent.
Except: I hadn’t yet signed with her. We hadn’t discussed some of the more important questions about nonfiction and the rewriting process, etc., but I knew. I just knew. And this isn’t some woo-woo bullshit. I knew because I was so exceptionally clear about what I wanted in an agent, in the person who I was going to trust to be my face in the business world, and who would go into meetings and represent my best interests. I was very clear about what I wanted that person to be like.
And so when I got on the phone with my agent and she basically used the exact same phrasing to describe my career as a novelist as I had, proved that she was an excellent negotiator, and already had a plan for the book with a vision even grander than mine (and I dream BIG), I didn’t even blink before saying yes. It was a no-brainer, a done-deal. I didn’t have to make pros and cons lists and compare her with other agents. I knew what I wanted and when that person appeared in front of me, I was able to recognize them.
Here’s the more important thing, though, the thing so many of us get wrong:
The perfect situation sometimes doesn’t show up for a while, so we freak out and say yes to the wrong thing.
We don’t give ourselves a chance for the right person, assignment, deal, or dream to materialize.
After I parted ways with my first agent, I knew that I needed the perfect fit or nothing. I remained unagented for over five years because I was no longer willing to sign with someone who didn’t make me scream yes. And until it was a HELL YES, as Derek Sivers says, it would have to be a no. I was only eventually able to say hell yes because I held out for it, waited for my true love instead of marrying the first guy who proposed.
And that’s what we do, isn’t it? Especially when it comes to people we consider “gatekeepers.” We settle. We fear, we panic.
We accept the B-grade version of our dreams because A-grade hasn’t yet arrived and we worry never will.
That belief is then mirrored in our lives and our experiences. For as long as you believe it needs to be hard, it will be hard. Because even when it’s easy, you’ll find a way to make it hard. As long as you believe it needs to come with sacrifices, you will continue to accept situations in which you are required to make unreasonable sacrifices. And as long as you believe that you can’t have the A-grade version, you will continue saying yes to the B-grade version.
Last year, I decided to let it be easy and while this is still a process and I have to confront my beliefs and patterns daily (and say no more times than is comfortable), there are more months in my life with less stress, more walks in the park, more trips out with my child, more creativity, and more relaxation. All the while, bringing in as much money as I’ve ever made, or more.
It is a disservice to us all when writers tell other writers that making six-figures or aspiring to be at the top comes with personal costs. It does for some people. It doesn’t for others. It doesn’t have to. There’s no rule.
If you buy into a myth or a story, it’s because you already believe it somewhere deep inside and the story just reinforces that belief. Alternate versions to those stories are available in equal supply. For instance, I have intentionally sought out creative millionnaire women who have happy marriages and children and don’t have near-breakdowns each week from the stress because that is who I aspire to be. But for a long time, I wouldn’t – or couldn’t—allow these stories into my consciousness because they didn’t mirror what I believed on the inside, which is that my marriage would go to shit if I succeeded beyond a certain level. (Talk about deep cultural conditioning!)
Now I am surrounded by daily examples of happy women who have financial, creative, and relationship success and increasingly, by being around them, it allows me to change my deep-seated beliefs about hard work, success, and the price it demands, too.
We talk so much about the strategy and productivity. For me, lately, the most rewarding work has been around belief.
Change your beliefs and the world around you changes as well.
This is not just some spiritual mumbo-jumbo. It is the most practical—and important—work there is.
Cheers,
Natasha