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You Can Make-Believe Your Way Into Your Dreams

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A little over a year ago, I became a best selling author on Amazon. I sold 1,007 books in 30 days and hit #1 in the Authorship category.

And when I looked back at what, specifically, I did to make it happen, I was surprised (but not all that surprised) to find out it was mostly the acting as if stuff that helped me manifest it.

Yes, I already had a following and other books out and momentum. But I’d had that for years. It wasn’t until I started to pretend I was already the successful writer and author that I dreamed of being and taking action from that place did things like hitting #1 start to happen to me.

Here’s the cool thing about creating your writing dreams: you can pretend your way into them.

You can figure out where you want to go in your writing life, and then you can make a list of all the things you’d be doing and being if you were already that person, and then you can go and take as many of those actions as possible, as if you already are that person.

Just like you played make-believe as a kid and pretended you were a teacher or a mom/dad or an actor or a cowboy or a princess or whatever you liked to pretend to be (for me it was always teacher, artist and storyteller). You can do that right now with your dream writing life.

Here’s an example:

When I’m developing and planning a new story and I’m ready to write the first draft, I always build a Scrivener file for it. First I create two folders inside the file: 1) Written 2) To Be Written. Then I add a text file for each scene in the order they’re listed in on my roadmap to the “To Be Written” folder. And if I know the name of the story already, I’ll put it on the title page and rename the manuscript as well.

This is my starting place. And then I marinate.

I’ve got the story in my head and the plan down on paper. I’ve been thinking about it, marinating on it, and pulling out pieces and writing them down as they come through for weeks, if not months.

And having the Scrivener file all set up and ready to go really stirs up the inspiration. I find myself waking up in the morning with the opening lines for the story or a particular scene dancing through my head. Ready to come out.

Then I sit in front of the blank Scrivener file and I channel the words down to the page.

Before setting up the Scrivener file, I have no idea what words to use, they just won’t come out. But by pretending I already have the words and setting up the Scrivener file like I’m ready to start writing, the words come to me. Every single time.

Because I’m acting as if. I’m make-believing that I know what to write, and so I do the things I know I’d be doing if I already had the words: set up my Scrivener file.

I have a story plan, OF COURSE, I won’t write without one. But the story plan–while insanely useful–doesn’t tell me the specific words I need to write. It only informs me of what the story is about and what has to happen in each scene.

The words are a whole other beast.

So I use the acting as if principle to make the words come to me. I do this for my novels and for my blog posts and my nonfiction and even for the writing I do for my clients. I even have a client who I’m so in-tune with, when I’m writing her email copy I feel like her voice is being channeled through me. (It’s pretty freaking cool!!)

A little over a year ago, I started to pretend I was already a best selling author. I committed to writing and publishing 9 books that year. I opened myself to the idea of becoming a best seller and receiving the inspired actions to take.

Most importantly, I declared it publicly to my community that I was going to be a best selling author on Amazon in 2016. And to hold myself accountable to it, I started a group called the Bestselling Author Mastermind and I told everyone they could watch me hit #1 and I’d talk them through everything I was doing and how I was doing it.

So when my new eBook hit #1 on Amazon a week after creating this group and declaring publicly that I was gonna be a best seller, I was surprised, but, again, not all that surprised.

Because I acted my way into it.

I pretended it was already true and I took action from that place.

If I was already a best selling author on Amazon, I’d most definitely have a group where I showed people what I did and how to do it, as well as held them accountable to taking action in their own writing lives. So that’s what I did. I started the group and showed them live in real time how I became a best selling author.

When you start to let go of how you’ve always been told you should achieve things and start opening your mind to using universal laws to create what you want, you’ll be amazed at how much easier everything becomes.

Now don’t get me wrong–you still have to put in the work. I was able to easily manifest best seller status because I had built up so much momentum over the years. I just wasn’t open to receiving it until then.

But my point in all of this, is that you can very easily act your way into the writing life you’ve always dreamed of. You just have to step into the identity of who that writer and author would be right now.

It’s up to you whether you take baby steps or huge leaps. Both ways work and both ways will bring you closer and closer to being that writer and author you’ve always seen yourself as.

Dream life or bust,

 

 

 

#DreamLifeOrBust #DailyThinkDifferent

P.S. Doors to the Bestselling Author Mastermind are NOW OPEN to new members!!!! BAM is my high-level support group for multi-passionate writers and authors who want to have the habits, mindset, craft expertise, consistency and follow-through of a bestselling author, while writing and publishing their books and creating their dream writing lives all on their terms.

I’m SO pumped to welcome the new members to the group. I’ve just filled the member’s site with a ton of new content, including all of my most recent workshops. This is the BEST the member’s site has ever been.

See EVERYTHING you get in the member’s site, get the full details on the membership and sign up for the group here: www.jenniferblanchard.net/landing/mastermind

How To Use Fiction to Create Anything You Want In Your Life

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When I was a kid, I had a dress up box. It was made from cardboard and was filled with things that transported me to fictional realities, where I got to be anything I wanted: a singer, a dancer, an actor, a teacher, an artist.

I loved playing pretend. The thing I played most often was school. I had a chalk board and I used to make my brother, sister, cousins and friends sit and listen to me teach them stuff. (It’s no wonder I do the work I do today.)

I believed in Santa until I was 11. I remember being quite shocked when I found out he wasn’t real. Maybe I was a little naive, but I liked believing in magic and in magical beings.

I still believe in magic, even today. Just a different kind.

Because I’ve seen the power of the human mind and what it can create with enough belief. That’s magic of the greatest kind.

And the power to create whatever you want is available to you right now, in this very moment. You just have to get fictional with it.

You have to pretend whatever you want is already yours and then you have to act from that place, pretending your way into seeing it show up in your real life.

As a writer and creator, you’re good at making up stories and creating fictional worlds. So why not use that same creative power to CREATE YOUR LIFE?

There’s a journaling exercise I do every couple weeks where I ask myself: If I already had the success, the money, the body, the [insert whatever you want], I would… 

And then from there I complete the sentence over and over again, with the areas of my life that I’m currently focusing on (or you could do every area—up to you), until I have a whole list.

For example… if I already had the success I want, I would:

  • Be making a minimum of six figures a year from my books
  • Drive a blue Jeep Wrangler
  • Be disciplined around doing what matters every day
  • Be disciplined around food and fitness
  • Be a Hollywood screenwriter turning my novels into movies with big-name actors and actresses playing my characters and I get to make a cameo

So now that I have that list of what my life would look like and be like if I already had the success I want, I know exactly what I need to focus on and pretend about.

Because when you act as if something is already true—even if it’s not true at first—it will eventually become true. (This works for both things you want and things you don’t want.) 

Here are the actions—both practical, physical actions and acting “as if” actions—that I’d focus on:

  • Check my book sales numbers and income every single day (what you focus on expands)
  • Write and publish more books—nonfiction and fiction
  • Begin referring to my car as my Jeep (even though it’s not right now)
  • Go Jeep shopping 1-2 times a month and get into the feeling of already having it
  • Add all this stuff into my daily visualization
  • Create habits and discipline around the 7 activities (4 bare minimum) I’ve identified as daily must-dos
  • Create habits and discipline around making better food and fitness choices, and keeping the outcome/end results in mind when tempted to do otherwise
  • Write a screenplay from one of my novels

If I began doing all of those things, I would start seeing more of the success I want showing up.

Why? Because I’ve identified who I’d be and what I’d be doing if I already had the success, so if I step into doing those things and being that person NOW, then what I’m asking for has to show up.

So while it may feel like fiction at first and while you may have to do some pretending, you can get yourself where you want to go a lot faster if you step into that identity of the already-successful version of yourself NOW. 

That’s how I use fiction every single day to create the real life that I want to have. And that’s how you can too.

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What’s one thing you’d be doing today if you already had the success you desire? 

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If the successful version of yourself includes being the author of nonfiction books, be sure to check out my upcoming workshop: Write and Publish Your Nonfiction eBook in 10 Days. This workshop will challenge you to get out of your head and get into action. There’s no time to doubt yourself, there’s only time to take action and keep moving forward.

And if you do that every day for 10 full days, you will walk way with a published eBook on Amazon.

>> Details and sign up here

There’s No Such Thing As Competition (And Here’s Why)

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I run a free Facebook group called the Emerging Novelist Incubator, and while some Facebook groups are promotion-free zones, I encourage people to share about their books, and their writing-related products and services.

Now, of course, this is with the caveat that they share valuable content and help people in the group more often than they promote themselves. But other than that, I’m pro self-promotion, because I believe writers need to learn and get better at sharing their work.

A lot of people frown on self-promotion, acting like it’s egotistical to tell people that you created something and are offering it up in exchange for money. And yes, I’d agree that if all you ever do is promote your stuff and never (or rarely) add any real value to people’s lives or give anything away for free, that’s egotistical promotion.

But when you’re a writer who participates on the regular and contributes to building the like-minded community in the group, I see nothing wrong with them posting information about their books.

We’re all here to support each other.

In my group, there are even other writing coaches and story coaches. They participate in the group and add value, as well as share their services. Several people got alarmed at first, and some even reached out to ask me how I felt about having coaches with similar services to me tell the group about their services when it’s my group.

A few years ago my reaction would’ve been a lot different than it is today. When I first quit my job four years ago to take my business full-time, I thought everyone was my competition. I thought we were fighting against each other, trying to claim readers as “ours” and out-doing each other in business.

So if someone was sharing their services in a group run by me, I may have gotten upset about it or worried that they’d steal clients away from me. But now I see things differently.

I don’t believe in competition. Competition does not exist.

There is no one in the world who can do things exactly as I do them or who can replace me. Because there is only one me.

Just as there is only one you. You bring things to the table that no one else could do quite like you can. And yes, there are people out there who might be “better” at stuff than we are, but that doesn’t change the value we bring by being us.

You are irreplaceable. And no one ever has or will ever have the same mix of experiences, thoughts, ideas, skill-sets and perspective that you have.

You are unique and so whatever you create will always be unique in and of itself. And there’s no one who can compete with that, because no one is you, except you.

If you put two (or more) authorpreneurs side-by-side and compare them to each other, you may find that they have similar skills: they all have a way with words, they all help writers develop and write books, they all offer up inspiration and motivation to get you doing the work.

But will they have the same message? No. Will the words they write be similar? No. Will the processes they use or the type of inspiration they offer up be the same? No way.

Which means they’re each putting out something different. And because of this they’ll each attract different clients. Some people will resonate more with one person versus the other and be attracted to or repelled by them.

So there is no such thing as competition.

When you publish your book and get it out into the world, it will stand alone as unique in and of itself, because you wrote it and no one could write it or tell the same story like you can. So there might be other books that exist in the world that are a similar category, genre or topic, but there will never be anyone in direct competition with you because there’s no comparison.

No one will ever be you.

And so I welcome authorpreneurs into my community, because I believe there is more than enough business and book readers to go around and we’re always stronger together than we are divided. Me getting new clients or new book readers doesn’t take clients or readers away from anyone else because we’re not going after the same ones.

I work with emerging novelists who want to create their dream writing lives (which includes writing a kick-ass book worth publishing) whereas other people who do what I do are focused on an entirely different specific group of people. I write novels for women who love chick lit and want an actual story with a love story wrapped around it, whereas other romance authors choose to make the love story center stage in their books.

If you’ve been worrying about how you’re going to compete with all the books out there or ever heard the thought (or had someone say to you): the world doesn’t need another book, throw that shit out right now and don’t ever think about it or worry again.

The world does need another book. It needs your book. It needs to see a subject/topic or a story through the lens that you create or view things through.

No one else will have that exact same perspective or tell that exact same story. So there is no competition.

Now when you enter a contest, that is the only time there is direct competition because everyone who enters is vying for the same prize(s). But in life, there’s no direct competition because there are more than enough clients, readers and customers to go around.

There are billions and billions of people alive on this planet and you only need a small number of them to make a living as an authorpreneur. There is no competition.

So believe. Believe that you’ve got something. Believe you’re meant to get your book out there.

Believe that the world needs it.

Because it does.

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What’s one thing you can do right now to stop viewing other writers as competitors?

If you’re ready to get your book out there, check out Students of Story, my membership site for emerging novelists who want to master the craft of writing novels and have support while they develop, write and publish their books. You can get your first 30 days for only $5. Learn more here.

Featured image courtesy of ThomasWolter