When I quit my day job in March 2012 to turn my then side business into a full-time thing, my original goal was to fully step into being the author I’ve always known I was meant to be. And at first, that’s what happened.
Right after I left my day job, I immediately began writing my second eBook that I’d been wanting to write for years but hadn’t made the time. It was a quick write and the book was out within a couple of months after my last day in corporate America.
I was SO happy. This is what it was meant to be about for me.
And then I got caught up on chasing money.
At the time of quitting my job, my side biz was only making $8k a year, and I didn’t have steady work coming in yet. So money was all over the place.
Some months I had plenty, other months I just barely scraped by. Thankfully I had cleared out my 401(k) prior to leaving my job, so I had that money to live off of for a while.
But then it started to run out, and I went into a panic trying to figure out how to make more money. This lead me much further down the road of being a coach than I intended. Coaching was something I enjoyed, but I definitely didn’t see myself doing full-time.
Building a coaching business was Plan B for me.
My Plan A has always been me making millions from my books, being one of the highest-paid writers in the world, writing and publishing hundreds of books, and turning my books into movies. That is the vision I’ve always seen inside of me since age 11.
Except somehow I instead ended up building a successful book coaching business that was making upwards of $100k a year, while writing and publishing my books on the side. And I was miserable.
I knew that was not what it was meant to be about for me, but I had invested so much time and money and energy into being a coach, and learning how to make money as a coach, that it seemed stupid to throw it all away.
So I kept going, even though I knew for years that it was time to walk away, or at the very least, cut down on the coaching aspect of things so I had more time for what it was really about for me. This went on for far longer than it should have (that seems to be a recurring pattern for me).
Until one day in early January 2021 when it FINALLY hit me–holy shit! I’ve been building the WRONG thing for the past decade. I’ve been building Plan B!!
Without even realizing it, I allowed the fear of not having money to cause me to focus almost entirely on Plan B, all the while spouting one of the phrases I’m known for: There is ONLY Plan A.
I always knew what my Plan A was. It has always been clear to me.
The problem was, I didn’t always believe that Plan A was possible for me.
And as I got older, I started to fall victim to all the BS limiting beliefs and nonsense things society and the people around me were living from. I stopped trusting what I saw and knew inside of me: that I was always meant to be a super successful author, all on my terms.
I built Plan B, unconsciously.
So a couple of months ago, when I finally realized what I’d been doing all of these years, it was a pretty huge punch in the face. I felt like the “slap your forehead” emoji was made specifically for me.
‘Cause… WTF?
How could I have possibly allowed myself to go down the wrong path, building the wrong thing, for so damn long? How could I have ever forgotten what it was always meant to be about for me?
How?
How?
HOW??!!!
And then I realized what happened.
Since I had no idea How to build my Plan A back then, I settled for building Plan B instead, and all the while hoping that eventually, I’d make enough money from my coaching business that I could focus on what I really wanted to be doing.
Now I see in hindsight how fucking stupid that was.
OF COURSE you’ll never, ever get Plan A while you’re building Plan B. By building Plan B, by even being willing to have a Plan B, you’re sending a powerful message to the Universe that says, “I don’t believe I get to have what I really want, so I’ll settle for a shadow version of it.”
SO MANY writers, authors, artists, musicians, painters, creatives, and dreamers throw their Plan A away because they don’t know HOW they’ll make it happen.
Not knowing How stops you. It holds you back. It causes you to live an unaligned life. It makes you create all kinds of fucked up limiting beliefs and BS stories. And it leads to all kinds of bad habits and addictive behaviors.
The truth is, you were NEVER meant to create a Plan B.
Plan B wasn’t supposed to exist. It wasn’t ever supposed to be an option.
Now that you’re clear on this for yourself, you can choose to do what I did recently, and throw your Plan B OUT.
I’m no longer trying to build a super successful coaching business that makes millions of dollars and impacts millions of people. Yes, that will likely be an outcome of me finally going all-in on Plan A, but it will no longer be something I focus on.
From here on out, I am an author FIRST, and everything else second.
I’m finally to the place where I want Plan A MORE than I want to keep running from it. I’m finally to the place where Plan A is the only thing that matters. I finally get that I was always worthy and deserving and good enough for Plan A, I just had to decide that for myself first.
And it all starts with wanting your Plan A MORE than you want the excuses that make you fall back on Plan B.
P.S. Ready to go all in on YOUR Plan A? My books can help! Check them out HERE
