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Shift from I CAN’T to HOW CAN I

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on January 29, 2013

in about Tiffany Colter, attitudes, balance, Best resources, brainstorming, building a plan for writing., dicipline, growing as a writer, Reach your goals, time management and writing tips

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By Tiffany Colter

We are almost done with the first month of 2013. Are you doing anything differently than you did a month ago in 2012? I certainly am, unfortunately, not all of it has been good. Sometimes I find it hard to get motivated. Some days I’m overwhelmed with all I have to do. Some days I have a single distraction that throws everything off course.

Today, I had an amazing thing happen. I saw my name listed as one of the Continuing Track Faculty at Write to Publish Writer’s conference. I’ve known since August that I’d be teaching a continuing track, but it was still exciting to think about working with a new group of writers and helping them have a better life and business.

2012 was an intense year. We had some amazing answers to prayer and some pretty sizable frustrations. So far, 2013 has started much the same way. As I was working today, I started to think about this. I know that it is my attitude more than any other thing that will determine my success or failure. That was when I saw an email in my inbox. In it a coach that I listen to reminded me of something Robert Kiyosaki said, “We need to shift from I can’t to How Can I.”

That is easy when there is a major struggle, at least for me. When there are impossible odds to overcome, I do it! For me, it is the little distractions every day that knock me off course and cause all the problems. It is the email from a friend that I reply to when I should be writing. It is the edit that takes longer than I expected. It is the daughter who needs help with her math. All of these things pile up and I find myself screaming, “I can’t do this.”

I’m sure you can relate to this feeling, if not these exact circumstances. So, how is it that I can be an involved mom who helps her daughters, responds quickly to her clients, completes a rough draft every 6-8 weeks and all the other things I must do? Well, that is the question.

I can either decide to cut things, decide to reorganize things, or find a way to get things done. So, you decided to make changes in 2013? If you decided to lose weight, how did you decide to adjust your schedule to allow exercising? If you decided to work on relationships, what are you doing differently to build them up?

My point is you cannot simply say you’re going to do something and then it becomes so. You must make changes to make it so. The most crucial of these changes is to change your attitude. Everything that is now possible was first impossible. People like to point to great things like flight, going to the moon, surgeries and other amazing feats. While these were once thought impossible there are other, smaller things. Before I was a mom I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to have a child rely on me around the clock. When I was a teen I couldn’t fathom working every day. When I was first starting out, the idea of writing a full 50,000 words for my first manuscript filled me with terror. According to my word count, my blogs for Writing Career Coach since September have totaled almost 14,000 words and last month I wrote 18,000 of my book in spite of the Christmas holiday and 13 days of the flu during that time. In the last week I’ve written another 5,000 words on my next book. That is a total of 37,000 words right there. Writing that many words is now possible, and routine, for me because I shifted my thoughts from, “I can’t” to “How can I”?

What is the current, “I can’t” in your life? Might I suggest one of my CDs where I taught on overcoming this to reach your goals? I taught it in June 2011 to a business networking group at Concordia University in Ann Arbor, MI. You can download it instantly for only $7 here.

Let’s talk about this. Go to my Facebook page for Writing Career Coach and share how you’ve done what you thought was impossible. I’d love to have you join the conversation.

Your Coach for the Journey, Tiffany Colter, The Writing Career Coach

Don’t miss a single posting! Subscribe here to receive these postings by e-mail. Tiffany Colter is a writer, speaker and writing career coach who works with beginner to published writers. She can be reached through her website at writingcareercoach.com.

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Preparation for the New Year and 2013

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Tiffany Colter

on December 19, 2012

in about Tiffany Colter, balance, brainstorming, business, commit to your dream and editing

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By Tiffany Colter We are less than 2 weeks from the New Year now. This is a time of travel, family, overspending and overeating. It is also when we reflect on the previous year—and sometimes our life—and decide what changes need to happen. To begin 2013, I have a few questions for you to consider.

What has worked out better than you expected?
What progress did you make this year?
How much further would you like to go in 2013?
What do you need to do to accomplish that?

You can answer these four questions about your personal life, professional life, your health, your family, your education…really anything.

See, the definition of Hope that I live my life by is “The Confident Expectation of Good”. That doesn’t mean I lead a Pollyanna existence. Most of you know that my husband was diagnosed with cancer December 15, 2005. He was staged at 4. He was 29 years old. We had a seven year financial struggle following that disease. It was during that time that I learned about business and began Writing Career Coach. I grew it from the last $165 we possessed to our name [and both of us jobless with NO government aid] to a company that earns in the solid 5 figures since the 2^nd year of its birth. During a recession. During the closing of publishing houses. During a tremendously difficult time for me personally.

And to do that you need to focus on what it right. You cannot ignore what is wrong, but many times I’ve found that when we really focus on doing what is right and what we do best, most of those other issues are easier to resolve.

This year, I returned to content editing and coaching aspiring writers. This is what I truly love most to do. When I focused on that health issues I battled started to go away.
This year I made great progress on releasing my own titles. I published my training novels [Silent Danger & A Face in the Shadow]. I released the Fiction and Non-Fiction brainstorming workbooks, the 52 weeks of writing success, completed work of 52 Weeks of Business success AND the Spanish translation of 52 Weeks of Business Success. I was invited to speak to more groups this year and I’m well on my way to speaking at 10 conferences and 12 small groups per year.
In 2013, I’d like to reach my speaking goal, release 4 more books that I’m working on, create an affordable on-demand coaching system for writers, and introduce my new Writing Career Coach monthly growth program.
In order to accomplish this I’ll need to limit myself to only editing 2 or 3 books per month for clients. I’ll only be able to do private coaching with 8 people per month and I’ll have to spend an additional 2 hours per week on researching innovations to make great products.

Do you see how easy it is to do those four steps? Do you see how I can also identify problems and fix them easily? I also can put together my systems to do this more efficiently. One other thing this does is it dictates to me what projects I take. Writers often talk about the feast/famine cycle of our industry. This year, I learned that is entirely a creation in my mind. Yes, there are times when MORE people want to work with me and times when LESS want to work with me, but I decide how many projects I take. I know when my slow months are and I plan my writing, marketing and speaking during those times. During my busy editing months, I focus on those and do less speaking. I also write 6-8 weeks worth of blogs during slow times so I have more editing time in busy times.

This is what I’ve done since I started my business. Don’t chase the money, chase the goals. Sometimes you have to do other things to earn the money [At times I’ve held 2 jobs in addition to writing during the last 7 years], but if you focus on what is important and what gets you to your goal you’ll begin to see the money stabilize too and you can get to the place where it isn’t a concern.

Please make sure you’re signed up to get my newsletter. I’ll email out a free audio class around the New Year for everyone who gets my newsletter. You can sign up here.

I’ll also email information on my new Coaching and my Monthly Growth Program.

Finally, a personal note. Thank you for the joy of working with you over the course of this last year. We’ve more than doubled our readership since I started blogging again in January. I’ve also seen a huge surge in my newsletter subscribers and people contacting me. I don’t take you for granted. I spend 10+ hours each month reading up on information to help you with blogs, audio CDs, industry information, and craft tips. I always want you to feel like my blog was worth your time and when you hire me that you got more than what you paid for.

I hope to work with more of you in the New Year as you grow in your business and writing dreams. We can accomplish together far more with $20 on a content edit than you can having 5 mocha lattes for the same price.

Remain Blessed, Tiffany Colter, the Writing Career Coach Team and the entire Colter Household.

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Writing Stories on a Busy Schedule

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Tiffany Colter

on November 13, 2012

in balance, brainstorming, building a plan for writing., busy, dicipline, growing as a writer, Helping others, improving your writing, keep writing, Learning as you go and writing tips

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By Tiffany Colter

November is crazy in the U.S. For my readers overseas, we celebrate Thanksgiving in America on the 3^rd Thursday of November. The next day is called Black Friday. It is a day when stores open at crazy hours [4 or 5 in the morning] and offer a few products at a steep discount. People camp out, get up early, and flock to these sales. The dedicated shoppers read the sales papers, create a strategy for reaching every store and completing the bulk of their Christmas shopping on this one, intense day.

It is remarkable what we can find time to do. Thanksgiving also marks the beginning of the official holiday season. With Christmas, Chanukah, Thanksgiving, Kwanza and other holidays all smashed in to 6 weeks it is amazing that people find time to go to work, participate in NaNoWriMo, visit family, shop, bake, and sleep.

My point is…they do.

Last week on my blog, I challenged you to try a 7 Day challenge. Don’t raise your hands, but did you get it done? Did you even try? Was there a reason you chose NOT to do it? Did you genuinely not feel you were at that place in your writing or did you just not feel like it? No criticism here. You come to my blog to hear the tough questions and I want to be sure I’m asking them.

This week, I want to accept that you ARE super busy and give you something I do to write around my busy schedule. I keep a notebook in my purse. Notice I didn’t say an iPad, cell phone, mind melding device or recorder. I said, I keep a notebook. Recently I upgraded to keeping a copy of my book, “Writing Career Coach Novel Writing Ideas Workbook” in my purse. Whichever you use, the key is having a single, organized place to write down notes on your story. If you’re not going to use my book, then get your notebook and divide it by:

Plot
Character [protagonist, antagonist, secondary characters]
Voice
Setting
Dialog
Marketing
Brainstorming exercises

This is important because how many times have you suddenly had a thought about your story and lost it—either because you forgot it since you had no paper OR you wrote it on paper and lost that paper—Tragic! I don’t suggest phone recorders or other electronic devices for this because you get distracted finding the ap…and what if you ARE on the phone when the idea strikes??? This is something that is inexpensive enough to keep with you all the time and it is the best system I’ve seen yet to capture ALL of your ideas and keep them in a single, easy-to-find place.

So, does that make sense? It seems too simple, right? Well, I wrote at least 3 books this way before I realized the idea could help other people.

And speaking of other people, I have a number of friends on the East Coast who have suffered through the hurricane. My Dad lives in Florida so I know that a category 1 is mild to those of you down South. The difference is you don’t have to contend with snow flying a week later. It is bad out there. I want to help. I have attached a flier. I am selling my books, edits and critiques and donating ½ of the total sales to this relief effort. I looked at donating it all, but ½ of the cost of these products/services go to my business overhead and printing costs. I simply cannot afford to donate the CASH. What I am donating is my TIME and the PROFIT I earn on these products. I hope you will consider using one of these products or services. I intend to do this in to 2013 but there is a group helping at Faith Exchange Relief right now out of New York City. I’ve known the Pastor there, Dan Stratton, for more than 5 years. Everyone is donating their time and ALL of the money is going to buy cleaning supplies, generators, food, and whatever else the people need. This is so much worse than we’re seeing on the news. I have sent my own money as well, so I’m not asking you to do anything I’m not. And if you ARE in the Manhattan area and would like to donate, Faith Exchange Fellowship is on 95 Leonard Street. They have set up a drop off for food, water and other donations.

And pray for everyone up there. Many are being told they won’t have electricity until December. It is 20 degrees here in Michigan today. I cannot imagine how bad it is there.

I hope this blog helps you and I hope you’ll help others through this fundraiser!

And by way of accountability, anyone who buys the products/services will have a right to see the receipt of my donation to FEF for their purchase.

Your Coach for the Journey, Tiffany Colter, The Writing Career Coach

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Stop Pursuing your Passion

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Tiffany Colter

on July 10, 2012

in about Tiffany Colter, attitudes, balance, commit to your dream, growing as a writer, make your own luck, marketing, Not giving up and success

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By Tiffany Colter

Wow, does that seem like an odd post for a writing coach? Does it seem like an odd post for a public speaker and keynoter? STOP pursuing your passion. Isn’t that the basis of everything we work towards in life? Not at every stage it isn’t. Let me explain.

All the time when I listen to inspirational speakers—or any speakers for that matter—I hear some variation on the idea of ‘Do what you love’. Others say, “What would you do if never paid?” And still other say things like, “Do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life.”

That is complete crap.

I’m sorry to burst your bubble, but it is. That really gives you incredibly unrealistic expectations. That is particularly true when you’re in the growing phases of a business or writing career. When I started professional training as a writer I took a correspondence course with Jerry Jenkins’ Christian Writer’s Guild. I wanted to be a novelist. In the two year course, do you know how much was on novels? Take a guess….The LAST 6 months!! I didn’t want to learn all of the Non-fiction writing in CWG. I was actually angry when I found out that I’d have to do EVERY SINGLE LESSON and pass it prior to moving along to the Novel phase. Once I started learning the lessons I started hating it less and less.

And now non-fiction writing is the foundation of my company, even as I now go back and do fiction. I even teach entire courses on how to use non-fiction to build your fiction writing [and vice versa]. You know what I learned. If I had pursued my passion—novel writing—I would have been ill prepared for the opportunities that were in front of me. I would not be as effective in my platform development or as a trainer with Writing Career Coach.

Just like a little kid cannot always eat candy, we cannot always do everything we love at every stage. Sometimes it will be YEARS of doing something we hate or feel like we cannot [or should not have to] do. We must do them anyway!!! Hear me, only pursuing your passion will keep you where you are at THIS moment. That means others will pass you up. You will miss opportunities. You will lose ground and, eventually, have to surrender your dreams.

There are things we won’t enjoy that will open doors to doing something we may have never considered but love even more.

If you want to write you MUST learn some basic marketing. Yes, you can create a Writing Marketing Team like I teach in my book and at my workshops, but you still have to tell them where you want it to go and know enough to create the goals and outcomes.

If you own a business you have to know where your company is going so that you hire the right people to put in positions. That means learning about HR, learning about administrative tasks and systems, and it means learning things that you may not enjoy.

Even a doctor has to spend 8 YEARS just learning stuff before they can get in to residency and specialties. Your dream is the specialty. That means there will be things you don’t enjoy between here and there.

Ask any person who says, “I’m doing my dream job.” If there are things about their job they don’t like and an honest person will say, “Yes”.

For many writers, it is learning to market, answering the question “Oh, you’re a writer? What have you published?” with a smile [and without pummeling the person to the ground.]

For many business owners, it is understanding all of the pieces that make your company run and learning to delegate effectively and lead your team in the right direction.

While life, in general, is to be enjoyed, if you make your sole focus—your singular goal in life—to pursue your passion you will absolutely fail. That is because many days our passion is watching TV, reading a book, going on vacation with our kids, sleeping in, watching a sunrise or a sunset. These are great BREAKS, but you cannot take a break if you never get working.

But this isn’t a downer, just like I found I love non-fiction writing, finding our true passion usually happens on the road when we’re doing what we think we will hate.

Find the positive in something different and see if it is the seasoning that makes your passion taste that much better.

Your Coach for the Journey, Tiffany Colter, The Writing Career Coach

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The Benefits of Optimism

Published

Tiffany Colter

on June 26, 2012

in attitudes, balance, growing as a writer, Not giving up, Staying focused on your goals and success

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By Tiffany Colter

I’m a huge baseball fan. In fact, this weekend alone I attended two baseball games with my family. One thing I love about sports fans, any sport, is their optimism. Whether it is painted men standing shirtless in subzero temperatures or baseball fans spinning towels and turning their ball caps inside out, there seems to be the idea than anything can happen and the game can change with a single play.

Businesses need to adopt this same level of enthusiastic optimism when it comes to their business plans. Too often I hear the term, “Fail quick and move on” when talking to business owners.

Writers in particular seem to imagine early on that they’ll hit 6-figure advance status on the first thing they kick out of their hard drive.

While the facts of business can many times feel depressing—especially in those first 5 crucial years—with a bit of optimism and confidence a person can do amazing things.

Let me be clear, this isn’t Pie-in-the-sky-wish-it-and-get-it enthusiasm. For far too long the motivational speaker circuit has been full of people who want to just wish it to reality. What I’m talking about is optimism born of confidence based on abilities.

You see, the other issue we’ve seen for far too long is unwarranted pessimism. We need to find balance. So below are three tips to realistic optimism that actually gives results:

1. Optimism born of confidence in your own abilities.
You are good at something. You’ve gained wisdom with experience. Trust yourself to be able to apply this to the new venture [whether a new company or a new expansion to a current one.] Focus on those positive things you’ve done instead of every time you’ve messed up.

2. Optimism born from the confidence you can learn.
We have no problem understanding that we must learn in school, but somehow when we start writing a book, selling a product, or starting a business we suddenly think that we either need to know it all or we shouldn’t do it. That is wrong. Everyone knows that I’m a huge advocate of having a writing business team where we outsource to others more skilled than ourselves, but this is exactly because we must constantly learn how to expand the success of what we’re doing. If you need to learn how to develop a better plot, new research techniques, or marketing strategies, those things involve learning. Don’t assume that you are limited by what you know now. Be optimistic about what you can do in the future because you will take the time to learn.

3. Optimism that comes from giving yourself permission to make a
mistake.
And this is logical based on the first two. If you are confident in what you can do and you know there will be more to learn, it is logical that in trying new things you will mess up sometimes. When this happens, do not beat yourself up about it. Learn and move on.

When you have this kind of optimism then you have a winning formula for success.

Your Coach for the Journey, Tiffany Colter, The Writing Career Coach

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Be Confident

Published

Tiffany Colter

on May 15, 2012

in attitudes, balance, Staying focused on your goals, technique and time management

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Do you ever feel like you have more stuff to do than a human being could EVER possibly accomplish? I’m sure you do. As entrepreneurs, authors and other artists, the people who read my blog regularly are the kinds of people who have big dreams and big goals.

While this is a GREAT trait to have, the downside is that our confidence can sometimes get shaken when we are pulled in too many directions and things start falling apart. Add to that the fact that we are ALWAYS reaching for bigger and bigger things, and we see quickly that we start LIVING outside of our comfort zone.

Today I decided it would be a good idea to step back from the reaching and take some time to build up our confidence. To do that I want to share with you 3 things that I do [or try to do] that help me when I’m feeling overwhelmed.

Write a short, reasonable list of things to do today. For example, today I need to return a phone call, email 3 people who wanted a quote from me on doing projects, reply to my designer on a book I wrote, send an invoice and write this blog. Anything I do beyond that is gravy. This is a manageable list of tasks that bring in revenue [the invoice], help grow the company [the bids], serve others [the phone call], create streams of revenue [my designer’s question on my book], and markets me [this blog]. I’m working a full day, but I only scheduled about ½ of it. That allows me to have interruptions, breaks, and follow research trails while still feeling a sense of accomplishment from work.
Achieve PERSONAL goals. For me this has been taking 1 “trouble spot” in my home each weekend and dealing with it. So far NONE of these projects have cost money. The first week it was cleaning the homeschooling corner/bookshelf in our homeschooling room. The next week it was cleaning off that surface in my house that seems to catch EVERY piece of paper. The next was cleaning out my closet. This past weekend we found a new place to store all of our board games and reorganized the hundreds of teaching CDs and DVDs I’ve accumulated over the last 8 years. By taking control of one area of my house at a time I’m setting a great example for my kids and I’m feeling accomplishments. I also have a daily, visible reminder that I set a goal and reached it. Finally, it allows me to get my eyes off of work all of the time.
Limit the time you’re allowed to work. While this may seem counter intuitive, you will take as much time as you have to complete a task. I must have this blog done 6 minutes from now if I want my assistant to get it posted and up on the correct day. If I don’t, I’ll either have to post it myself [which I hate doing] or it will go up late [which I also hate]. I am not a procrastinator, I just have limited time to get things done. You know the funny thing? I actually get 95% of my stuff done even with limiting myself to working 4 days a week [Friday I attend classes to continue to learn in our industry]. When I gave myself 7 days a week, 12-16 hours a day I got only SLIGHTLY more than I get done now with about 35 hours a week. I have to focus on what is most efficient and trust others to help me.

So, what can you do to build your own confidence? Maybe it is attacking that problem that sits out there, intimidating you. Maybe it is having that tough conversation. Whatever it is, dig in to it.

In closing, despite all that I’ve said here, remember that your worth is not found in your accomplishments, it is found in who you are. Take time to spend real time with those who celebrate you. I decided a few months ago that I would NOT sacrifice those who matter most for those who matter least. You’ve heard me blog on this before, but I want to say it again. When you are feeling good about yourself, they will see it too. You’re better to be around. So, go for it. Apply these three things to your schedule and get ready to build your confidence.

One other thing that might build your confidence, the spring forward proposal writing contest. If you’ve ever thought of writing a book [or just got the idea] this is for you! The top prize is $750 gift certificate. Every, single person who submits a qualifying entry will get a $75 gift certificate. Full details coming this week.

Your Coach for the Journey, Tiffany Colter, The Writing Career Coach

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What do you do when it seems your goals are going nowhere?

Published

Tiffany Colter

on February 2, 2012

in balance, changing with the times and Learning as you go

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Over the last 5 years what I do at Writing Career Coach has changed dramatically. When I started out, I was an aspiring writer who wanted to tell people what I’d learned about business. I knew writers needed to understand the business side of their writing before they’d ever be able to really “earn a living with this writing thing” (as my dear friend, Chip Mac Gregor, once said).

Over time, I realized that many businesses didn’t understand this part of their business either. They didn’t see the value and the power of words with the rise of blogs and websites. Content rules, and while they may acknowledge it to a certain extent, they didn’t really see the value of investing in that area. How could they? Their revenues were going down, staffing was being cut, and many were facing the idea of closing their doors for good.

That is why I wanted to stop and write this today. I wanted to talk about what to do when your goals are going nowhere. I wanted to discuss what to do when it feels like all the time you’ve invested has been wasted. What are a few things that can push you back on track—or help you decide it really is time to stop and decide it won’t work?

This is by no means an exhaustive list, and I really don’t want to discourage anyone, but in my time I’ve learned that some books aren’t publishable and need to be put aside and a new one started. Likewise, sometimes you need to stop the business and try something else.

What I have below are some things to try before you give up:

Go back to the place you saw some initial success.
Make sure you are doing revenue generating activities.
Get the guidance of a coach, mentor or tutor to see if there is something easy to fix.
Make a real effort and set a deadline

These are the things that I have done each time I seem to hit a ceiling in my growth. My company is now much larger than the one woman at a kitchen table. I have a sales team, subcontractors, staff writers and editors and even an assistant. I have moved to an office in town, hired an accountant and travel the country speaking and teaching. The one thing I continually relearn, however, is that the basics that got me to the first big success is the same thing that will get me to the next one.

I’ll soon be offering deeper teachings and resources on these topics. If you’d like to know more about them when they become available make sure that you are getting these blogs delivered to you and that you have my newsletter. Sign up for a newsletter by clicking here.

And we do writing, editing, coaching, project management, marketing and consulting on topics as diverse as speculative fiction to memoirs to Bible studies and business development books. Use our contact page to find out more.

Thanks for taking the time to visit us today. Now go and apply one new thing. I’ll see you next week.

Your Coach for the Journey, Tiffany Colter, The Writing Career Coach

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You are the Average of Who You Associate With

Published

Tiffany Colter

on June 16, 2011

in balance, Best resources, Learning as you go, Reach your goals and success

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Today, I want to talk a little bit about how you are the average of those you associate with.

I think many people underestimate the value of getting to know people who are where you are trying to go. Oftentimes people think that they don’t fit in; maybe they feel uncomfortable in the new environment.

As a writer and self-proclaimed wallflower, I understand the fear that goes along with going into a new environment. More than once I have forced myself into a room where I’ve been terrified and remained completely silent because I really felt I didn’t belong there, I didn’t feel like I had anything to contribute.

Pushing yourself beyond your comfort zone is important in the growth of any business, whether it’s writing, advertising, sales, or whatever you’re trying to do. You always need to make sure you’re moving to the next level, moving just a step outside your comfort zone. Once you get acclimated to the water turn up the temperature just a little bit. No, we’re not frogs. We’re not going to boil ourselves to death. But what we are going to do is become increasingly more comfortable with that new environment and then we become the average of those people that we are associating with.

I found this in my own business as I stepped to a new level in relationships. The ideas changed, the ways of looking at things, and that change was good. It was important to help me excel and understand the needs of this new group of people. How could I meet the needs of these people? What I learned is that the needs of aspiring writers and multi-published writers are variations of the same thing. You’re still striving for the same thing.

I also learned that the needs of salespeople and the needs of business consultants, the needs of entrepreneurs and innovators, are all the same kind of thing. We are all trying to create something that didn’t exist before. Whether we’re trying to create a sales relationship or understanding within a field, or create a story. Whatever we’re trying to do we are all salespeople, we are all creators. By associating with new groups that are a level up from where we are currently at, we ourselves will grow and stretch. We’ll work to become that next level.

Now, I have three things that I’ve learned in the last year or so as I’ve come to know people at a whole new level of success. I’d like to share them here.

1: You never arrive.is they never got comfortable. They never decided that they had arrived. They w We may look at individuals and determine a particular dollar sign, level of sales, volume of production and that is when we have arrived. What I’ve learned working with people who are highly successful, earning seven-digit salaries, who have created large companies, is the reason they are where they are is because they always strive for the next level.

2: You have to learn balance or you’ll burn out. When my business began to explode and grow, I found that I was severely out of balance. Randy Ingermanson says balance is like walking; it’s falling and catching yourself. You’ll go to one extreme, then the other. While that is true, carrying that example on means that sometimes we have to come back to middle and reassess before we begin to swing the other way. For me, that was realizing that I needed to hire staff, I could no longer work just in my office and just with people who are sub-contractors. I needed to bring in local people, to have somebody there with me to answer phones and do a variety of other things. You may realize you need to have a babysitter watch your kids a few hours a week. Or you may realize that you have to commit one afternoon a week to the library where it’s silent and just work. Or unplugging your Wi-Fi card once a week to focus on what you need to do. You are not going to be successful until you develop success habits. These habits come from recognizing when you’re out of balance, not doing enough work, or when you’re doing too much or only thinking about work and not being productive.

3: Consistently re-examine your time management and see where waste is happening. I found the bulk of my waste was spent in responding to questions that I didn’t have to respond to, for example, sending a file to a client. While it seems like it’s not that long, when you consider it takes 5-10 minutes to type the email, find and attach the file, email it and wait for the email to send, then get back to what you were doing before, that 5-10 minutes can quickly suck up a lot of time. Especially if you’re like me and have 40-50 clients you work with on a regular basis. When you add to that people who are bidding projects, calling for interview appointments, talking to me about what we do, suddenly I’m running out of time. The same thing is happening with you. It could be your volunteer work taking more time than you expected, or you’re staying up late watching television and too tired the next day to work on what you need to do. It could be that you’re oversleeping or not taking care of your health the way you should.

You’re the average of those you associate with. Are you watching people who are successful? Who are consistently growing, expanding, seeing things in balance? If you’re surrounding yourself with people like that, even though a variety of people could have a variety of strengths you begin to learn and become the average of those people.

A lot of times for writers we’ll say that we create our own author voice based on the authors we respect and the styles of writing we like. The same thing is true for our business. We create a business voice. If we want that voice to change and grow, that means we need to change and grow from the group we’re in. That doesn’t mean abandoning our friends who have always been with us, but it does mean incorporating new people into that batch.

Remember, you’re the average of the people you associate with. Not the top, not the bottom. Look around and see who you’re associating with. This can be friendships, learning, what you study, spend your time doing.

We’ll talk a little about what we read in an upcoming blog. For now, remember who you are with determines where you’re going. Consider wisely.

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Stand Up for Yourself

Published

Tiffany Colter

on June 9, 2011

in attitudes, balance, business, celebrating successes, dicipline, growing as a writer, How to..., Reach your goals and success

. 0 Comments

This blog is going to be a little bit unusual because it’s called “Stand Up for Yourself.”

The reason I put together this blog is because I’ve noticed there’s a few different things that happen as people become increasingly successful. In the early days we are all paying our dues; so we will do work for less than money than it’s worth, we’ll work longer hours, we’ll do things we normally wouldn’t do. Whether it’s paying your dues, doing grunt work, whatever you call it, we all have the expectation in the early days of our professional career that we’ll do things that we wouldn’t normally do for less pay than we’d normally do it for.

That’s reality. However, there comes a place and time in your professional career where you’ve stepped beyond that and your services are really worth more than what you were charging while paying your dues.

You need to recognize, once you’ve reached that level, that you need to start charging a reasonable wage for what you do. That is when you start to encounter the next phase, which is everyone wants a piece of you.

Now, during that phase is when you become increasingly successful and suddenly you find everybody wants a favor from you. If you’re a writer it might be judging a lot of contests, which I personally do because I think they’re great. Or it might be people who want you to do writing work for them for free, these kinds of things. You start to get to where people recognize you have talent and they want to use that talent without compensating you.

Then you begin to move to the next level where you’re working more frequently with clients. This is for business owners as well as clients. Everybody in any profession of any level will recognize this. That’s why you start working with clients that are not necessarily friends. They’re not necessarily people that you know, but they’re people that pull from you. They require the bulk of your time without giving you the bulk of your resources. You need to learn how to tactfully say no, know what your limitations are, know what your boundaries are, and learn to stick to those.

That’s a very hard skill to learn. As you become successful what happens is ego gets involved. We get very excited because people need us. Then once it gets beyond just simple needing and to the place where people are wearing us down, we’ve already created this habit and we don’t know how to stop it.

Here are a couple of tips that I’ve learned along the way, to help you maintain that balance as you’re moving to increasingly successful levels of your business and writing career:

1: Be consistent and have a standard. While I love to donate my time and help people I have to remember that I am not in a position financially to allow myself to donate my time. When I give my time away, I’m essentially taking time away from my kids and my family and their needs. You need to do it willfully, meaning know how much you’re going to give away and once you’ve reached that limit you have to stop. Don’t do it simply out of guilt.
2: Don’t allow people to take control of your calendar. If you have a production calendar, if you have a set number of things that you’re doing, don’t allow people to continue to add to it unless they are paying you for the additional work. Do not allow them to tweak and trim and adjust and move. You need to say this is what we allow. For example, when I’m ghostwriting I give a rough draft. They can suggest revisions; I do them based on their notes. They get to do a next-pass. If they want a second set of revisions they have to pay me for those. A lot of times it’ll be at a reduced rate, but I’m not going to go through and do those revisions for no pay. That represents dozens of hours of additional work for zero pay. On the other hand I don’t nitpick at my clients. If they only have something really small that’s going to take me less than 30 minutes I may invoice it and I may credit it or say we’re going to take it from this part. That’s fine, but you have to be consistent.

There are reasons to be consistent.
1: It establishes integrity. You must have integrity in everything you do.
2: If you’re not doing the same thing for every client, you’re playing favorites. That’s going to affect your credibility.
3: You need to have a reasonable expectation of what you’re doing, what you’re going to accomplish, what kind of time you’re putting into your business, and what you’re getting for that time. Otherwise you’re going to grow to hate your business.

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So much: When not to do it

Published

Tiffany Colter

on November 2, 2010

in attitudes, balance, dicipline, time management and True Priorities

. 0 Comments

Okay, we’ve gotten to the tough one now. When should you say no?

This can be difficult, especially as we begin to become increasingly successful. I can attest to the fact that having someone ask you to help really helps build up your self-esteem and your ego, especially in the world of writing and sales where you learn to receive rejection as a part of daily life. To have someone pursue you and want to have your expertise and your help, man! It can feel like you finally have arrived. However, you need to always be focused on where it is that you’re going and who you can best help. If something does not fit in that, you’re probably going to have to say no.

In my life I’ve had to say no to volunteering at things that involve my daughters. You see, I’m a homeschooling mom and I have four daughters, one of whom is special needs. That means that people like to have me serve as interpreter because my daughter is deaf. They also think that since I’m a homeschooling mom that I naturally want to spend every waking moment with my children. However, my children do spend a large amount of time with me and I involve them in activities so they’re able to participate with other people. Our family has family fun night, or family movie night once a week and the girls and I go to the library every Monday together. We do participate together as mother-daughter or as a family, including my husband, in weekly events. But the other extra-curricular activities I feel it’s important that my kids have a chance to do things without Mommy watching over their shoulder. I’ve had to learn to say no to those kinds of things.

When it comes to business groups however, I try to say yes whenever possible in order to pour into other people like people poured into me in my early days. Even with that, I have to make sure that the amount of time I am giving away doesn’t detract from developing my business and providing quality service to my clients.

Take some time to look at what it is you’re doing. Remember, in the beginning of this series we looked at when you’re doing things. We looked at how you do things. We looked at why you do things. And now we need to determine what things you need to stop doing so that you can focus on the things that are most important. This may mean saying no to a business networking opportunity to spend time with your family. Or it might mean asking someone else to help you carpool to take your kids to one of the events each week so that you can write and take them to the other one. Whatever it is, remember that having so much to do can be a true blessing and can be an energizing reality. If it’s done the right way.

Did you miss part of the “So Much” series. Read them all here.

So much: Why to do it

So much: When to do it

So much: How to do it

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Archive for the 'balance' Category

Shift from I CAN’T to HOW CAN I

Preparation for the New Year and 2013

Writing Stories on a Busy Schedule

Stop Pursuing your Passion

The Benefits of Optimism

Be Confident

What do you do when it seems your goals are going nowhere?

You are the Average of Who You Associate With

Stand Up for Yourself

So much: When not to do it

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