The other day, I jumped on a call with a bunch of writers, some aspiring, some published, and we talked about all sorts of different things. One of the things that we talked about was disappointment.
This topic of disappointment is an incredibly important one. Almost every day, I see writers expressing their frustration and their disappointment, their sadness, all sorts of negative emotions around being a writer. And that’s because being a writer is hard. It’s incredibly hard. We constantly face rejection. We constantly face disappointment. We constantly face having to force ourselves to write, even though we love writing. It’s a confusing and conflicting job. And a lot of authors have a really hard time sorting through all of these emotions.
And so I want to spend a little bit of time talking today about how I sort through these emotions. This isn’t a comprehensive discussion by any means. And if you find yourself in a position where your writing is really starting to affect your mental health negatively, I would strongly encourage you to go and talk to a professional. Watching YouTube videos is no substitute for counseling or for going and talking to your doctor. I am not a licensed counselor or a medical health professional, but I do have extensive experience with this issue.
Between 2013 and 2015, I was severely clinically depressed. My depression included anxiety and suicidal ideation and all sorts of other awful stuff. Stuff that I wouldn’t wish on anybody. During that time, I began writing as a way of trying to help myself work through some of these feelings that I didn’t know how to express and to unearth feelings that I didn’t even know were there. Over time, thanks to incredible support from my wife, my family, and my doctors, I was able to come out of that very dark period. And one of the things that stayed with me was writing.
But it’s curious because sometimes the thing that helps you initially becomes a problem in and of itself. You might have noticed this if, like me, you liked to play video games. There was a time when playing video games really helped with my mental health. And then, as I started to do it more and more and more, I found that it started to become the problem. I would put aside everything else and I would go and play video games, ignoring my responsibilities as I just sought comfort in this distracting thing.
Well, writing can be like that too. Sometimes we get so involved in our writing that we forget that we have a life outside of it. And writing can start to transform from this wonderful supporting thing into a crutch, or worse, almost a ball and chain that’s dragging us down. And then when you start piling things like rejection, which is so common if you’re trying to find an agent or trying to get published, or critical feedback from complete strangers, or just the absolute mind-bending difficulty of actually getting what’s in your head out onto paper in a way that feels natural and good, writing can be so unbelievably difficult.
And it can be so frustrating to want to write a book and force yourself to sit down and actually do the work of writing it. And then when we fail to do that, we can get so crushed under feelings of guilt, frustration with ourself, anger that it isn’t working the way we thought. No matter who you are, no matter how far you are in your career, writing is tough. It’s a really hard business.
But I’m excited to tell you that that doesn’t mean we can’t do it. That doesn’t mean that there isn’t a path forward. And if you’re in this position where you’re just feeling tired and crushed by your writing, maybe you’re even thinking of abandoning it altogether, of just giving up. I’d like to share with you a couple of things that helped me.
The most important thing to do though is to understand where all of this disappointment and frustration actually comes from. See, when we feel disappointed in something, it’s because our expectation did not match reality. We expected something, or maybe we hoped for something, but we didn’t get it. The thing we wanted didn’t materialize. The agent didn’t pick up our book. The publisher didn’t choose to buy. The story that we have poured so much time and energy into got bad reviews. We’re just not selling. All of these are things that frustrate us because our expectation of what should have happened is the opposite of what actually happened.
We expected the agent to love our book. We expected the publisher to offer us a deal. We expected good reviews after we published, or we expect to be able to sell. Another one would be, I expect to be able to just sit down and write my book, but sometimes I don’t. Sometimes I don’t even sit down. And if I do sit down, sometimes the words just don’t come. And there again, my expectation of what should have happened did not align with what did happen.
There are two schools of thought about what we can do about this. The first is to lower our expectation. As long as you lower your expectations, then you can’t be disappointed, right? Well, wrong. The reality is that lowering your expectations is almost impossible. You still want what you want. You still desire the things that you desire. Everybody still wants to be able to write the book or to sell, to get the agent, all of that. There is something to be said for guarding your heart so that you’re not crushed if those things don’t happen. But lowering your expectations isn’t really a solution.
The other option is to just work harder, to do more, to hustle. But that’s honestly not a good solution either. That’s just a great way to get burned out. The idea that you can pull yourself up by your bootstraps and just work harder and achieve the thing is just as false as the idea that lowering your expectations is going to solve your problem. Working harder is no guarantee that you’re going to be able to meet those expectations of yours or that your expectations will align with reality.
So, what do we do? I like to follow a three-step process. The first and most important thing to do is just to recognize it. It’s to say, man, this sucks. This is a hard position to be in. What I wanted and what has happened have not lined up. They’ve not meshed. And now I’m in this really uncomfortable position.
Once we’ve recognized the position we’re in, we can reorder our expectations. We can say, all right, I haven’t achieved the thing I wanted to achieve. I haven’t gotten what I wanted to get. So, maybe I need to take a second and I need to reconfirm what order my priorities are in. Do I really think that this is the best thing for me to be shooting for? Do I really think that getting an agent is the thing that’s going to make me happy? Do I really think that selling to a publisher will make my wildest dreams come true?
When we reorder our expectations, we start to be able to put things into proper perspective. We start to understand where those expectations should be in relation to reality. And then finally, I like to reset. I like to take a moment, sometimes two, sometimes a lot more, and I like to breathe and just reset. Say, okay, I didn’t get the thing that I was hoping to get. I’m disappointed because of it, but I can try again. I have another opportunity. This is not the end of the line. I can keep going. And now that I’ve reordered my expectations to better align with reality, I’m even more likely to get it, to achieve what I’m trying to achieve.
So, that’s how I like to deal with disappointment. I recognize, I reorder, and I reset.
YouTube Video Link: https://youtu.be/ZfSqeTQVPs0
Thanks for reading and watching.
Want in on all the secrets of writing compelling books? Have burning questions for Seth about the business side of being an author? Join the email list for up to date info on the latest videos!
"*" indicates required fields