Alice Hart-Davis is in Week Five of her online life coaching class with Jacqueline Hurst and is recognising how the classes are helping her take steps into achieving her goal in finally writing her book and finding an agent to publish it
Last week, I found myself half way through The Life Class life coaching course. Although I’d had a bit of a breakthrough in terms of the coaching – I had thrown myself into the practice along with all the others and although it was nerve-wracking, I found it immensely rewarding – I had made not a jot of progress towards my immediate goal of getting a book idea off the ground. So this week the chips were down. It was time to take some actual action, or at least, to get further than simply having a piece of paper listing reasons to go ahead.
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In between working my way through The Life Class’s Module Five, practice-coaching with my fellow coaches-in-waiting and running round town for meetings, I pulled myself together and applied myself to the book-project. The first step was to identify a likely agent who might represent me. I signed up with a website that lists literary agents and stamped around on that for a while before realising that I could short-circuit the whole process by asking friends and colleagues who have recently written non-fiction books what their own agents were like, and whether they’d mind if I approached them for representation. They didn’t mind; in fact they all raved about how wonderful their agents were and encouraged me to get in touch with them (why was I so worried about asking? Why?).
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I ended up with the names of several great agents, and ferreted about on their websites which laid out the way in which they like to be approached with new submissions. Suddenly, here was a structured way in which to move onwards. What was my book about? Why was I the right person to write it? How was I thinking of promoting it? Did I engage with social media, and so on. I spent one evening working through these questions, and another outlining the form that the book would take.
One thing that is beginning to sink in from all the life-coaching practice is that when I get stuck on an idea, or begin to lose confidence in whatever I’m working on, I now know what to do. I stop and consider why I’m starting to think these thoughts, and find other thoughts that are more helpful.
Now, when I lose confidence in what I’m working on, I stop and consider why I’m starting to think these thoughts, and find other thoughts that are more helpful.
Then, rather than sitting around being paralysed with indecision, I find I can carry on chipping away at the work that needs to be done.
That may sound like the most basic progress, but I can tell you, it’s more than I’ve achieved, book-wise, in the past year. And the best bit? That when I’d finished and looked through the outline, it looked good, even to my hyper-critical eye.
I can’t send my submission out into the world quite yet – I need to put together a sample chapter to go with it. Hmm. That’s for next week.
What I learned this week.
- That well-worn slogan, ‘Just do it’, is popular for a reason. There comes a time when you have to stop thinking, and act.
- When you let go of fear, excitement sets in Embarking on something new (once you’ve stopped being frightened of it) is very exciting.
- Don’t ask? Don’t get If you don’t ask, well, no one is ever even going to know what you want, are they?
Jacqueline Hurst is a life and body coach. She believes everything is possible and that all women can become do-ers. Hurst’s new The Life Class is an online life-coaching course that takes you on your own personal journey of self-development and teaches you how to be a life coach in eight weeks. How? By providing you with a sharp, strategic syllabus which uses exceptional tools, techniques and concepts allowing you to truly understand what it means to become a life coach. Expect to gain knowledge, insider information, support and confidence. The Life Class prides itself on its high level of support throughout the course and encourages students to communicate via the Community platform. The Life Class believes that sharing knowledge, ideas and experiences is integral to becoming a great coach. thelifeclass.com | jacquelinehurst.com
Follow Jaqueline on Twitter at @jhurstcoaching.
Alice Hart-Davis is a freelance beauty journalist and the creator of Good Things skincare. She has written a beauty book 100 Ways for Every Girl to Look and Feel Fantastic and blogs on innovation in beauty on her own website. Follow her on Twitter.
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