Courage is the most important of all virtues, because without courage you can’t practice any other virtue consistently.
—Maya Angelou
In his book, 10 Steps to Becoming a Writer, Joe Bunting that the first step to is to publish your work.
I agree with him, but often our emotional experiences can block us from publishing. When we approach publishing, we often experience doubt, fear, insecurity and all the other difficult feelings that come with opening ourselves up to feedback from others.
Why You Need Courage to Publish
When you're getting ready to publish, it's easy to procrastinate, to get distracted, and to get caught up trying to make sure everything is perfect.
Instead, what you need to do is cultivate the courage to publish.
When you're actively cultivating courage, you won’t get triggered by doubt and fear in the same way. You become more open, receptive and beautifully vulnerable. This gives you power and heart, which translates into stronger writing that connects and resonates with others.
3 Strategies to Cultivate Courage to Publish Your Writing
Here are three strategies to cultivate courage. Following these will help you step out of your own way and allow the magic that comes from taking action unfold for you.
1. Take small, courageous action every day
A powerful way to cultivate courage to publish your writing is to practice small courageous acts throughout your day.
We are almost always in our comfort zones. Our routines, habits, schedules all keep us in comfortable patterns. This is fine for now, but can cause anxiety when you want to take risks.
Luckily, you can find ways to help move you from your comfort zone into your growth zone. Step out of your patterns, cultivate courage, and take the emotional charge out of taking risks.
Today try something different. Have lunch outside, call a friend you haven’t talked to in a while, share what you are writing with someone who you wouldn’t think of to share with. Take a new route to work.
With each small brave action, you will stretch your courage muscles and you will more easily be able to take bigger risks.
2. Release attachments
To cultivate the courage you need to publish you have to put yourself, and your work, out there, you must release your attachments to the outcome.
Sharing your work is often such a struggle because you have expectations of what impact you hope your writing will have on readers.
The reality is you don’t know readers will experience your work. It may land in surprising ways.
This can be both exciting and scary, but it often causes hesitancy to publish.
Take time to let go of attachments throughout your day. Notice the places where you expect things to look or be a certain way. If you catch yourself reacting to how something turned out, breathe, allow, and let go.
When you do publish, be proud of yourself for doing the work and sharing yourself with others. Be proud of yourself for becoming stronger as a writer and as a person.
Allow your work to be. Whatever feedback you get, notice and let it go.
Most of all, though, keep writing, and keep putting your work out there.
3. Write it out
You have probably experienced a time when your writing, which is ready to be seen, collects digital dust. You feel resistance and insecurity about putting it out there.
This is a perfect opportunity to allow the act of writing to do its magic. Open up a blank document, or grab your favorite notebook. Write all that is coming up for you.
Feel the feelings that surround the resistance. Write through the worst-case and the best-case scenarios.
Allow the emotions to move, allow the blocks to dissipate.
Trust that the act of writing is going to take you to new places of awareness and readiness for action.
You Already Have the Courage to Publish
Publishing your work brings up lots of positive and challenging feelings. You may get paralyzed before hitting the send button. Fear, doubt, and perfectionism take over.
However, publishing is the first step to becoming a writer and you need to find the courage to work through this resistance.
When you do, you will experience huge breakthroughs and confidence that will propel your work forward.
Cultivate your courage. It is in you already. It is alive and ready to help you, and your writing, shine brightly in the world.
Have you ever been nervous or even afraid to publish your writing? Share in the comments section.
PRACTICE
Write a courage manifesto. Write about the courage you already have within you. Write about how and why you are going to cultivate courage to take risks and put your work out there for others to read.
Write your courage manifesto for fifteen minutes. When you're finished, post your practice in the comments section. And if you post, please be sure to leave feedback for your fellow writers.
You nailed it (for me). I’ve been lacking the courage for all the reasons you cited. I’m now in the process of changing that and hope to publish this year. I’m releasing the fears of the outcome as I think the story needs to be told. Still in process of cultivating the courage but am making progress. Although I’ve been a writer for decades (mostly letters to editors, doing my autobiography (for academic credit), and so forth, I have been hesitane to write a personal essay. It’s painful but gives me perspective. More importantly, it will help some other person who has had similar experiences where there has been no reconciliation.
Sandyjean, Thank you for taking the courage to share your experiences and fears. I can relate to what you are saying and I know others can as well. Your honesty about your process is a gift. Keep sharing it in whatever form it comes. Thanks for writing and tons of love to you on the writing journey.
Thanks for your encouragement. When you have experiences that others would probably find unfathonable- esp. those that leave emotional scars, scars on your soul – it makes it more difficult to face and write about, but also more rewarding realizing you (and others) have survived them.
Yes, I agree. Writing has a way of connecting us to ourselves and others. I think by writing our difficult experiences, we give them air to breathe and to experience them again with new perspective and wisdom. This asks us to face difficult experiences with courage and heart, which is healing and transformative for both the reader and writer. Writing is such a wonderful tool to constellate inspiration, change, hope and connection in the world. I always smile thinking about the magic of the creative process 🙂
That’s a good idea, to think of how our writing will help others! Thanks for bringing it up, and good luck on your essay!
How I need to take baby steps to increase my courage and bring me closer to my goal of publishing. It is a daily process and I need to keep on “keeping on” in order to build courage to share my story in writing.
Kathy, Yes! Keep on keeping on. Those baby steps are huge and really add up to bring us closer to putting our work in the world. Keep at it, you’ve got this 🙂
Have you tried blogging? It helps me, personally, just sharing a small bit at a time. It’s not as overwhelming I find. Good luck in your journey!
Thanks, Christy! I had the same experience. Blogging is so empowering. I recommend it to anyone wanting to build courage and to start putting their work in the world.
I would like to blog but it takes more time from my writing. Maybe I need to study how to create a blog and see if it helps. Thanks for this tip.
Thanks for talking about this. Doubt in my abilities is something that I struggle with often as well. I’ve noticed blogging really helps with it. Just the practice of showing small pieces of your work, sharing your thoughts, helps to overcome those doubt demons (at least of me it does).
Blogging is such a great way to build courage! It has been so important for my own journey as well. xox
I agree Christy. Sharing in a safe place (like here) really does help overcome those doubts. Keep sharing, I need to hear that others face the same doubts I do.
Thanks! I definitely will. I hope you keep sharing too. 🙂
The only way to find courage, I’ve found, is to pretend you already have it. If you pretend you have courage for long enough, eventually you will find that you actually have courage. This is almost an oxymoron or a paradox, but it is certainly true.
Thanks Helaine for sharing! I think you are spot and I am so glad you added this strategy to the conversation. Faking it til we make it is a powerful way to tap into our innate courage, learn to embody it and bring it forward.
I find that faking it til you make it works for pretty much everything, especially since failure is all in your head.
Agreed!
I like that attitude Helaine. Fake it ’til you make it! At times I think we all have to do that if we are determined to keep going. Thanks for reminding me.
Becca
🙂
I cultivate cats, the physical manifestation of courage. I keep a box of them, with a variety of shapes and sizes in the large hall closet near my peacock colored front door.
Large cats have giant paws like overgrown mittens and they will smack anything
they want in the face. They just don’t give a f***. Small cats have petite paws
but can still viciously tear through all sorts of tissues with their shiny
claws. They just don’t give a f*** either. Those domesticated cats, when they
scratch you it hurts just the same. You will acquire the same anaerobic skin
infections as from their larger sisters. I love the courage and the sense of
self that cats have, which allows them to reach forward to paddle their paws on
almost anything. You don’t see them getting hurt very often, do you? They
attack many things but also know when to pull back, when to lithely dash
backwards to reassess. They might not be successful in all of their curious
endeavors, but by gods they are engaged in the world. Their bodies are
un-separated from their mind. They are the ultimate and original non-dual
creature.
When I write, I decorate my desk with effigies to these courageous animals who are both
striped, spotted, and plain. A beautiful and slimly elegant one sits to my
right so that I can view it best with my left eye, gaze at it and slow blink.
It has a pierced ear and a ring in its septum. Whatever Egyptian decided to
adorn it with body jewelry just didn’t give a f***. She thought to herself, “My
cat is a bad a**, and I courageously push her into the world to first chase the
mice that poop in my grain stores and then stand guard beside me wrapped in
shrouds as we wander through eternity.” When I send my work to publishers who
will hit the “Reject” button faster than your cat will pounce on tinsel hanging
from a tree, I will imagine all these cats. When they shove their fluffy paws into
the world, they don’t worry about how they will respond to an insult until
after its done.
This is fabulous, thanks for sharing! I smiled reading this thinking about my own cats. You are so right about their courage and presence. What a great guide to have on the creative journey.
So. I wrote for 15 minutes and deleted the whole ramble. In a nushell, the fear that keeps me from publishing is a fear of succes, not failure. But the thing is, I have this great need to write. It is bigger than the voice in my head that tells me I don’t deserve success, so I’ve decided to put on my big girl pants and go for it. Thanks to articles like this one, and folks like you who share here, my courage is growing and I’m writing more. And my goal is to publish again.
Thanks for your support.
Good stuff!
Your response is lovely and so many people can relate. I know I can! Keep writing, courage will come with each stroke of the pen or click of the keyboard. Lots of love to you on the journey.
When I self published, I was more afraid of putting myself out there, then anyone actually reading my book. Sharing my picture and my blogs was what was terrifying. But you have to be out there. Hazard of the job!
Thank you for your example~we can move through fear and publish anyways! I appreciate you sharing your courage 🙂
THE COURAGE TO PUBLISH
My Manifesto 2015
Intention – Principles – Call to action
With this manifesto I hereby state my intention to:
* dare to be read,
* galvanise the courage for creative risk and,
* identify and defeat fear based procrastinations.
With this manifesto I commit to:
* a daily creative writing practice of no less than 30 minutes,
* consistently apply my writing time to a minimum of 3 specific writing projects,
* engage and respond with joy to structural development advice for my novel,
* seek and submit to a minimum of 4 creative writing competitions/awards,
* a minimum of 1 post per month on my new blog,
* a minimum of 2 creative development workshops or workshop series,
* a minimum of 2 weekly comments on at least 3 writing community blog posts,
* submit a minimum of 4 short stories for publication,
* organising my creative space, including computer files, pin-up board, submission records, inspiration books, quotes and online bookmarks,
* allocating and diarising specific writing times during the week that must be honoured,
* experimenting with different writing routines; for example getting up early in the morning and writing (a tough one for this night owl :-)),
* experimenting with different forms of prose/poetry, and submitting to relevant online journals.
I do have the time to write. I will write.
I do have the courage to publish. I will actively submit.
I do have the constitution to handle the response. I will grow immensely.
I do have something to say. I will be heard.
Signed by Dawn
This 15th day of January 2015
I love the very specific note that you will only work on 3 writing projects at a time. Also, I really love all of your other very specific goals/parameters as well. But having 15 projects going on at once just doesn’t help anyone.
Ha ha … Not sure how you work the 15 out. And yes that would be crazy…. Setting myself up to fail type of crazy.
Most of the goals are as a result of the 3 specific projects.
Novel that needs some development assessment and then my focus, poetry/prose series I am working on and developing my short story style.
The blog posts and comments aren’t specific projects, they will relate back to my WIPs or be more for communicating, meeting others and sharing my work and passion, for example little posts like this one.
This is about COURAGE. I’ve decided to actually have the Courage to set some goals – not really something I’ve done with my writing practice before. I usually go with the flow and, like so many of us, get halted by the fear dragons.
This year I’m doing it. I’ve been phaffing around for too long. And I’m not letting another decade slip away.
🙂
Dawn
I found this exercise quite empowering.
I recognised areas where I’m ready to go, where I need to work and where I need to honour my passion and give it time and space.
And now with some clarity and goals I feel like I’ve got a little courage to give it a go.
You’ve got this! Giving your passion and courage voice, just as you did here, is powerful and inspiring. Thanks for sharing. xox
Thanks Jackie.
Great post too. Perfect timing.
Regards Dawn
I originally did a creative thing with my 15 minutes. But then took you for inspiration and stopped “phaffing” about! Love that word. Here we go for super specifics:
2015 Writing Manifesto of My Inner Feline
-Writing Intentions and Actions
With this manifesto I state my intention to:
-actively manage my multiple pursuits so that writing is the
primary focus
-release my attachments to the reception of my creative product
With this manifesto I commit to:
-a daily writing practice of at minimum 15 minutes when I am
working a full day
-a daily writing practice of 2 hours on days when I am not
working ER shift (excluding February, the fucked month)
-one literary short story per month created
-Submit at least six short stories to journals
-one erotic short story per month created
-Publish each one to literotica (if not part of Kudare
series) unless able to be submitted elsewhere
-seek out 2 writing competitions to submit to (one will be
the Texas Health Resources)
-one post per month on my blog
-one hour per week dedicated to researching forums for
publication
-buy the damn chair that goes to my writing desk
-buy statue of pierced cat in honor of this manifesto
I am focused and recognize writing to be my primary passion.
I certainly have the courage to publish. I recognize that
all publications are valid, irrelevant of prestige.
Writing is my deepest passion and it will carry me through
all of my days. This is a valid passion.
Signed by Jessica 1/12/15
Excellent! Love your spirit. 🙂
And yes me too… ‘ buy that damn chair!’.
Now you’ve got me thinking about a pierced cat.
Less purring. More roaring.
By inspiring you, you’ve inspired me.
Best conversation I’ve had all day. Thanks.
Cheers
Dawn
Jessa, I liked both of your posts. After reading yours and Dawn’s I must now sit down and write up and sign a true manifesto of my own!
Yey Becca,
You go for it.
It’s really enCOURAGing!
Dawn
Dawn, your courage encourages me. I too have been phaffing around too long. (I’ve officially adopted that word, by the way) and am making this year about COURAGE.
Thanks once more.
Becca
“fear dragons” ~ love it 🙂
I love the specificity here! I have found that getting concrete about what we want is such a powerful exercise. It makes the tasks manageable and easier accomplish. Thanks for posting.