Have you ever been plagued with not feeling or not an expert in your field? Have you ever wondered if what you have to share is important?
Let me walk you through 5 questions to ask yourself when you’re struggling with feeling good enough.
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Overcoming Mindset Issues
I know that if you don’t overcome mindset issues, you may never finish your book.
Today, I want to walk you through 5 questions you can ask yourself whenever you feel you are not good enough or what you’re sharing is not very much important.
We will be digging deeper into these five questions, so make sure to have your pen and paper ready.
I recently was working one on one with one of my Author Audience Academy members, Angela, and she had some of these issues of wondering if she was good enough. So, I walked her through these same steps and she gave me permission to share our session.
I know this will be helpful for some of you, so I am sharing this with you today.
Question #1: What is your topic?
What is the topic that you will write about?
This should be an easy question to answer.
Question #2: Who is your target audience?
Who are you writing this topic for?
I went into a full in depth training on this in my Platform Challenge. If you have not signed up for that challenge yet, you can sign up at ShelleyHitz.com/PlatformChallenge. You will find the topic on the day 2 of the 5-day challenge.
For now, I would like you to write out who your target audience is. Write the age, gender, demographics and anything that goes into defining your target audience.
I want you to write this out and really think about this because some of these questions are going to help you as we go forward. You’re going to see how it all fits together.
Question #3: What is your experience in this topic?
Why are you writing about this?
As you write about a certain topic, I would assume that you have the experience in that topic and that it will give content and value to your readers.
If you’re sharing some regurgitated training and it’s not something that you have a personal experience in, then you may struggle with 
your credibility as the writer for this topic.
You may start to ask yourself “Am I an expert?”
I want you to write that down guided by these questions:
- What has been your experience with this topic?
- What has caused you, and motivated you, to write about this?
Writing about a topic that you have an experience on and it has changed you or given you something is exciting.
It gives you a sense of purpose as you have experienced, first-hand, the value of what you are going to share to your readers.
Question #4: How has it transformed your life and would that experience help someone else?
How has your experience affected you and do you think it is applicable to others?
When I was coaching Angela one on one, I was asking her these questions and we got to this point of how it has transformed her life.
Her response was “It has transformed my life, it has made a difference. It has done amazing things. It was not just a small transformation, it was a big transformation.”
Her expression showed the excitement of knowing that her topic has transformed her life and it is something that can help other people too.
It was really neat to watch her transform, literally, before my eyes.
When we realize what transformation our topic has brought us and how it can be valuable to other people as well, it is information we can also use in our book description and marketing.
So you can think about this question and brainstorm more on the value of the topic that you are sharing in your book.
Question #5: What is your definition of an expert?
When do you say that someone is an expert?
When I was working with Angela, one of the things that we worked out was the definition is knowledge, experience, and your results.
The definition of an expert might be different but it revolves around the knowledge you have, the experience you have, and the results you have gotten. It doesn’t mean that you have to be an expert in everything. Just having the experience and having the results is enough for you to write that book.
Sometimes we think in order to be an expert we have to know everything.
For instance, Angela is writing a Christian Living book and her concern is that she needed to be an expert in theology and all these things.
So I asked her these questions:
- Is your book about theology”
- Is your book based upon your experiences and what you’ve learned from the Bible and from God personally?
- Do you have experience and results from what you’re writing about in your book?
- Did it transform your life, and will it transform other people’s lives?
In all of the questions, except the first, her answers are “YES”.
This whole thing just lifted and realization hit. To be an expert on that certain topic that you’re writing about, all you need to have is the experience and the results.
You don’t have to know it all.
I think many times we just get these mind blocks of “Stinkin’ Thinkin’”: thinking that you’re not good enough, you’re not an expert and you are not sure if your topic is going to impact someone’s life.
If you’re a follower of Christ it can literally be a device of the enemy, a spiritual attack keeping you from publishing that book. So we need to overcome these things with the truth and that’s what these 5 questions can help you.
I believe that 99.9% of the people reading this right now have knowledge, experience, and results in the area that you are wanting to write your book in. You have things that you can share with the world. You are an expert because of what you’ve been through, and you have information that can change people’s lives!
I want you to take the next step.
So, I’m excited that you joined me here today for this mini-coaching session that I was able to do with you. I saw the power that it had with Angela, and I wanted to share this with you and have you actually go through the steps.
I want to close with this encouragement; your story matters. Somebody needs to hear your story.
There are a lot of stories that I shared about on the video of this training. Please watch the video and hear amazing stories that will inspire you to move forward.
I encourage you to do what you need to do to overcome these obstacles. If you need to hire a coach, or work with someone, do it!
It doesn’t need to be me, it needs to be someone who resonates with you and you feel can really help you in this area.
Lastly, I want to offer this prayer to God for you.
“God I thank you for everyone who is here reading this training. I just pray that you would give them what they need to overcome any obstacles in their mind regarding their book, regarding publishing, regarding marketing. I pray that you would overcome these obstacles in Jesus’ name. I pray that you would provide everything they need, the encouragement that they need. I pray that you would just bubble up joy right now in their heart towards their book. That it wouldn’t be a dread, that it wouldn’t feel like it’s sapping out the joy, that they would just have a joy knowing that what they are sharing matters, that their story matters, and that someone’s life will be changed as a result. Lord, we just leave those results up to you, I just ask that you help us each to be obedient in what you called us to do, and I pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.”
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