How to Avoid Getting Easily Discouraged on the Way to Writing Success

Do you get easily discouraged as a writer?

Most writers have, but some go through it more often than others.

The more important question, then, is: Are you easily discouraged? And if so, what can you do about it?

How to Tell If You’re Easily Discouraged

I have to admit that I’ve been guilty of being easily discouraged in the past, and probably will be guilty of it again.

I remember getting just one rejection letter and feeling like my story needed to be thrown into the trash. Or being ignored in a writing contest and figuring I wasn’t cut out to be a writer at all.

Can you relate?

At the time, I didn’t chalk it up to being easily discouraged. I just thought I was truly failing, that my writing wasn’t “good enough,” and that I was chasing the wrong goal in my life.

Looking back now, I can see I was easily discouraged.

If any of the following five points feel familiar to you, it could be that you’re easily discouraged too.

Signs You May be Easily Discouraged

1. You start a lot of new projects only to abandon them about halfway through.
2. You tend to doubt yourself and your talents and secretly believe you’re not good enough to be a successful writer.
3. Negative feedback on your work has caused you to give up on it.
4. You go through mood swings related to your writing, feeling great about it sometimes, and like you should quit other times.
5. You go through long periods of not writing (caused by discouragement or self-doubt) interspersed with periods of writing.

3 Reasons Why Writers Can Be Easily Discouraged

If you recognized yourself in any of the five statements above, or if you suspect you may be easily discouraged, you’re not alone. Fortunately, you can develop more resilience, but first, let’s talk about the top three reasons why discouragement is always waiting right outside your door.

1. You didn’t realize how hard this writing gig was in the beginning.

Most of us start out writing not really understanding what we’re in for. How can we? It’s difficult to understand anything until we experience it for ourselves.

But even if you suspected the journey wouldn’t be easy, the difficulty of building a successful writing career can take you by surprise. You may have seen other writers experiencing success, and thought you could do it too, not realizing the challenges those writers went through to reach their goals.

Writing itself is challenging enough. Add to it the responsibility of building an author platform, marketing your own work, and maintaining an active readership, and you have something that’s often way more difficult than most writers think it will be when they start out.

When you don’t realize how tough the writing gig is, you can go into it with unrealistic expectations, and become easily discouraged when facing the challenges that all writers must inevitably face.

2. You think success is outside of your control.

Nothing leads to discouragement faster than feeling you have no control over your own destiny.

Yet that’s just how it can feel when you get your tenth (or twentieth or hundredth) rejection, when your entry is passed over once again in a writing contest, or when you get a critique back from an editor that makes you feel like you’ll never get the story where it needs to be for publication.

When you feel like you’re doomed to fail no matter what you do, it’s easy to feel discouraged to the point that you think you should quit writing.

3. You haven’t committed wholeheartedly to your goal of being a successful writer.

Until you make a solid decision to commit wholeheartedly to this goal of building a successful writing career, you’re likely to be easily discouraged.

“But I have committed to that goal!” you may say. Think again, because if you’re still struggling with discouragement, you probably haven’t. Angela Duckworth, author of Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance, writes that some people get easily discouraged while others don’t because some people fail to fully commit.

We all go through a beginning period in our careers where we’re not sure this writing thing is for us. We wonder if we can do it, and whether we really want to do it. As long as you’re still in that place, you’re more vulnerable to discouragement.

5 Ways to Build Your Resilience and Avoid Becoming Easily Discouraged

No one likes to feel discouraged. Fortunately, you can increase your resilience and boost your motivation to succeed with the following five tips.

1. Realize that building a writing career is far from easy.

Start by managing your expectations. Realize that all writers have to go through rejection, self-doubt, and periods of feeling like they’re crappy writers.

Understand that building a readership takes time and a lot of hard work. Appreciate that setbacks are normal, and that for much of your career, no one will take notice of what you’re doing.

If you go into this expecting it to be difficult, you’ll be less likely to be easily discouraged.

2. Understand that success is completely within your control.

You may feel that your success depends on other people—the editors, the publishers, the contest judges, or the market. As long as you believe that, however, you’re going to get easily discouraged.

Instead, realize that at any moment in time, you can choose yourself. (I highly recommend James Altucher’s book by the same name.) Today’s publishing world allows you to take total control of your writing career. You can hire your own editors, polish your own work, publish it yourself, and market it yourself. And if one marketing plan doesn’t work, you can try another.

Yes, it will require a lot of effort and self-education, but it’s in your control if you want it. Stop giving your power away to others, and realize that whether or not you succeed is completely up to you.

3. Make a firm commitment to your goal.

If your goal is to be a successful writer, first, define what that means to you. Does it mean you’re earning a set amount of money a year from your writing, or that your books sell so many copies, or that you have readers waiting for your next book?

Once you decide what success is, then make a firm commitment to reach your goals. No going back.

Duckworth writes that once this commitment is made, people tend to think about setbacks differently: “In an all-in frame of mind, setbacks–however painful and discouraging as they may be, particularly in the moment–are reframed as lessons learned.”

From now on, any setbacks or failures you experience are to be used for your education. They show you what doesn’t work. All you have to do is figure out what does.

4. Tell yourself, “I’m not easily discouraged.”

It’s time to change your self-talk. You’re probably used to feeling discouraged, so you’ll have to train your brain to respond in a different way.

Retired president of Chik-fil-A Jimmy Collins writes, “I wanted to be one of those who conquered discouragement. My method is simple. I tell myself, ‘I am not easily discouraged.’ It worked for me as a youngster and it still works for me as an old man.”

Here’s what you do. The next time you get a piece of bad news and start sliding into that discouraged place, say out loud, “I am not easily discouraged.” You may be surprised at how powerful this one statement can be.

“Don’t let discouragement rob you of life’s pleasures and success,” Collins writes. “Enthusiastically take on those difficult and dirty tasks. The pleasure of each success will encourage you to take on even greater challenges.”

5. Stop complaining.

One of the things we’re likely to do when we’re feeling discouraged is to complain, to ourselves and to others.

But I worked so hard on it. It’s not fair.

They just don’t consider new writers anymore.

I’m so tired of killing myself for nothing.

There’s nothing wrong with venting now and then. We all need a release sometimes. But when we get into the mode of complaining, we paint ourselves as victims, and that takes control right out of our hands.

If you’re a victim, you believe that something “out there” is stopping you from succeeding. That puts you squarely back in the “out of control” zone. And as long as you believe you don’t have control over your own writing career, you’re vulnerable to discouragement.

Instead of complaining about everything that’s working against you, remind yourself that yes, it’s difficult, but you have the strength you need to overcome. Remember that the tougher the journey is, the sweeter your successes will be, too.

Posting the following quote by author Catherine Pulsifer in your writing nook may also help:

“Thousands of successful people did not achieve success on their first try, but they were not discouraged. They picked themselves up and went back at it with an even stronger, single minded tenacity to achieve their goal.”

How do you keep from being easily discouraged?

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Sources
Collins, J. (2017, January 27). Are You Easily Discouraged? Retrieved from https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/you-easily-discouraged-jimmy-collins/

Duckworth, A. (2018, March 21). Are You Easily Discouraged? A Psychologist Says It All Comes Down to This 1 Thing. Retrieved from https://thriveglobal.com/stories/a-grit-expert-explains-how-setbacks-still-discourage-her/