The One Where We Beat Ourselves Up - by Liz Carter

I’d been out of hospital just 5 days, after a nasty case of double pneumonia, when I began to tell myself I was not doing enough. I should be updating my blog, growing my mailing list, engaging more on social media, writing my next book, pitching to editors for articles. I should be doing. Doing. Doing.

It didn’t help when my royalty payment arrived, and the numbers were way way down from the first six month’s sales. For some reason I’d put expectations on myself, expectations that said the book should sustain sales, or I wasn’t doing it right. The fact that sales were far lower sent me plunging into deeper depths of beating myself up. People were telling me to rest and recover, but I was doing ten rounds with my own daft expectations, and coming out of it black and blue - just to add to the multiple canula bruises from my IVs. Thankfully, the lovely people of ACW made me see sense, reminding me that books do this, especially Christian non fiction books. There’s a boost in the first six months, and then it trails off, with the occasional spike when the author does an interview. But then I started to beat myself up about not doing enough interviews, about not trying hard enough to do more speaking engagements.

For not being enough.

You’d have thought I’d have learned by now, though, wouldn’t you, that it’s not all about our productivity. I’ve even written a fiction book around this that I’ve been too much of a wuss to publish (so far… watch this space.) I know that God is more interested in our hearts than in what we do and achieve, yet I still base so much of my identity on achievement. And then there’s the comparison. I see what other Christian authors do to build up their mailing lists and their audiences, and I find myself wanting, and then…guess what? Yep. It’s the boxing ring of my imagination, once again, and the bruises and the broken bits at the end. I curl myself up into a little ball and tell myself I’m Just. Not. Good. Enough.

I wonder how many of us, as Christian writers, feel that we don’t quite do enough, that our achievements are not as sparkling as they could be (or as others’), that we are not enough. All the time, the competition seems too much, and we can forget to take joy in the successes of our peers if we become too focused in on what we have or haven’t managed to do. The more we beat ourselves up, the more the cycle perpetuates and we go further down that rabbit hole of despondency. So let’s think about some counter-attacks to our self-flagellation sessions:

1. Humble ourselves before God.
It’s not all about us - instead of being self-focused, let’s practice God-focus. In Philippians 3, Paul talks about how all the things he counted as important he now sees as loss in the light of knowing Christ:

7 But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. 8 What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things.

When we put too much emphasis on our own successes - and even failures - we can so easily lose who we really are in Christ, because we forget to centre ourselves on him, and then so easily become discontented and bitter because we are not allowing his fruits to take shape in our lives.

2. Talk to other authors - especially ACW!
When I was in the depths of my despondency, I took it to the ACW Facebook page. I’m useless, I’m rubbish, my book’s not selling so well anymore, etc, etc. And then you all came with your empathy and your realism and your love and your understanding. I’m so grateful to you all and love that we can support one another through the highs and lows.

3. Stop comparing.
Comparison is the thief of joy. That saying never gets old, does it? It’s just true. The more we compare, the less we enjoy our lives, because the grass is always greener, after all. And when it comes to writing, comparison is always that low-hanging yet toxic fruit, tempting us with shininess yet releasing so much bitterness into our souls as we allow it to shape our thoughts about us and others. When we spend our lives comparing, we forget to cheer on our fellow writers, because we are too busy thinking they are doing it better than us — and that then produces a feeling of bitterness towards them, and so the cycle goes on.

4. Be kind to ourselves.
We don’t do enough of that, do we? I’ve certainly learned that this month. I was too harsh on myself, after a nasty illness in a long-term condition, berating myself for not keeping up with my own deadline and other’s achievements. Instead of being so panicked about getting more done, I needed to listen to my body, and to God, and take time to rest - physically and spiritually.

5. Have fun with words!
We can get so bogged down in our projects and our marketing strategies that we forget to take joy in words. We forget the reason we have this passion in the first place. Perhaps at these times it would be better to step away from that which is causing us stress and anxiety, and have a little play. Write a short story. Enter a poetry competition. Enter an ACW competition! Write some haikus, or acrostics, or try writing something in a genre you’d never usually write in. This can be great fun.

6. Make a list.
For me, much of the panic comes from feeling there is too much to do, and that I will never manage it all. I often find that simply writing a list dispels some of the worry, and focuses me in on what actually needs doing rather than what I think I should be doing. List-making actually gives me a chance to breathe.

What about you? How do you beat down the beating-yourself-up monster?

Liz Carter is an author and blogger who writes about finding the treasures of God in a life of pain, and can be found over at Great Adventure. She has written Catching Contentment (IVP) and recently wrote a six week group study course alongside the book.