Episode 4: What if I can't hit deadlines?

Episode Description:

In this episode of "What If? For Authors," Claire Taylor tackles the anxiety-inducing topic of deadlines. Drawing from her experience as an Enneagram coach and her own author journey, Claire explores the complexities of deadlines and how they affect different Enneagram types. Whether you love deadlines or dread them, this episode provides a compassionate and realistic approach to managing your writing schedule.

Key Takeaways:

• Deadlines can create a sense of control and order but may also lead to burnout and disconnection from your creative work.

• Understanding your Enneagram type can provide valuable insights into your relationship with deadlines.

• It's important to develop self-compassion and flexibility when setting and attempting to meet deadlines.

• Conditions outside your control can affect your ability to meet deadlines; recognize and respect these factors.

Why Listen? If you find yourself struggling to meet deadlines or feeling overwhelmed by them, this episode offers a thoughtful and empathetic perspective. This episode is a must-listen for any author seeking to balance productivity with well-being.

Join the Conversation: Have a question or fear you'd like me to explore? Reach out to me at contact@ffs.media.

Happy Writing!

Transcript:

Claire: [00:00:00] Welcome back to another episode of What If for Authors. I'm so glad you're here. My name's Claire Taylor and I'm a certified Enneagram coach for authors, as well as a humor and mystery writer of a bunch of books. Oh, and I'm also a non-fiction writer. And by the time you listen to this episode, my latest book, Sustain Your Author Career, will probably be available to buy on all your favorite retailers.

If you like listening to me here, you'll like the book. And if you hate listening to me here, you might still like the book because I'm slightly less snarky in it than I am on this podcast. I don't know. I didn't write that book for six drunk authors at Bar Con, in other words.

I'm pretty excited about today's topic, so let's jump right into it. Today's episode asks the question, what if I can't hit deadlines? I love this question and I get it a lot because it seems like our lives [00:01:00] would have so much more ease and flow if we could just hit the damn deadlines. Doesn't it? Like set a deadline, calculate how much you have to do each day, then do that amount.

each day. My Enneagram oneness is like, fuck yeah, order instead of chaos. We love it. The bad news is that I've worked with so many authors who are trying to do this, and of those who can pull it off, they usually aren't enjoying it after a while. It's like their consciousness has completely left their body in order to hit those deadlines.

So, in other words, whatever joy or relief the author might have hoped to get from getting those rewards of hitting the deadline, it's not precisely what they're getting. Maybe it's comforting to stay on schedule? I honestly wouldn't know because I have a tendency to fill my schedule so tightly that it's a miracle I get anything done at all.

But at what [00:02:00] cost does one earn that comfort? That deadlines and staying on schedule can bring. Now, if you're listening and thinking, I love setting deadlines, and I hit them easily, and I enjoy my life, so I don't know what you're talking about, Claire, then I'm, truly, truly happy for you. That's great.

You can skip to the next episode. Let the rest of us overwhelmed degenerates talk privately then. If you're an indie author, Then you're almost always setting the deadlines for yourself. So this makes the struggle to hit deadlines, feel even more ludicrous sometimes, but I promise it makes a whole lot of sense.

Once we look at what's really going on beneath the surface here, if you're a traditionally published author, then you may not be setting the deadlines, but you're agreeing to them for the most part when you sign the contracts. So that doesn't make it harder or easier to hit those deadlines. It's just a different kind of [00:03:00] complication.

Let's say you're setting your own deadlines and then failing to hit them over and over again. There are a few things that are probably going on internally inside of you. Your adult voice is trying to put some boundaries on your creativity and add a little bit of practicality in there because you want to make money selling books, so you need to, you know, publish books.

The adult voice and the playful inner artist voice don't necessarily get along, and sometimes that artist wants to rebel against the man, even if the man is you. Why do you keep setting deadlines then? Because you're probably afraid of the chaos that will ensue if you don't. Or maybe you know that you won't do anything without the fear of a time crunch motivating you.

So this points out what many of us use deadlines for, which is fear based motivation. We create a false time scarcity with our made up deadlines to [00:04:00] try to get that adrenaline going. That can help us sometimes muster the energy to sit and write, even when any, everything in our body in our mind, in our heart, is telling us to rest.

So maybe we're not hitting these deadlines because we're too damn tired and we haven't admitted to ourselves that we need rest or given ourselves the permission to fulfill our basic human need for rest.

But it's also possible that we catch onto our own scheme. If we're the ones trying to pull one over with the synthetic time crunch, then we know it's made up. Part of us knows that the world will keep spinning if we don't finish our first draft by the end of the month or whatever. So what do we do? We stick another project right up against the deadline to create even more made up reason for us not to fall behind.

It becomes this matter of, if you miss this deadline, then you'll be behind on the next book project. And you'll [00:05:00] keep falling behind until you die. I'm telling on myself with that example, but I see it happen a lot. And it's usually found in people who are really high achievers in school. So we learned that little bit of trickery. To keep us engaged in homework and projects that didn't matter at all to us outside of the grade we could capture from them.

So yeah, we're trained to disconnect from the meaning behind our mental labor very easily. Early in life,

that can be great. If you don't work a job you love, but not great. If you're trying to work your dream job of being an author, you got to stay connected to the work or else things start to fall apart. The other problem here is that people are generally bad at estimating how long things will take them to complete, even if it's things that they've done a thousand times before, like writing a book chapter.

Humans often fall victim to the planning fallacy, which dismisses how long a project or task has taken us to complete in the past, [00:06:00] and instead estimates the time as if there will be no complications or fuck ups along the way. We won't get sick, we won't have to take an unexpected day off, we won't get shit sleep one night, and be dragging the next morning, that sort of thing.

There's also the optimism bias that we suffer from. Yeah, everybody suffers from this, where humans plan projects based on the idea that they will be functioning at their peak throughout the duration. Instead of Looking back at how long it took us the last ten times and realizing that every single book we've written has fallen behind schedule by, say, two weeks.

No way we'd add two weeks to our deadline, though. Uh uh. Never. That last time? That was last time. This time, though. This time will be different. The optimism bias happens to almost everyone, by the way, not just the self-proclaimed optimists. So you can be a pessimist and still have the optimism bias.

Already there is a lot going on with our relationship to [00:07:00] deadlines. And if someone else sets the deadline for you, there's even more happening beneath the surface. Maybe you hate the person who said it, and resent that they're telling you what to do. You may internally rebel and find that it's hard to get yourself to focus because focusing feels like bending to their will.

Or maybe someone you don't like setting a deadline for you stirs within you some real fuck this guy energy that makes you want to beat the deadline by a mile, right? That can be gratifying in the short term, but Anyone who's ever met a deadline early can also tell you what happens next. You're assigned something else right away and then given even less time to complete it because you've established a precedent of doing things quickly.

So I learned this the hard way when I was an in-house editor for Romance Publisher. It was fast paced, high volume work. There was one time I was given a single Eight hour day to proofread a 200 page manuscript. Usually though, we were given four days for a copy edit, [00:08:00] which is still not enough fucking time.

I learned real quick that if I completed something early, my reward was another manuscript right away that may or may not be a complete disaster. So the work never stopped. That's also how it goes with indie publishing. The work never stops unless you make it stop. As in, taking a break. When I was editing for this publisher, I learned that.

And I would either go slow with lots of breaks to Google factoids, that I could find in the book. Or I would finish the job ahead of deadline and act like I was still working on it, just so I could catch my breath. So not the greatest employee, but I was doing what I needed to, to stay in that job and not burn myself out completely. I can attest to the process of doing something really quickly to piss off the authority who assigned the deadlines as not a great approach. That would be an example of stupid games, stupid prizes. Now let's say you really like and respect the person who assigns you [00:09:00] the deadline. There's a whole new bag of problems there, right?

If the deadline isn't realistic, on top of the stress of trying to meet it, there's the emotional stress of not wanting to let that person down or make them disappointed in you. Or maybe you don't want to let on that you're struggling, or you want to impress them, but don't feel like you can, or maybe you feel like you're going to get in trouble or hurt the relationship in some other way.

If you miss it, all those anxieties are emotional ones that can make the already tough task of completing the project, even more fraught yikes. So now that I've given voice to a lot of the feelings around deadlines, I should probably do what I do. Best? Maybe not best. Most frequently? Sure. I'll do what I do most frequently and break this down by Enneagram type, even though I said I don't want to do that in every episode because it's a lot.

I don't see another way. So maybe it's time for me to surrender. To the [00:10:00] trap that I've set for myself. And just let this podcast be what it's going to be. Alright. The trickiness of deadlines, if you're a one, an Enneagram one, is that you tend to set them, or agree to them, based on an idealized version of yourself and your capacity.

And then, once you make them, your sense of personal obligation and responsibility urges you to do whatever it takes to meet them, even if that's burning yourself out completely. So you've gotta watch out for that. Alright.

Here's my little kick in the pants to you ones. Stop expecting more from yourself than you'd expect from anyone else. Who made you so damn special? And I mean that with love. I have to tell myself that all the time to have a little self compassion. Come on, Claire, who made you so special that you're supposed to be able to do all these things in a short amount of time, an exceptionally high standard of quality, and without triggering a single migraine?

But seriously, Ones, a little perspective goes a long [00:11:00] way. Nothing we're doing is so urgent that it's worth destroying our health and our peace. We deserve joy, too, just like everyone else. The trickiness of deadlines, if you're a two, is that you're probably overextending yourself, committing to too many things with too many people.

That need to be needed can compel you to say yes anytime someone asks for your help before you have time to think about whether you actually have time in your schedule to do what you say you're going to do. Then you might make room in your schedule by skipping out on sleep or basic self care. And then everything starts to fall apart before too long.

You'd be lucky to meet a single deadline at that point, let alone all the ones you've agreed to. So that little pause to ask if you actually have the capacity to agree to a new commitment before you agree can go a long way. And I promise, that what feels like selfishness to you doesn't register that [00:12:00] way to people who are not twos.

So practice saying, I can't commit to that. I cannot commit to that. You'll find that meeting one deadline is a lot easier than meeting 20. Strange, huh? Okay Threes, you're gonna get a rush out of deadlines. That has been my experience. Threes love deadlines. And you're gonna get a rush so much that you might give yourself too many if you start measuring your value by how many deadlines you can hit.

If you're one of the Threes who struggles with workaholism, which is most of the ones I work with, and no shame on that. We all have the thing we struggle with. If that's the case though, then you got to look at every deadline with the most suspicion possible. You may be prone to setting so many deadlines that you don't allow yourself to second guess why you're doing all the work you're doing.

The real drawback for you to being so busy is that it disconnects you from your heart center. So emotions don't [00:13:00] work on a deadline, which can be incredibly inconvenient when you like hitting deadlines. So this, the temptation here is to push them aside until you have time to feel them. But if you keep going from one project to the next without pauses in between, you end up having to disconnect from your heart center, sometimes completely, and that eventually catches up with you in a big way.

Emotions will be heard eventually, even if it takes a while. depending on how long it takes and how much you've pushed them to the side, they could come crashing in at a very inconvenient time and in a very inconvenient way. Besides, if you're only making decisions with your head and gut and leaving out your heart, you're ignoring an entire center of intelligence and likely making, frankly, heartless decisions as a result.

Businesses can only get away with those for so long before it catches up with them. So if you're a three who enjoys deadlines, consider [00:14:00] building in breaks between those deadlines. And during the projects to feel your feelings at their own pace. Eventually that heart center might become integrated enough that it's involved in everything you do.

And if you get to that point, you're going to be unstoppable, frankly. But until then, slow those deadlines down and build in space to feel your feelings. They have important things to say. Fours, meanwhile, are like deadlines? Haven't heard of them. That's obviously a gross oversimplification. There are plenty of productive, , fours. Because it's not like fours don't feel like they should be able to work on a deadline. And sometimes they face deadlines whether they put themselves there or not, and the angst over trying to meet them can become a lot.

A shame spiral can follow if the four isn't careful in these situations. So if you're a four that has no choice but to try to meet a deadline that's set by your editor, or publisher, or [00:15:00] whoever, what I recommend is to take a sticky note, then write in all caps on it, Simplify, don't complicate. Because a lot of the trouble with fours trying to hit a deadline is that they feel the need to make everything more complex than it necessarily needs to be.

So this is especially true if the four has connected the concept of complexity with authenticity. Which many fours have. So not everything is more authentic when it's complicated. Maybe go ahead and think about how you might be doing this in your mind without realizing it. If you keep things simple, when that's all they need to be, then you might be surprised how much less stress you feel around deadlines you can't control.

It's rare that I see fours set hard deadlines for themselves. And that can be a good thing for stress levels. But if the four starts feeling stressed about not having it. having anything to show for their work or their, their time or their, their thoughts and [00:16:00] feelings about the manuscript, then it's time to put some of those structures in place.

Maybe not deadlines, but other structures. Take a little bit of the structure from your line to one, if you're a four and add that into the routine. So it doesn't feel like you're really spinning your wheels constantly.

That being said, there's a difference between structure and deadlines. So pick deadlines carefully. Fives may coexist with deadlines well if they're the ones that set them, but if someone else has set the deadline and it doesn't provide enough space for the five to do the learning and research they need for the project, then that will become a point of stress, or if the expectations of the project change midway through, or or the five isn't left alone enough to work on the project in peace, then the five will definitely be stressed out.

I tend to see fives who are quite happy with setting and meeting deadlines, with the exception of a five who is under a [00:17:00] lot of stress and moving toward that scattered type seven energy. The seven energy is so counter to the focus the five usually enjoys that it can be incredibly unsettling for a five to go there.

And it will make any deadline seem like a total energy drain. Of course, no one really likes deadlines when they're slipping towards their stress type. But I point it out because I don't want any fives to feel like they're an abnormality just because deadlines do stress them out. Sixes tend to like when others set deadlines for them, assuming the person who said it seems more like a friend than a foe and has the six's best interest at heart.

It can be a relief for a 6 who spends a lot of time in doubt to have the clarity of a deadline. But that doubt can sometimes lead to stress when the deadline is near, and there are still big decisions to be made. A 6 is likely to feel emotional stress around possibly getting in [00:18:00] trouble for not meeting the deadline, which doesn't always add clarity.

to the decision process. On the other hand, some sixes are just going to rebel about anything that anyone calling themselves authority tells them to do. In which case, the six will very much not respond well to externally set deadlines. A lot about this depends on how the six feels about the person setting the deadline, and whether the six wants to keep ties with them or subtly undermine them.

When it comes to deadlines that sixes set for themselves, I haven't seen a whole lot of success with this, but if the six can somehow wrangle their sense of duty to apply to their own progress, I could see it working. Sevens and deadlines are who, boy, . My advice to my type seven clients is generally not to set a deadline because it doesn't usually create the intended result of getting things [00:19:00] done.

Instead, it. It often causes the Seven to either miss the deadline and then develop a complex, usually one that was started way back in elementary school, about how they can never hit deadlines and are irresponsible, so on and so forth. Or the Seven does manage to hit the deadline, but only through massive last minute spikes in cortisol, overdoing it with caffeine, and inviting the taskmaster voice of their inner critic.

To berate them about being irresponsible until the job is done. So none of that is what I would define as healthy. what a shitty gift to leave at the altar of productivity. Here is, here is all of my health. I have destroyed it. I usually recommend seven set up a system of celebration checkpoints along the path and start to notice when they're feeling FOMO and use that indicator to bring their attention back to the task at hand.

The manuscript will be [00:20:00] done when it's done. And that actually goes for all types. Eights like the challenge of deadlines, but like ones, they're not particularly great at estimating how long they realistically need. Part of this for eights is that they are caught in cycles of forcefulness, so forcing things feels incredibly familiar and is therefore not their approach of choice for writing.

Too much free time can make the eight uncomfortable, so they create near impossible timelines with those deadlines to keep themselves in that aroused state of forcing. At the same time, eights can feel like deadlines are restrictions, even the deadlines they set for themselves. And if that switch is flipped, Then the rebelling will start if they're, they're feeling of being controlled is triggered, activate rebellion, even if it's not in the eight's best interest, this can happen.

[00:21:00] So eights need to be conscious of what it feels like when they go from rushing toward a deadline. To feeling the restriction of it, like it's trying to impede on their independence. A little flexibility can go a long way. With that deadline moving it a little bit back, just a tad, that can go a long way.

And it may be, just hear me out, eights. It may be, better than burning the deadline to the ground. I'm just, I'm throwing it out there. Nines almost always self identify as procrastinators, but I find that they just need a little extra time to percolate before they're ready to act. The percolation We'll often take up as much space as it's allowed though, so that's something to consider when looking at deadlines for a nine.

More percolation time doesn't necessarily mean a better result either. I find that nines would prefer not to have deadlines, so they don't tend to put them on [00:22:00] themselves. When they do, they can usually, you know, it doesn't matter themselves out of sticking to the deadlines. All the nines tendency to believe that they don't matter and therefore their work isn't important is usually a belief that I, I will work with nines to challenge and possibly dispel.

In this case, I agree. In the indie publishing world, especially, it doesn't really matter that much if you finish the book today or next week as long as you don't have, you know, like a pre order date set or an appointment with an editor booked already, then it's okay. I think more types could benefit from listening to the 9's approach here, but at the same time, if someone sets a deadline for the 9, then we can run into issues.

Adding a deadline doesn't suddenly sort out the 9's struggle to prioritize. And, you know, isolate the most important elements of their work in progress. So, for example, if a three is running up against a deadline, they might take a step back, [00:23:00] look at what parts of the novel are most important to readers, and give their attention to those specific places in the minimal time they have left.

A nine will probably struggle to see one element as more important than the others because of how the nine sees everything. Being so connected. I mean, that's their gift, seeing how everything is connected and in harmony with each other. So, the Nine is more likely to simply start back at the beginning for revisions and then try and just go all the way through giving equal attention to every part.

Which is slow work. So adding a deadline doesn't magically change this about the nine, so the nine may either miss the deadline, or simply be very, very stressed and disappointed in themselves on the home stretch. So there are all the problems with deadlines that each type may run into. As a one, I'm great at finding problems sometimes even where there are none, [00:24:00] but I would also be remiss if I didn't leave you with some possible solutions and hope, because that's what this podcast is about. Okay. So deadlines create comfort.

They create a sense of control and order over the future. And they certainly help when multiple people are involved in a project. Okay. But in general, I think capitalism's idea that our value comes from our production has made us worship at the altar of deadlines way too much. The world won't end if you don't have your beats written by a certain day.

If shit pops up in your life and you have to delay the completion of your book by a week or even a year, people may be disappointed, some may even be angry with you, but no one will die. That doesn't mean your book isn't important. It just means that it's not more important than everything else in your life.

I will always encourage you to put your health and well being first. Otherwise, you'll hit a point where you can't write [00:25:00] any books because you're so unwell or dead. So let's delay the inevitable as long as possible, shall we? I encourage you to go back and listen again to where I talk about your type's relationship with deadlines.

The first step to addressing the anxiety around missing deadlines is to really dig into your beliefs about what deadlines signal About you and about the world around you and notice how you might be using them as a way of avoiding dealing with deeper fears. Speaking from personal experience, I don't love the feeling of not hitting a deadline.

There was a period in my life where I prided myself on always hitting deadlines, no matter what it took. Now I just think about that and feel like, ugh. I push back deadlines all of the time, and I've never seen anything catastrophic happen as a result. Pushing back deadlines is one of the luxuries of being an indie author, and yes, [00:26:00] I've That means I set deadlines for myself, but they're as malleable as can be, because I have been humbled, more times than I can count, by my own ambition as it runs face first into the brick wall of reality.

So rather than deadlines, I create more of like production schedules that are designed to be easily pushed backward if I need that, and I usually need that. I intended to start recording this podcast, for instance, about four months earlier than I actually started recording it. Would I have liked to hit that deadline?

That malleable deadline? Well, no, actually, when I think about it, the deadline hitter part of me is like, yeah, I would have loved that. But the wise part of me says, no, I didn't want to hit that. My dog died right around that time. And I couldn't think straight. That wouldn't have made a very good podcast. I would have sounded like a raving, you know, lunatic over here. I would have been crying too many [00:27:00] times in between, sentences. So yeah, I'm actually really grateful for my developed ability to cut myself some slack around deadlines. And I really emphasize that this is a developed ability, this is a muscle that I've built. It meant that I could mourn when I needed to and still return to the project when I was ready without feeling like I was already behind or had somehow failed.

I'm going to leave you with this. We're in the heart of wildflower season in Austin, as I record this episode. And I think a lot about how that season changes each year. Nature doesn't have any deadlines. It has these natural flows. We don't get mad at the bluebonnets if they're not blooming by a certain date.

Instead, we sit and we wait with anticipation, knowing, having faith that they'll bloom when [00:28:00] they're ready to bloom. And when that happens, we celebrate and delight them. in the existence of the bluebonnets. We recognize that it's bluebonnet season, and then families go and take pictures in them. No one is mad about any delay in it, because we understand that the blooms are so dependent on conditions.

Conditions they can't control, like rain and sunshine and temperatures. They bloom when they're ready. And then we just fuckin frolic when they do. So, you, too, are actually dependent on the conditions around you that you can't control. So what if instead of letting our hubris convince us that we have the ultimate control over our life, we instead respected that the conditions might not have been right just yet for our manuscript to come to fruition?

And when those conditions are met, and our stories bloom, you, too, What if we just allow ourselves to pause, enjoy the moment, and [00:29:00] celebrate? So set the deadlines if they give you a sense of peace for now, or a target to shoot for, but hold them lightly. And don't let them tell you who you are and what you're capable of.

Do what you can to stay connected to yourself, to your story, and your purpose for writing. And then you can trust that the book will be ready when it's meant to be ready. So that's it for this episode. If you want to reach out to me, email me at contact@FFS.media, or check out how we can work together at FFS.media. Thanks for listening. And I'll be back with another episode for you soon. I'm not committing to a deadline for it though.

Episode 3: What if I've tried everything?

Episode Description:

In the third episode of "What If? For Authors," we dive into the daunting question many authors face: "What if I've tried everything?" If you're feeling stuck in your writing career and you're seeking new ways to break through barriers, this episode offers valuable perspectives and actionable steps to reignite your motivation and discover new possibilities.

Key Takeaways:

• Understanding your Enneagram type can help you identify and break free from limiting patterns.

• There are always more options available than you might initially see, especially when you shift your perspective.

• Small experiments and curiosity can lead to significant breakthroughs in your writing career.

Why Listen? If you feel like you've hit a wall in your author career, this episode offers a fresh perspective and practical guidance to help you move forward. Claire's deep understanding of the Enneagram provides unique insights tailored to individual personality types, making this episode a must-listen for any author seeking growth and new possibilities.

Join the Conversation: Have a question or fear you'd like me to explore? Reach out to me at contact@ffs.media.

Happy writing!

Transcript:

Claire: [00:00:00] Welcome back to another episode of What If for Authors. I'm so glad you're here. My name's Claire Taylor and I'll be your host, your guide, your Virgil through the nine circles of hell and back out again as we ask the scary question and then answer it to discover that you're gonna be okay. It'll be fine.

You're great. Besides being a Virgil, I'm an author of a bunch of satire and mystery books, I created and run FFS Media, and I'm an Enneagram certified author coach. Woohoo! I also realized that I am coming up on nine years. Since I told my nine-to-five to suck it, and then started working for myself full time.

My last day working there was May 29th, 2015. Oh, 2015. Ah, we were so naive back then. It was early May. When I decided [00:01:00] I was going to leave, because I got tired of being the lowest paid person in the office, despite doing most of the work for the directors who didn't know their asses from a hole in the ground, totally separate story.

So I had like laid out everything that I've been doing for the last year for the CEO. And I was like, this is the role I want you to create for me. Cause I'm already doing it. I'm just not getting the title and not getting paid. And he said, that sounds good to me. Let me run it by the COO. And then she shot it down and blamed it on the board of directors. So I don't know. She hated me for whatever reason by that point. , but I do think about how my rage in those moments around getting shot down and then the days following, I do think about how that rage, while perhaps admittedly a little outsized in the moment, it was this great catalyst for me to get more in alignment with what I really wanted to do, which was work for myself and be an author full time.

So that anger. Came from a betrayal. So I, I had a long [00:02:00] history with the COO, but basically she used to be a mother figure to me growing up. So that anger was calling me to take action. That's what I really like about anger. As an Enneagram one, my main work is to examine my vice of anger in all its forms.

So, yeah, I think about anger a lot. I used to repress it and pretend I wasn't angry, but I don't do that. now I try not to, and I recommend that anyone listening try not to just swallow down the, the anger and rage. That's no bueno.

So relating to anger, I sort of split anger into two varieties. So there's healthy anger that points us toward right action. So maybe that's like the anger that causes us to stand up to a bully or engage in local activism, or You know, set a boundary that needs to be set or express to someone that they've hurt us or someone else.

That's what anger can inspire us to do. It can give us a little bit of physical energy to [00:03:00] go and do that sort of hard or scary thing. And then there's whatever anger is left over after you've taken all the right action you can think of. And that tends to be Unhealthy anger and it comes from things like, you know, internalized sense of entitlement or perfectionism or insecurity or these other little things that are really happening mostly inside of us stories that we have internalized, , where we're just going to be angry all the time if we don't address those stories.

So when I feel anything in the anger family of emotions, contempt, annoyance, frustration, irritation, uh, obviously rage, I now like to pause and ask what right action I'm being asked to take by that sort of fiery feeling. And if the anger is not asking me to take any clear and useful action, then probably, Probably.

I just need to deal with my own shit because I have some expectation of the world that's unrealistic and sort of causing that [00:04:00] disconnect and that frustration. Anyway, I should talk about today's question. I think it's a good one. , and of course I'm biased because I picked it, but this is one I hear a lot, so I think it's great.

Today we're going to ask this question. What if I've tried everything.

The implication is that if you've tried everything and nothing's worked to get your author career to where you want it to be, then what next? Like, I've tried everything. Do I just give up? , so this sentiment falls into likely the frustration category for most people, which is, my wheelhouse, as I mentioned. Great news though, and this may be a little bit of a spoiler, but you haven't tried everything. If you feel like you've tried everything, spoiler, you have not tried everything. You will never get to the point where you've tried everything. You might get to a point where you feel like you've tried everything you can think to do that fits within your set of rules of what you're allowed to do, but that's not everything that's available to you.

So let's talk about that because the [00:05:00] Enneagram has so much to say about it and it's all good news.

I'm going to do a very brief little primer on the Enneagram first because a lot of people think they know what the Enneagram measures and how it works, but they haven't necessarily studied it. Deeply. So if that's you, this is no shade to you. You're busy. You have other things in your life, which is why you're listening to me right now.

So I can pump facts straight into your ear holes real quick. So let's do it. Uh, each Enneagram type is built on a single core fear and core desire pair. So this is how you know what type you are, what your core fear slash desire are. These two are flip sides of the same coin, so if you're an 8, an Enneagram 8, your fear is to be harmed or controlled, and your desire is to be independent and strong.

You can see how those are the same things from opposite angles, right? Now, for the core fear and desire, which together form what we call the core motivation, these patterns [00:06:00] of thinking, feeling, and doing arise. To oversimplify a lot, I hate to do this, but I, you know, I, I understand it helps sort of grasp the concept at the start, but to oversimplify a lot, if you're an eight who doesn't want to be harmed or controlled, your attention is going to narrow in on threats to your autonomy and independence.

So that attentional pattern means that your thoughts will naturally drift towards power dynamics. You may tune out feelings that make you feel vulnerable. And your actions will mostly be bold and done despite what anyone tells you to do. That sort of sketches a picture of the eight for you right there, doesn't it?

Of course, if you're an eight, you're thinking, I'm not that simple, you don't know me. And I get it. I get it. I'm not trying to control you with this knowledge eight. So the pattern of thinking and feeling and doing Yeah. , those patterns relate to our type and they start at a very young age. You can usually spot them back to about three or four years old when we start having a personality, whether it's [00:07:00] nature or nurture, that's, you know, sort of the question that no one could ever really arrive at what.

What is nature? What is nurture? So I don't think it's important. , the point is that you have one type your whole life, and it usually starts to set in at three or four, but basically those patterns have a lot of time to dig their heels into our lives before we get to the point where they really stop working for us, and we have to like call a timeout and start doing this work.

To look at them, to see how these patterns that seemed like they were really helpful have now kind of, , built a prison for us. So by the time we get to that point, these patterns are, are pretty well established inside of us. So, essentially these patterns getting dug in means that they've created very strong neural connections in our brains.

we've created neural pathways. That when this stimulus happens, this thought about the world is a response, or this emotion is a response, or we do this action. We will default to these patterns before we even realize we're [00:08:00] defaulting to them. That's how, subconscious and sometimes unconscious they are.

So doing NERAM work is all about rooting out those patterns and trying to establish some new options for ourselves by experimenting with new thoughts, feelings, and actions, and creating some new neural pathways for our brain.

So do you know what that means? It means that the Enneagram work leads us to see more options. More options. You haven't tried everything. You're not out of options now. Woohoo!

The Enneagram type, sometimes called a style, is also referred to as a lens. So before we start unpacking these patterns, and that's something you can do through other processes like therapy, reading about psychology and sociology and so forth. There are other modalities that can help you start to see your patterns.

But before we start seeing and unpacking our established patterns. We're essentially walking around with blinders on. So our field of vision, [00:09:00] and this is a field of vision for what is possible, what we, as we know ourselves, do or can do or think or feel, that field of vision is incredibly narrow.

We also tend to assume that everyone is working with the same lens as our own. So when people act based on different core motivations, it can be shocking, enraging, confusing, depressing, or it can just be like really scary to us. So we sense that something is different between them and us, something very fundamental, but we don't have the language, the understanding to name it.

The big scary thing that nobody likes to name when they start learning about Enneagram is that if there are nine types, and they are just one of the types, then maybe their way of thinking, feeling, and doing isn't the best and only sensible one. So that can shake the ground you stand on to think about at first.

A lot of your defaults about how things work and your place in the [00:10:00] world are going to be challenged by just admitting that you are one of nine equal types. And this is where a lot of people kind of nope out of this learning altogether. They don't feel like they're ready to remove those blinders. They don't like how it feels when they do, when someone tries to take those blinders off of them.

It's, it's too much, right? It spooks the horse. There's a reason we have blinders. Okay, so that's a lot of theory, right? Let's ground this theory in some practical application to our author career, shall we? Let's go through some examples of how an author might feel like they've tried everything and nothing's worked, and then how they might go about seeing some new workable possibilities.

I'm gonna start with an example of an Enneagram 6 author who's usually called the Loyalist, but I like to call them the Faithful Writer. That's because the 6's journey is from fear to courage, and the key tool for that journey is [00:11:00] development of faith. So not necessarily in a religious sense, not faith in a religious sense, but this can look like faith in their ability to handle whatever comes their way, 6's are actually damn good at since they're usually over prepared.

So it's really about understanding it and building that confidence that they can handle it, not, building preparedness. Anyway, our sixth writer feels like they've tried everything in their career and their career is just not getting off the ground. Okay, first of all, bummer. That feeling sucks. So the Six's core fear is being unsupported and without guidance, and their desire is to have guidance and support.

Right? Two sides of the same coin. The problems arise when the Six starts trying to do, the thing that we all do, which is seek what can only be found internally, So they're trying to find outside guidance to listen to because they've lost trust in their inner [00:12:00] authority and guidance that inner guiding voice, the sixes start to lose touch with it.

And then they end up in all this doubt and fear because they feel kind of unmoored. It's, it's very, it can be very disruptive to live life as a six. I have a lot of compassion for the sixes out there, but also. We need you sixes. We need, we need someone to point out the risks involved in things and slow things down and make us think about things in a practical sense.

Okay. So the sixes are trying to find that outside guidance because they have lost touch with their inner guidance. But the problem with trusting someone else to be your guidance and support is that it gives them. easy access to betray you, or pull that support out from under you. So this reality can cause a 6 to live in a state of hypervigilance about their social connections and their resources and so on.

Just general hypervigilance about what could [00:13:00] happen. So here's where I'd start to poke around, from my position as a coach. So with a six who thinks they've tried everything, there's probably a lot of great options that the six is scared to try and can't imagine themselves trying feels unprepared to try.

So probably the six already knows what those options are in their gut, but has stopped trusting their gut. So I might ask the six what options they could see for someone else in their position. Or I might encourage them to ask what someone who seemed incredibly confident and brave might try.

Right, just to start sort of engaging in that imagination, it can be really helpful to get outside of her own sympathetic nervous system to start imagining. And there's really nothing better than a call to curiosity, to help us expand our options, right? Curiosity. [00:14:00] is a really nice antidote to fear and anxiety.

Because fear and anxiety is sort of like something bad will happen. And curiosity sort of flips that and goes, Well, I don't know what's going to happen. I wonder what will happen. Right? So we're already taking a little bit of that negative edge off. The Six may not be able to execute on any of the options they come up with for that, you know, imagined, courageous person until they themselves do some work on their doubt and these sort of hyper arousal patterns of hyper vigilance and anxiety.

And that's okay, The Six doesn't need to jump into things. What a lot of people will advise Sixes to do is to just rush towards the thing, right? Just go for it. No, not just go for it. Sixes, don't worry. I'm not going to be like, just face your fear and just run toward it. That is not great. There's this, , window of tolerance that we have, which I can talk more [00:15:00] about it later, but Basically, we want to stay within our window of tolerance and we can expand it through curiosity, but really just jumping outside of it is just going to traumatize us.

So like, if you just go for it and things don't work out really well, you're just going to be less likely to push that sort of, those sort of limits for yourself, you know, cautiously, but, but gently push those limits for yourself. So we don't want to We don't want to do that. Don't worry. What we want to do is, , just acknowledge that the Six can see some options for other people.

It's still progress to simply see that those options are there, even if the Six can't yet see themselves doing that. Right? That seed of curiosity is still planted, and if the six waters that seed, it'll grow.

So when we're looking to try new things, it's super helpful to start small and frame it as an [00:16:00] experiment. An experiment is premised on the idea that that we don't know what will result. And so in reality, we're kind of always experimenting. We may believe we know what the result will be. We may have a pretty good guess.

Our guests may follow previous patterns, but we never really know what the result will be. So living life in sort of this experimenting phase could be really helpful. It can keep us from getting stuck in our patterns. But essentially with an experiment, you're forming a hypothesis, right?

So we all have this hypothesis of what we think will happen. But then we run the experiment, and if it doesn't turn out the way we thought it would, that doesn't mean it's a bad experiment. It means we have more information, And more information, especially for a 6, can mean more security and guidance, You know more now. Right? You're more informed. That can be a sense of security. So it may feel like you're back to square one if your experiment doesn't go as planned, [00:17:00] but you're not. You have information that you didn't have before. You're smarter now. You're wiser. You're better informed. And so maybe the next experiment will work out better as a result.

Activate that curiosity. Maybe this will be better. Let's see.. Do I have time to talk about one more type without losing the attention of the six drunk authors at my table? Uh, maybe. Let's try it. Let's try it. Okay. So with the type four, sometimes called the individualist, but who I like to think of as the authentic writer. I think the authenticity is so central to Not only the gifts of the four, , as an author, but some of the problems that the four runs into.

Let's talk about it. So a four thinks they've tried everything and nothing has worked. Okay. The four's fear is that they'll lack significance and identity, and their desire is to feel significant and authentically themselves. So the four's tight grip onto this idea of authenticity and Is what usually causes the blinders, [00:18:00] to the options for getting their books in the hands of readers, right?

That need to be authentic, fully authentic all the time, can, I see it most often, start to create Some tough situations, some challenges when it comes to getting the books that they've written into the hands of the readers. , their narrow definition of authentic, that's what I would poke at a little bit.

That narrow definition is the narrowing of the blinders for the four. So, fours tend to mention their books, Once every harvest moon or whatever and then expect that something will happen, right? They'll mention it if it feels like an authentic moment to mention that they have a book, but they're not going to create Opportunities necessarily to mention their book and there's this hope that if I mention it once that should be enough.

that's Not reality with selling. It can seem kind of gross and inauthentic to a four to really sell the products So marketing can feel like phoniness and if that's the case for the four They're going [00:19:00] to run out of options that fit that narrow definition of authenticity really fucking quick Let me tell you, , they'll look at the three who has no time to wait around to be discovered and is actively telling everyone who will listen about their books and the four will go, Ooh, not for me.

And fair enough. If you're a four, you're not a three, but if your approach of posting a picture of your book once and then hoping it will be discovered, isn't getting you where you want, maybe it's time to reframe. And we can do a reframe that's going to feel natural here. So I'm not going to be just like twisting things and telling you, just be happy.

Just be optimistic. Um, I'm going to give you a very real reframe here. Here's the question I would pose to you to kind of get that curiosity going. Is it inauthentic to try to get your books to the people who would connect deeply with them? Is it inauthentic to care enough? to try to get the books to the people who would connect deeply with them.

And then I'll [00:20:00] ask you, what's your purpose of writing if not to be understood by others deeply and help them understand themselves more deeply too? That's important. So might it be worth making your cover More, you know, on genre or reworking your blurb to really make your tropes pop. And yes, you have tropes in your book, uh, or might a little bit of comprehensibility and simplification and your products packaging.

Be worth whatever quote unquote inauthenticity you're feeling there if it gets the words themselves into the hands of the people who would cherish those words.

Sometimes, fours can unconsciously convolute authenticity with complexity. So this can look like this. lead to the four making things complex, complicated for the sake of feeling authentic, rather than because the thing [00:21:00] actually needs to be complex. So I'm talking book covers, marketing copy, even just sentence by sentence in the book itself.

Fours can experience a real breakthrough to all kinds of new options when they take a hard look at that false correlation they may be holding between complexity and authenticity. So where might the most authentic expression of something Actually be the most simple. There's a challenge for you fours.

Where are you making processes and marketing and your writing career more complicated merely to appease your ego's need to feel special? Yikes. Okay. That was kind of a cheap shot, wasn't it? But don't worry, all fours like the emotional realness. I, I get it. Um,

so if you feel like you've tried everything, I want to encourage you to pause, take a few deep breaths, and rest assured that you have not. Regardless of your type, you have not tried [00:22:00] everything. Maybe you've tried everything that you can see with your blinders on, but just a little bit of this deep work can go a long way toward creating new options.

If you want to do that and you need a Virgil, you can come work with me and I'll show you those blinders and the steps to removing them. It'll be much more individualized. All my offerings are at ffs. media. But hell, you've listened this long, so, okay, here's a question to ask yourself for each type to start poking away.

Before you even come see me, just ask this question, see what comes up, and you may have some interesting answers. , ideas. You may see some things through fresh eyes. So I'm going to do this by type. So if you are a 1, ask, Where is my fear of making a mistake keeping me from running experiments? 2s ask, Where is my need to be needed preventing me from asking for advice from others?

Threes, okay, threes rarely feel like they've tried everything, but I'll include them anyway. Okay, if you're a [00:23:00] three, ask, where has my definition of success narrowed what I'm willing to try?

Fours ask, where have I been valuing complexity over simplicity when simplicity might be better?

Fives ask, where could I tap into the expertise of others Instead of trying to learn it all myself, sixes ask what low stakes experiment can I run to get more information? Sevens, sevens also don't usually feel like they've tried everything and their dilemma is generally that they want to try everything but can't make it all happen at once.

Uh, but if you're a seven who feels like you've tried everything to, say, focus on one task, here's what you can ask yourself. What pain am I not acknowledging here that is causing my attention to jump elsewhere? Eighths ask how has my need to be an island kept me from [00:24:00] collaborative options? Nines ask what part of myself have I been hiding to avoid conflict, and how has that created unpleasant tension?

inner conflict instead. On that last one for the nines, my hope is that the nine gets a little pissed off thinking about how the world doesn't feel safe for them to show up in fully because nines are in the anger triad, but they fall asleep to that anger. So waking up to it is how they start to connect with their types virtue of right action.

Again, some anger is healthy. Anger is in nines, whether they see it or not. And if they don't see it, then it just kind of sneaks around and fucks with their physical, emotional, and mental health. So nines. It's time to root it out. Alright, that brings us to the end of this episode. If you feel like you're out of options, you're not.

It might take a little work on the inside to be able to see those other options, but I promise it's worth it. A little bit of poking. Can lead to a [00:25:00] revelation, which I think is pretty rad So if you want to go a little deeper on this I do offer a five week course called the liberated writer and I also offer a liberated writer retreat each year for like a small number of Authors people who are fed up with their existing patterns and want a safe and supportive place to Reset and try some new things on for size, or you can book an author alignment with me. You if you're not even sure what your Enneagram type is yet, reach out to me and we can get you set up with an IEQ nine assessment, which is the most accurate one available and will immediately tell you a heap about yourself.

So thanks for joining me as we asked and answered this question together. I look forward to talking at you again in the next episode of What If for Authors.

Episode 2: What if I hate social media?

Episode Description:

Welcome to the inaugural episode of "What If? For Authors," the podcast that delves into the fears and uncertainties authors face. Join me while I explore the motivation behind starting this podcast and set the stage for the insightful discussions to come.

Why Listen? Whether you're a seasoned writer or just starting your journey, "What If? For Authors" aims to provide you with the support, advice, and reassurance you need to overcome your fears and succeed in your writing career. This podcast is a safe space to explore the "what ifs" that often hold us back, with the goal of turning those fears into fuel for your creative fire.

Join the Conversation: Have a question or a fear you'd like me to explore? Reach out to me at contact@ffs.media.

Happy writing!

Transcript:

Claire: [00:00:00] Welcome back to episode two of What If for Authors.

I'm so glad you're here. Today we are answering the question, what if I hate social media?

I'm Claire Taylor, your host, the owner of FFS Media, a humor and mystery author, an Enneagram coach for authors—et cetera. Okay, so this is my first full episode, so I will be figuring out how this works, experimenting a little, trying things on for size.

I don't actually know how long these episodes will turn out to be, but I'll try to keep it reasonable. There might be variation, which I will I have heard is not a great strategic move for a podcast, but I would counter that not saying things that need to be said because of artificial time constraints or saying bullshit just to fill up artificial time constraints is also not that [00:01:00] strategic for keeping listeners around. So we're going to do it the way I want to do it. So I've decided that my approach when it comes to speaking into the void is I'm just gonna imagine a group of like six drunk people sitting at a table with me at some bar con and someone just said, Hey Claire, what does the Enneagram have to say about that?

Oh God, I love it when someone cues me up like that. Anyway, I don't know that more than 20 people will ever listen to this podcast, so I like my new approach. I think I'm going to go with it. Um, and that's not to poo poo on the 20 people that are going to be the audience of this show. I would be thrilled if 20 people downloaded each of these episodes. Like, where else do I get to speak to 20 eager listeners each week? Fuck yeah, I'm here for it. Welcome 20 of you. Or if it's just the six drunk people at the table, uh, I'm glad you're here as well. So onto today's question, because I think it's an important one, and [00:02:00] that's, what if I hate social media?

Tough shit. Eat some raw meat and do it anyway. Uh, no, that is. That is not my answer. I have ended up on the wrong algorithm on Instagram, and that is now a lot of my videos. I, I started sending those, like , you know, the, the manosphere influencers. I've, I've started sending those to one of my friends who thinks this is funny as I do, and now the algorithm is very confused and sends me a bunch of that.

But no, you don't need to go on the carnivore diet or whatever, you know, you don't need to eat raw meat. You don't need a six pack to answer this question. We are just going to proceed, like well adjusted people. So of course it's fine if you hate social media. I kind of do too, frankly, maybe not hate, maybe that's a stronger word.

Uh, in some cases not strong enough word in other cases, and I don't feel the same way about all social media, but it definitely makes my [00:03:00] soul feel like it's swimming against the current every time I get on there. So generally when we talk about social media, we're talking about a lot of different things at once, and that's rarely the most discerning approach to making business decisions.

So as I use the word social media, I encourage you to pause and ask yourself, Which social media comes to mind when you think about how much you like or hate it? So which platforms? Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, uh, Tumblr, X, Twitter. Did I miss one? Uh, Reddit, LinkedIn. Onlyfans? Now, I guess OnlyFans is more of a subscription service.

The point is that when we have a negative reaction to something as varied as quote unquote social media, that's usually a good indicator for us to pause and sort of activate discernment. So for me, I currently enjoy Instagram, or maybe I'm just addicted to it.

I don't know, but it doesn't make me [00:04:00] want to puke when I get on and check it. So I check threads sometimes, but I find that it stirs contempt in me for humanity that I don't necessarily consider healthy. so I, I regulate my time on threads. I will post a thread and then. Disappear. For me, Facebook is boring because I curated my feed to make it so.

Again, because of that contempt I was feeling for humanity. Uh, LinkedIn, it makes me feel like someone carved my personality out with a melon baller. So anyway, That's, you know, case by case, I feel differently about social media platforms is my point. So for me, Instagram is really the only game I cared that much about.

So TikTok was fun for me when I was on it, but it was way too much dopamine for my brain. And I started to notice that my mood was more dysregulated while I had access to that on my phone, not just while I was scrolling it or immediately after, but kind of on a day to day [00:05:00] basis, I was having, , trouble feeling, you know, sort of the high, fun, light emotions.

And I was just thinking, okay, my brain is just dopamined out. Like. Not, you know, not a drop of serotonin to be found. So obviously I took that off my phone, not worth it. So TikTok may not even be around much longer. I don't know which, and that's quite bad for some people who've built their businesses on it.

So I'm not going to make light of that. But for me, TikTok was not for me. So basically I don't love social media much either. And here's the thing. If you really don't enjoy a platform. You'll never be successful through it, period. You need to hear that. You will never take off, reach the stratosphere on a platform that you don't enjoy.

It's just not going to happen. You just are lacking the motivation that it takes to really move the needle. So if you only [00:06:00] half like threads, you'll lack the motivation to, you know, post incessantly, you know, to the point where you start to really gain random followers who have never heard of you before threads.

If you hate Instagram, forget about it. The algorithm is shit now anyway, but even back when reels could catapult your visibility, you had to do a lot to get them to get you anywhere. So don't worry, I'm not going to explain social media tactics on this episode, because for one, that's boring. Uh, and it changes so much that anything I could tell you, it would be obsolete next month.

So instead I I want to tell you, , what I know about people's relationship to social media, and lay out some options for you to use it, , options that hopefully don't make you want to become an off the grid outdoor survivalist. Do I think social media is necessary to have a career as an author?

Nope. I've seen people pull it off. it's tricky, but it can happen. Uh, you'll probably [00:07:00] want to get really good at ads or like hand selling at cons or markets. And you'll probably also want to master the art of an email list. if your goal, your objective is to sell books. but those are helpful for authors who do like social media.

So whether or not you're on social media, those are probably good skills for you to have. There's also the possibility that you don't care about selling a lot of books and that's perfectly fine. That's an okay way to live your life and run your author career. You don't have to be a best selling or even a mid lister, , author to have an author career.

If you have or want to sell a single copy of your book to someone, then you have a career. Woo hoo. We can call it whatever we want. These labels are very, uh, flexible anyway. You could say, I want to have an author career, but I don't care that much about, making a thousand dollars a month. That isn't necessary for my life off books. Great. You now have a bunch more options, including, , [00:08:00] just forgetting about social media if you want to. But if you want to sell some books, having social media accounts can be helpful. Even if you don't do that much with them or anything with them, really.

So there are a few approaches to social media, and I think it's important to consider which one we might take. You can view social media as a lead generator for your books. So that would be like taking a cold audience, people who don't know anything about you, warming them up, maybe getting them onto your list or reading your first book in series.

So this approach works easiest on platforms where organic reach is very fruitful, which is currently. None of them. All right. Even TikTok's organic reach is narrowing significantly and very quick. So by the time you listen to this episode, who even knows what will be happening with TikTok. , but basically people who got in early on there may continue to have good reach, assuming it's not shut down.

[00:09:00] but folks who are starting on TikTok today, Or who are on TikTok, you know, a couple of years ago, but haven't really done much with it. It's going to really be pushing a boulder uphill to get that organic reach to work for you in the sense of finding complete strangers. Which is a cold audience like ice cold audience and starting to warm them up to not just you But to the point where they will go purchase something.

That's a long walk for a reader So I don't encourage anyone to necessarily see social media as a safe place selling platform or a place to find cold leads for readers. That's really hard. And if you already don't like social media, forget about it. Like there's just no point in you expending your energy on something like that.

So instead the approach that seems to be worth taking is connecting with existing fans on social media. So you would make your profile a place where people who already like you and your books can come and see [00:10:00] more of you. So the difference between what kind of content you use to deepen existing relationships versus Hooking in people who've never heard of you, that's a huge difference.

So pause to think about that. What would it take for you to start following a person on social media who you don't know, have no information on, you just see a reel, right? it's just you and some random person on, let's say, Instagram. What would it take for you to start following that person on social media?

What would giving them access to your feed. So any, any creepy dudes sliding into DMs that are listening to this, you can sit this one out because I know it doesn't take much for you. But for most people, it will take more than a couple of funny or relatable videos in a row before you're willing to actually hit that follow button.

Meanwhile, what happens if you're already on social media and you see that your favorite author is on there? [00:11:00] Probably an instant follow, right? And you're likely to engage with their content more too, because you already know about them. So, if you, as an author, can tolerate it at all, taking the approach of using whatever social media platforms you like to just share little bits about your writing or your life, that's a great way to deepen your connections with your readers and keep your books front of mind for them.

And this is front of mind in a landscape where, , Attention is the most precious commodity. It is really hard to keep anyone's attention. And as marketers, our job is to not expect that someone will see our book once and go buy it. That almost never happens, even with some of our most rabid fans.

The super fans out there may need to see the book a couple times before they buy it. Not because they don't like the book, but because they're busy as shit, [00:12:00] right? They're busy. They're distractible like all of us. So you can use social media to just be another touch point, right? if you use it this way, that doesn't mean you need to post daily, or even weekly.

But you can tell people where to find you, and then when you do have something to share, or like a new book release, you have at least one more touchpoint for your readers to let them know that, hey, this is here. Would you like it? , your social media doesn't have to be more than that. Your presence doesn't have to be more than that.

But that is a really useful and sort of low maintenance use for it. But wait! There's less. You can also simply create an account on a social media platform and post on that account, something to the effect of, I don't use this platform, but I have free shit you might like on my email list. So click here to join that community.

So that's essentially being a social media squatter, you know, like just go be a social [00:13:00] media squatter. Who cares? Some people will join your list from that, which is great. , but you also have less of a chance of someone, you know, stealing your, , real estate, taking your name, pretending to be you, which almost never happens unless you're like super famous, in which case just hire someone to do your social media.

But, um, it is sort of staking your claim because there may be people who really like a particular platform. You may have readers who really like, , X. That's great for them. I just had a very visual image of what those people look like. And then I was like, Claire, you have a bias there. Look at that bias.

Okay. Thank you, brain. , But let's say you have a reader who really likes being on X, spends a lot of time on X, and has just finished your book or sees it, you know, on the table as they're scrolling on their phone. They may be like, Oh, I want to find this person. And if they can find you, because you just have like your profile set up with this little message of like, Hey, I don't hang out here, go somewhere else.

Then they might do that. Right. [00:14:00] they will at least be able to find you and get that connection.

Okay, where was I? Oh, yeah. I wanted to talk about Enneagram types and social media. So, the first thing that comes to mind when thinking about this are the triads of childhood needs.

Rizzo and Hudson talk about this in their book, The Wisdom of the Enneagram, but basically it breaks down the nine types of the Enneagram into three groups, which they call triads. So the twos, the threes, and the fours are in the attention triad. The fives, the sixes, and the sevens are in the security triad.

The eights, the nines, and the ones are in the autonomy triad. It just means that each of these types has this underlying hunger for either attention, security, or autonomy, but it also means that one triad is going to be more motivated. to be seen on social media than the others in general. Can you guess which triad that will be?

Yes, you guessed it, the attention triad. [00:15:00] twos want attention, but they tend to be much more comfortable being the power behind the throne. So they'll crave attention if you're two, this is going to sound familiar, but you'd probably prefer to receive it through appreciation. That is earning that sort of attention.

And that's why twos are called the helpers. If you're a two and you're not admitting that sometimes you help specifically to be appreciated for helping, then it's time to do some shadow work. Sorry, twos. No hate, just realness. Trying to help you along here. Helping the helpers.

So threes want attention and they want it now. Uh, we love the threes, but threes are really good at winning, that attention. They, they win the social media game. Threes have it hands down. No one is going to have more of that natural, gift for it than the threes.

It's not even close really. So not only are threes motivated by the promise of attention, but they are able to [00:16:00] know what people want. Like, it's a supernatural sense. So they're able to figure out what the audience wants and deliver that. That is the gift of the three. Uh, So the only exception here is a self preservation type of three, which wants attention, but doesn't want to be seen as someone who wants attention.

So they aren't as out there about it generally, and they kind of look a little bit like a one, sometimes a little bit like a seven. Six.

Okay, so fours want attention, but they kind of want you to have to work for it. Sorry, fours. Uh, you're actually in what's completely separately called the emotional realness triad.

So, uh, This is, I'm being emotionally real with you here. A four wants to know that it's authentic attention. So they're reluctant to solicit the attention, because if they did that, how could they trust that it's authentic, and that you're doing it right? genuinely interested in giving them attention because of who they are, like they want the attention.

They want to know that you're authentically giving them attention because you can't [00:17:00] not give them attention because they're so complex and interesting. So this can even slip into the force, making their social media presence feel more like an abstract collage or a riddle to be solved than something coherent that communicates clearly what a person will get if they hit follow.

Okay, so When we move into the security triad, we see that security and a strong social media presence don't necessarily gel easily with one another.

The seven is the exception to this rule, but I'll explain that in a second. Let's start with the fives. So fives tend to, , not want to let people into their lives, especially not just like randos. So, you have to get over the drawbridge and pass the portcullis if you want to be friends with a five.

So if you're a five, it's okay that you're not posting about yourself, let alone about your [00:18:00] feelings or anything like that. So what you can do if you want to do a little bit of social media where you're open to it as a five, and this usually works, , pretty well for, fives who are open. Okay. To, , social media as part of their strategy.

And that is to post about your interests. Post about your interests. Keep it limited to that. Make it very clear that this is a place for people who have similar interests to post. It doesn't sound as draining as trying to connect like as deep human beings, right? Right fives? So, um, maybe give that a try. Or again, just don't worry about social media. It's not necessary. And it will likely drain you if it's not highly focused on your particular interests and you're a five.

Social media I've found makes sixes nervous. And part of that is because the sixes attention flows towards community and connection as well as the security that can be found in those. So if you're a six, those online pylons. are [00:19:00] really going to stand out to you. They're going to jump out to you, off of whatever screen you're looking at.

When people just gang up, when it gets really toxic, when you have that pile on, that sort of mob mentality. Cause that may be the 6's worst nightmare, having everyone gang up on him. So, I get why social media would make a 6 very uneasy. The best approach is simply to, Mind your business. If you're a six, if you're going to have social media, do your best to mind your business.

Do not join in on any of the dogpiles yourself. , that may be tempting, especially if the people that you're in alliance with are doing it, but action that we engage in creates a perception that others will engage in that same action. So to make yourself less scared that everyone's going to pile on, the best thing you can do is not pile on to anyone else.

So, , maybe if you want to use social media, create small groups for readers where the only people who really have [00:20:00] access to you are those who you've built some trust with. So this could be a Facebook group, or you could get people from social media off of social media into like a discord, something like that to create a little bit more controlled and coherent community that you can spend time with. Now, sevens usually enjoy a little social media. My theory is that it comes from two things. So first, they're what's called an assertive type. So this is the hornevian groupings. Three sevens and eights take an assertive approach to get what they want.

, for sevens, they seek security. That's that childhood need triad. By doing everything. Everywhere, all the time, no chance for not having what they need, they're going to get it. They're going to , do all the things, right? They're going to consume all the things. This is where we get into the vice of this type, which is gluttony.

And I know that has like weird biblical implications. So just take that stigma and just Toss it. We don't need that weird sinning [00:21:00] stigma, but the vice of gluttony is what can get sevens into a little bit of trouble , doing all of the things all of the time, seeking that security by doing everything everywhere, , it creates Let's face it, great content for social media, especially if you're one of those traveling nomadic sevens.

All kinds of pictures for Instagram. But sevens also tend to be wired for dopamine hits. if you're a seven, this is something to watch out for. You really like it. Your brain really likes the dopamine hit, sevens can become addicted to pleasure if they're not careful. And that is, sort of the avoidance of pain that sevens do.

Don't balance out the dopamine, the sort of pleasure hits that they're getting. So they have to seek more and more pleasure rather than being sort of anchored by the pain that everyone else sort of allows into their lives that sevens don't. So the, the sort of smorgasbord of novelty that you can get at your [00:22:00] fingertips online, it's going to be really seductive to a seven and the ease of just like popping off a post is also great for the sevens natural flow that, you know, you're doing something fun and then you're moving on before it gets boring or painful.

So this can sometimes lead to authors who are sevens getting on a platform with business purposes in mind, only to discover that they spend more time scrolling than marketing. So, just proceed with caution, sevens. If you find that you can't control yourself on social media, it might be better To be more intentional about which platforms you use, how you use them, when you have access to them.

There are all kinds of good apps that can limit what time of day you're able to even access those apps. And so, you know, if you have a, an hour each day where you're allowed to access them, you're more likely to do your marketing and then get off of them, right? Hurry and get your marketing done and then return to [00:23:00] work.

You know, the real world. Okay, so on to the autonomy triad, where everyone wants to exert control and influence over the world without letting the outside world control or influence them. That is the triad we're into. So eights are going to start us off. Eights may enjoy social media as a place where they can kind of come and tell it like it is and that may get a really nice response.

But once people start asking things from them. Or trying to dictate what the 8 posts, like what kind of content, or God forbid, what the 8 writes next, it's game over. The 8 is saying, fuck this, and throwing up walls. They're done. And the 8s are very sensitive to anything that feels like an attempt to control them. if you can manage this impulse as an eight, you may do all right on social media, but if you, if this is one of the more pronounced patterns for you as an eight, this sort of, uh, you know, [00:24:00] fuck this, I'm out, this person's trying to control me. Then, you know, social media might just be a trigger and you just maybe don't need it.

Right. So if you're a nine, But not the social subtype of nine. So the self prez or the one to one subtype of nine, then you're probably really struggling to figure out what to post on social media. That may be your main struggle. Like I'm on social media. I've been told I should do this. I don't know what the heck to post.

, so that process of trying to force something. to post, it might be draining you a lot. So this comes from the nine's narrative of, Hey, it doesn't matter. I'm nobody special. Who cares what I have to say? And it's really hard to motivate yourself to post to a platform. Where anyone in the world can then come and try to start shit with you for no reason at all.

When you don't even feel like it matters whether or [00:25:00] not you post to that platform. Social media also is rife with conflict, which nines hate. So I posted a thread the other day that included, you know, as a detail being stuck in a random and unexpected security line at the airport. And I was about to miss my flight.

This was not about the security line. It was about something completely different. There was a much bigger point that I was making. The first comment I got was something like, this is what you get for not showing up early enough to the airport. like shit, my brother cries. I do not know who the fuck you are.

Um, I muted that. I muted for all on that one. I was like, I don't need this in my life. Uh, boundaries. Anyway, the point of my story, went completely unnoticed by this guy. Like it just smacked him in the face and he didn't even know. , he was so focused on trying to start beef with me. Cause I guess some pivotal point in his childhood he was late to the airport and missed a flight that he can [00:26:00] never get over.

I don't know. I was like, brah, you gotta keep it to yourself. Anyway, if you're a nine, I get it. You don't have to be on social media. If it seems like too much conflict, if it's, you know, you're just opening yourself up and you're like, this takes all my effort to even think about what I should post. Yeah.

You don't have to be on social media. In fact, if it makes you so uncomfortable that it puts you out of your emotional and psychological window of tolerance, I actually encourage you to stay away. So that being said, social nines look a little bit more active and involved in social groups and might enjoy social media more.

So if you're a nine and it doesn't stress you out, go for it. But again, if it stresses you out, if the conflict on there, if the people constantly being at each other's throat, it's just too much for you, it's okay to say, I don't want this. It's okay to say you don't want this in your life. Your author career is not dead on arrival.

You can still have success in your author career without it. And [00:27:00] lastly, in the autonomy triad, we're going to talk about ones and. Just so we're all on the same page, I am an Enneagram one, so when I talk shit about ones, I, I come from a place of deep self loathing. I mean, self love. Okay, so, ones are a mess with social media, and that is, of course, speaking from experience.

we don't want to be wrong. All right, number one, we don't want to be wrong and we're sensitive to criticism. So where better to have someone just come out of nowhere and say you're wrong and you suck than social media. So when ones get triggered like that, we can also shoot ourselves in the foot and shoot our business in the foot by wanting to pass along the criticism to others, which can pull ones into these online crusades.

being a part of an online crusade, it may seem like a good idea at the time, you may feel very self righteous, but it's not a great idea. idea for your business in some obvious [00:28:00] ways that we can see when we're not in the moment, right? It's just not a good look to be viciously going after people, to be persecuting others.

It's just, we could just stop. Seriously. Almost every author community pylon I've seen is led by an unhealthy one trying to flip their position from feeling like a bad person in some way to feeling better than. , through self righteousness. I will own that about the type. I will own that that I have those impulses and I have certainly let it get away from me at times.

Thankfully not, not in any noticeable way. I don't think. Um, I mean, I'm sure there are people out there who think I'm self righteous. , but if you're a one, just notice. If the tension you feel in your shoulders as you engage with the social media platform, does that tension increase or decrease?

So, if you feel more tension in your neck and your [00:29:00] shoulders, , and your upper arms, And maybe even like a little bit of a headache when you engage with a social media platform. That might be a sign that it's more trouble for you than it's worth. Social media can be helpful, but it's never as helpful as it is harmful.

If it causes you that degree of stress and that degree of body tension, which leads to all other, you know, all these other health problems. So you can just let it go. Feel that. Just let those muscles relax. Ah, okay. So that does it with the types. Uh, no way I'll be doing every type, every episode like this because it takes too damn long.

I'm tired. I feel like I just ran a race. I really use a nap. Let's wrap this up though. So what if you hate social media? The answer is you have options, a lot of options, and those options will vary based on how motivated or demotivated you are to engage with strangers [00:30:00] online. Do you have to do it? No. Are there solid options for people who don't want to use social media to still have a social media presence?

For sure. So consider if a more nuanced approach might be right for your business. And if you look at your history with social media and decide you've spent years half assing it without getting any results, Maybe it's time to give yourself permission to not use it. Wouldn't that be a loving gift? Just, I have permission not to do the thing that I hate, that is ineffective for me, and drains my energy.

Hell yeah. Give yourself permission. So that's it for this episode of What If for Authors. Thanks for hanging out with me and I will see you next episode. But for now, I think I'm going to go take a little Enneagram induced nap.

Episode 1: What If? For Authors

Episode Description:

Welcome to the inaugural episode of "What If? For Authors," the podcast that delves into the fears and uncertainties authors face. Join me while I explore the motivation behind starting this podcast and set the stage for the insightful discussions to come.

Why Listen? Whether you're a seasoned writer or just starting your journey, "What If? For Authors" aims to provide you with the support, advice, and reassurance you need to overcome your fears and succeed in your writing career. This podcast is a safe space to explore the "what ifs" that often hold us back, with the goal of turning those fears into fuel for your creative fire.

Join the Conversation: Have a question or a fear you'd like me to explore? Reach out to me at contact@ffs.media.

Happy writing!

Transcript:

Claire: [00:00:00] Welcome, I'm so glad you're here at this inaugural episode of the What If For Authors podcast. Before I tell you a little bit more about the show, I do want to establish that this is going to be more of a headphones slash ear pods kind of podcast than you, you know, you may be expecting. There will be cursing, there will be realness.

There will very likely be soundbites that you don't want someone just passing by to catch out of context. That's because we're gonna get real on some big scary things like fear itself, and I've found that core-level fear is generally a pill that goes down easiest with a nice sweary coating, so maybe this can be your end-of-day loading the dishwasher podcast, or your long midday walks so your body doesn't break down on you podcast.

Or you [00:01:00] know, do whatever you want blast it for everyone to hear. I don't give a shit, but don't say I didn't warn you. Okay, so what can you expect from this show? Each episode is going to cover one of the questions I get asked frequently by authors.

And if you don't know me, well, yeah, I'm Claire, the owner of FFS Media. FFS stands for what you think it stands for. , I'm a coach and story consultant. I'm the author of a bunch of satire and mystery books. And I am a writer. Certifiably insane about the Enneagram, If you don't know what the Enneagram is yet, it's a personality profile that groups people based on a core fear and core desire.

And then the patterns of thinking, feeling, and doing that tend to arise from those fears. That's it. Really all the preliminary info you're going to get from me about it here, but I will be referencing the Enneagram types a lot. So if you're not already somewhat initiated, it's time to pull up Google, read a little bit more about it, or you can go read my book, [00:02:00] Reclaim Your Author Career that breaks down the types more in depth.

Okay. So this podcast is for folks, authors who already know a little bit about the Enneagram and a little bit about me. This is not really like, Hey, first brush with Claire. If this is your first brush with me, I apologize in advance. Hopefully we've already met in some other context, be it coaching, maybe you heard me through the Sell More Books Show.

Or you heard me speak or read my book or whatever. I've never been one for small talk, so let's just dive in. Each week, we're just going to go for it on our topic of the week, and it's going to be super fun.

And if I know one thing about authors, it's that small talk is not necessarily everyone's favorite. I will be honest with you. That's a promise I'm going to make. So the first bit of honesty that I will deliver to you is that I've been thinking about this podcast for a while. I knew I needed to do something solo so I could let her rip and just do my own thing, which [00:03:00] happens to be my favorite thing to do, my own thing.

I will say it's a little weird talking to myself and hopefully I don't go full shining by episode 10. But if I do, you know, you're invited to follow along and enjoy it.

So as I started putting together ideas for this show, I found myself asking a lot of Um, what if I'm not ready? What if I don't know enough to talk on these topics? What if I make an ass of myself? What if I say something that someone misinterprets and then it leads them to make a terrible decision and they decide to make my life hell as a result?

So all valid questions. Which we will answer. So one of the best skills we can develop as authors, as people who have to draw our own maps for the duration of our career, is to actually answer the what if questions. We see these, what if questions everywhere, all the time we're asking them. Sometimes we're asking them subconsciously.

We don't even realize we're asking them [00:04:00] subconsciously until we bring them into the consciousness. And that is a first step of a really important skill. of asking these questions so that we can answer them with our adult brain. And so then if we don't know what the answer to them is, we have the question formulated and we can ask someone who can help us walk through it, which is what I do. Basically all the time now.

So I asked myself all of these what if questions, I'm going to walk you through it. So the first question was, what if I don't know enough to talk on these topics? if that happens, I'll notice that, that I really don't know what the fuck I'm saying, at least I hope to notice that, I've gotten pretty good at noticing when I'm just bullshitting.

So then I can just hit pause on the recording. This isn't a live show, thank God. I would never do that. , but I would hit pause in the recording and learn what I need to learn to at least [00:05:00] be of some help to some people. So there's that. Also, I know a hell of a lot about Enneagram, so it's kind of a silly question to begin with.

I don't know the most about the Enneagram, certainly. But I know enough that what I say may prove useful to folks and that's a pretty good reason to start talking. It's good enough for me. So the next question, what if I make an ass of myself? Even just pausing to think on that for a second kind of makes me laugh at how ridiculous it is.

Of course, I'll make an ass of myself. I do it all the time. It's one of the things my friends like best about me. So, yeah. Besides, making an ass of myself is a sign that I'm taking risks. And no risk, no reward. I can look like a fool and be okay.

I've done it before plenty. So, all evidence points to that. indicates that I can do it again. And then finally, what if I say something that someone misinterprets and then they make a [00:06:00] decision that doesn't work the way they wanted it to, and then they make it a hobby to make my life hell. So this one takes a little bit more consideration.

And when you learn about my core fear over the following episodes, you'll understand why it shakes me a little bit more. But basically this comes down to being an adult. Working with other adults. I will offer perspective for y'all, but at the end of the day, the responsibility for making the wisest choice for you, that falls to you.

I trust that you have the inner wisdom already inside of you, and I hope that you'll trust that it's there and listen to it. Also, sometimes decisions that seem immediately bad in the short term turn out to be wonderful in the long term. And holding that tension is a skill that faith, in the most secular sense of the word faith, allows us to have.

And if someone decides to make my life hell, it wouldn't be the first time, y'all. I was a teenager in the early days of AOL instant messaging. You think I haven't been [00:07:00] cyberbullied before? Please. , you know, people may try and, lodge some allegations against me, and that's fine, you know, maybe they have a point.

And that's okay. I get to be wrong sometimes, and I will do what I can to make it right. But even if it's just bullshit claims thrown at me, I trust deeply that the truth wins out at the end of the day. So I'm not actually worried about it when I break it down, when I go ahead and ask the question. So to review, all of my what if anxieties turned out to be answered with If That Happens. Fine. Whatever. I'll be okay. My goal in this podcast is to take you on that same journey each episode. You might not resonate with every topic, but it could be useful to give it a listen anyway, either because there'll be nuggets that you'll find interesting or because a friend of yours may one day throw that what if at you, and you'll [00:08:00] be able to know how to support them as they deconstruct the anxiety.

I have a lot of interesting episodes lined up for you, and we're gonna have a damn good time together. Because why not? Life is short. We have a shit ton of stories to tell as authors. So let's have some fun while we can. See you in the next episode.