You Make Your Career Happen

I want to keep this short today. This is one of those posts that really doesn't require a whole lot of depth.

Your future in the publishing world depends on you. Yes, we do spend a great deal of time talking about sales of books and these depend on other people, but having a career depends entirely on you.

Over the years, I have heard a lot of people blaming their struggles in publishing entirely on other people, businesses and events. While, in some of those cases, those outside elements may have had some impact, the future of that author was still entirely in that author's hands.

Instead of just complaining about the problem, the author needs to find a way to work out of the situation. It may be a small change or it may be a big change, but this is the time to be proactive. I am always reminded of something a friend of ours learned when working in the juvenile detention system. There were four questions that she would ask these kids;

1. What do you want?
2. What are you doing to achieve that?
3. How is that helping?
4. What should you be doing?

What I like about these questions is how it forces the individual answering the questions to take a personal responsibility in the situation.

So, if things aren't going your way right now, ask yourself those questions.