017: What to Do If Family and Friends Aren't Supportive

In an ideal world, everyone in our life would be 100% on board and totally supportive of our writing and our writing goals. But that's not always the case. If people in your life don't support you, here's how to handle it and how to move forward.

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What to do if family and friends aren’t supportive

I almost feel like I need a disclaimer on this episode in case any friends or family or people I know in my real life are listening to this, but I'm not talking about you. On the whole I've been amazingly fortunate. I've had very supportive like, friends and family and partner and everything. So this isn't, I'm not sharing about this because my life is full of unsupportive people. That's not it. Even if you have supportive family and friends, and everyone's cheering you on, I still think there are some nuggets of wisdom for you in this episode. Maybe some things to kind of think about a reframe.

Okay, let's dive in. Let's talk about what to do if your family for instance, support your writing. Okay, first of all, it's really important to remember that no one's gonna care about your dream more than you. It's just the facts of life. If you have a dream to write a book, if you have a dream to publish a book, if you have a dream to be a multiple New York Times bestselling author whose books all get made into Netflix movies, and makes billions of dollars, whatever your dream is related to your writing — no one's gonna care about it more than you do. Because it's your dream. It's personal to you, you live it, you breathe it, you thought about it for ages. It's just impossible for anyone else to be as invested in that as you are. So of course, it's great. We want supportive people in our life. But just remember that you are the one who's going to be cared the most about this. I also think it's helpful to remember that if you don't have supportive family and friends, if they express concern, if they don't think whatever your dream is, or your goal is as possible, if they have a negative mindset or attitude about the state of publishing or making money as a writer or finding an agent or finding success as a self published author, like whatever their thing is, whatever their concern is, it might come from a good place.

So I say might because sometimes people can just be snarky and negative and want to bring other people down because it triggers them to see you going after your dream. But in some cases, I think that people do have good intentions, like maybe, you know, if you're listening to this, and you're younger, and you express, you know, your your big writing dreams and goals to your parents, and they're sort of saying, like, oh, I don't really think you should have a backup plan, like, I don't think it's possible to make money as a writer, they might be saying that, because they're really genuinely concerned, it might come from a good place, they want to see you be successful, they want to see you be happy. They don't want you to struggle, you know, they have good intentions. So I think that's important to remember, if you do if someone in your life does express concern for whatever your goal is.

Also, it's important that you don't use the fact that you don't have supportive people who believe in you and believe in your writing and believe in your dreams, it's important to not use that as an excuse to not let that hold you back from pursuing writing. If you really want to write a book, if you really want to publish a book, you cannot let that stand in your way. Yes, it would be great if everyone was constantly cheering you on and supporting you, in you and believing in you and saying like, oh, it's only a matter of time, before you find success, like we're so excited for you. Of course, that would be ideal. But if that's not your reality, right now, there's a level of acceptance that has to come in first, you just have to accept that that's how it is with the people in your life, it doesn't mean you like it, it doesn't mean you approve of it, it just means that you accept that right now. That's the reality that you're living in. Or maybe everyone isn't super supportive. That cannot, again, that cannot be an excuse, though, don't let that hold you back. You know, especially if you're listening to this and you are young, I know it can feel overwhelming. If your parents or teachers or other people in your life who are really big, powerful figures, if they, you know, it's tempting to kind of let their opinion carry a lot of weight. But just just do it anyway. You don't need permission from them to start writing. You don't need permission to go after your writing dreams, you can just do it, you could just start writing.

One of the things that's helpful to do when you're in the situation where people aren't really supportive, and you don't feel as you just you just don't feel supported as you could be in your writing journey, is to imagine the end goal. Now of course, this requires some clarity on what you're hoping to do. Do you want to self publish your book? Do you want to try to get an agent? Do you want to be a New York Times bestseller? Like what's your what's your end goal with your with writing your book, if you keep that end goal in mind, it helps you stay on track, it helps you not get distracted by potentially negative, you know, feedback or negative comments from people in your life. If you stay laser focused on your goal, and imagine it that really, really helps.

And when I say imagine your end goal, I don't mean just like, think about it and be like, oh yeah, it'd be nice to like, sell 1000 copies of my book. And, you know, that's like my end goal. It'd be nice to do that. I mean, close your eyes. Imagine it as if it is happening in real time. Imagine logging on looking at Kindle Unlimited, looking at whatever looking at your, your stats, your metrics, and saying, holy cow, I've sold 1000 copies of my book, I cannot believe it. Imagine who you're with. Imagine the setting. Imagine what you're wearing? Really feel into it, like how does it feel to look at that and see that you've sold 1000 copies of your book. Your book is in the hands of readers. What does that feel like? And really hold on to that feeling? Because that can keep you going. It can provide motivation when things are tough and you're feeling stuck and you're feeling like no one really understands why you want to do this.

My final suggestion is to be selective with who you share your dreams with. Here's what I mean by this. This kind of goes hand in hand with the whole like, no one's gonna care about your dream more than you do. You I bet when you're listening to this right now, you can identify the people in your life who are going to be positive and encouraging and the people in your life who are going to be negative and discouraging you probably know right away who those people are going to be. Now, it's not that you don't be honest with the people who might be negative, it's not that you don't tell them what's going on. But I would just be selective, you don't have to tell them, you don't have to broadcast your dreams and say, Tell everyone in your life that you're going to be a New York Times bestseller, or that you want to get an agent, or that you're going to write a book, or that you're going to write a series, whatever the thing is, you don't have to broadcast that to everyone, you get to share that goal and that dream with who you want to share it with. It's, I think of it as sort of like a privilege to even, like know that information about someone.

So just remember that you get to decide who you share that with. And I think that's something I'm learning in my own life is yes, the selectively sharing, but if someone is very draining for me to be around, if someone is very negative, always tries to like, bring up examples of like, oh, well, did you know like, statistically, it's, you know, you have this percentage of a chance of like, being a full time writer, it's really hard to do that right now. If someone's going to, if I share about something, and they're going to counter with some kind of negative statistic or something, I'm, I've kind of learned to just not share with those people. Right? It doesn't mean I lie, it doesn't mean I don't tell them what's going on my life. But I sort of guard my big dreams, and I reserve those for people in my life that I'm closest to and who are going to be supportive.

I have some big, crazy dreams that I have not shared publicly, that I have not shared, really, with anyone. And the reason is that I just haven't really felt an urge to, I guess. But I also want to be protective of those dreams, I want to protect my energy around them, it feels kind of fun, knowing that these big dreams I have are just private and just for me. So that's always an option too. Now, of course, it might not be an option to like hide the fact that you're writing that you're working on a book completely, you know, if you let's say you're you're married or you know, a living with a partner, like they're going to know that you're going off to write, chances are I mean, I guess you can hide it. But you might have to let people know that you're writing or something. But you could you get to decide who gets access to what your dreams are and what your hopes are and your goals are with your writing. So do a gut check, do an energy check, is this person going to be supportive if I tell them? Or are they going to be draining and counter with all kinds of negative facts and sort of just sort of bring me down and make me less excited than I was before.

Just to summarize, because this is really important. You don't need supportive people in your life, you don't need for everyone to 100% believe in you before you go do the thing. Again, that will be great. Of course, it would be nice, but it's not a requirement. Just do it anyway. Do it in spite of those people. I don't think it's a good idea to take action and do something just to spite people. But you know, if you need something to kind of get you going, maybe that could be the thing that kind of pushes you into starting your writing journey. This is also an opportunity for you to find supportive people, right. There's an episode I did a couple of weeks ago about writing groups. Writing groups are a fantastic way to get support from other writers, people who understand what you're doing. You know, going back to to sometimes people might express concern or have reservations because it's coming from a good place. Sometimes people just don't understand writing. They're not writers, they don't understand what it takes. They don't understand the market. So their concerns might just be they don't really understand how it works. So if you can find a writing community, find supportive people, it's going to make a difference.

Happy writing and see you next time.

Katie Wolf