Man, I hate social media in November. It’s all, “What’s your goal for 2020?” or, “Who’s ready to make next year the best one yet?!” I want to shout, “SLOW THE EFF DOWN!” It’s not too late to start your book this year. Below is one small step you can take to show the universe, the gods, the family, and yourself that you’re really doing this.

You can do this teeny, tiny step in five minutes, because I know you’re busy right now. There’s Thanksgiving, then Christmas shopping, holiday parties, and drinking eggnog lattes and lots and lots and lots of Baileys. (Or maybe that last one is just me?)

 

But you’ve got five minutes, right? I mean, you’ve really got five weeks until 2019 is done and dusted, and the next five weeks are not a write-off.

What can you do?

There’s still time to work toward your goals—even in December.

And since we’re talking about books here, I want you to know: You can still make 2019 the year you started working on your book. 

You probably can’t go from zippo to full book before New Year’s. (It’s not impossible, but not advised, either!) You can honor your dreams and goals by finally committing to your book project and taking steps in the right direction.

So here’s the one small step you can take to show the universe, the gods, the family, and yourself that you’re really doing this:

Write your book’s promise.

Your book’s promise

Your book’s promise isn’t anything fancy. You don’t need a swanky PDF download or a 12-step program to craft it right. It’s just a few sentences that announce what your book promises to do for the reader.

I did this with a client last week. For the sake of this story, we’ll call her Catherine. I’m helping Catherine create an outline for her book so she can write with ease. As we worked on the contents, she was getting a bit lost in the weeds and losing sight of why she was even writing this book.

So we talked it out. And as we talked, the book’s promise became clear.

We wrote it into a few bullet points, and Catherine can now keep it as a reference every time she feels like she’s getting off-track or bogged down in words.

An example

I won’t share Catherine’s actual book promise, as that’s her private shizzle. Here’s a made-up example, though, so you can see what we’re talking about.


My Book’s Promise

My book will…

  • Remind you that you are enough, even if you consider yourself “broken” or lacking.

  • Encourage you to seek help. We all need more help than we think, more often than we think.

  • Help you figure out where to get help and how to ask for it.

See? Simple.

Simple but powerful, because it reminds you why your book is important. It succinctly says how you’ll help your readers.

And isn’t that the best motivation to finally finish your book?
 

What’s yours?

In the next five weeks, before 2019 wraps up, I bet you can find five minutes to write out your book’s promise.

Do it when you lock yourself in the bathroom to escape your crazy in-laws for a few minutes. Do it when you’re trying to pretend you’re too busy to carve the turkey. Do it when you’ve finished the bottle of Baileys and have a nice buzz on.

Then, when Old Uncle Bobby corners you over the holidays and asks if you ever did anything about that book idea, you can stand up tall and say, “Well actually, I just started working on it.”

Take that, Old Uncle Bobby.

Then toast to yourself with another glass of Baileys.

Happy Thanksgiving, my American friends. I am grateful for all of you.

P.S. If you really want to make 2019 the year you committed to your book, check out how we can jumpstart you here. I have two slots open in December, and I’d love to work with you.