Welcome to the Writing with Coach McCoach Podcast. I'm your host, Katie McCoach, book coach, confidant, and cheerleader. Since 2012, I've helped hundreds of writers become authors, gain confidence, and grow their best stories yet. Together, we'll untangle the vines of chaos and uncertainty surrounding how to be a writer so you can grow into the author you are meant to be. Let's dig in, writer.
Hey, writer. Welcome to another episode of Writing with Coach McCoach, episode 25. Today, I'm going in a slightly different direction. This is an off-the-cuff episode. I am just going to freaking speak and see what happens. But I have this thing that's been on my mind, and I've talked about it a few times recently with some colleagues and with my women's mastermind. And I think that it's important to talk about. I think that it relates to the series so far of constructive criticism, how to handle it, how to deal with it, how to deal with feedback and apply it to your work. And so I'm going to move in a different way about this because so far in this series, I've told you, okay, so it's important to get constructive criticism. You're literally never going to escape it. It's going to happen no matter what. There are ways you can just not lose your shit, even if you maybe are a little like me and deal with rejection dysmorphia because you have ADHD. And I hope I got that term right. So there are many things that we can do to help ourselves in this journey of writing to grow and be better. And I know that you are going to get feedback no matter what. And so I wanted you to have the tools to be able to deal with it, to understand the types of feedback you'll get, where it's coming from.
But what about when it's all too much? What do you do when you've heard too much? And although I have given you tools for how to apply the feedback, I've given you strategies, here's how you go through the feedback, know what's worth going with, know what's not. But what if you're just overwhelmed by voices or just there's so much coming at you? So this episode is we're going to talk about when to shut it all off, when to walk away and push all the voices aside and say, I need my fucking space. And the importance of doing that.
This relates to criticism, feedback. I think this also relates to getting advice day to day. You know, I'm a book coach. All I do is give advice and feedback and help someone else make decisions, right? Like I see what they're trying to do. I use my knowledge of the industry, my knowledge of books, how to tell a good story, and then I guide them and help them make the best decisions for them. And I don't say, hey, you got to do this because this is what's going to work. X, Y, like the end, there's no other option. No, I listen and I make the decisions that are best for them. But sometimes it's hard to do for yourself. And even if you have someone in your corner who can do this, sometimes you begin to lose track or lose sight of what your gut's telling you.
So here's what has happened to me recently. And this is why this is topical for me and why I wanted to spend the episode today on this topic. So recently, okay, the past year, I've been really soaking in information. I have been reading books on making money on improving myself on how to not give a fuck on what to give a fuck about. I'm in a business, so I'm in a business book club. So I read a new business book every month or like self-development, and then we discuss it. And then I'm also co-running a women's mastermind. And it's a very small group. It's just a few of us women entrepreneurs. And we meet twice a month and we discuss our shit. I'm in a editor slack group. I'm in, gosh, I'm in so many trainings, right? Like I'm taking this course and this course from this person, this one from this person. I listened to three different podcasts regularly. I rotate through three, sometimes more. I'll find episodes. I'll just search. Like there was one point I was struggling this year, just going to lay it on the line. I was like, how do you believe in yourself again? Literally search for how to believe in yourself again. And that was actually, I found a great episode. Someone I had never listened to before.
I'm reading stuff online. I have a therapist. I have a money slash business coach. I'm not kidding. And she's fucking amazing. So if you are someone who's like, what is a money coach? And that sounds like something you're, so this is a total sidetrack note. Just email me or DM me or something at Katie McCoach on Instagram or look up Katie McCoach. You'll find me right. And be like, Katie, I want the name of your money coach. I will freaking give you her name. She's so fabulous. But that's a side note.
So I have so many voices, right? I'm taking an advice from so many places and I've been doing it. I mean, off and on for forever, right? That's kind of what we do. I mean, we read self help books and we learn new things and that just the act of learning something new is learning from someone else. And so there's another voice. And even if you're learning something that's literally black and white, the person who's telling you might have a different way of approaching it. And that alone is another voice, right? It's another piece of wisdom, a piece of advice, a frame that the person, another person wouldn't have. So sometimes we get so many of these and it begins to be difficult to hear ourselves. And I had heard this advice before, like, don't follow too many coaches at once. It gets confusing. And I was sort of like, yeah, yeah. But I like to like hear from them and like kind of pick what works for me there and pick what works for me here. And that's actually kind of what I've always thought is best for my clients too.
And many times, like, you know, there's so many writing books. So I've always said, you know, pick what works for you and then throw the rest. So I have a certain way of teaching about character arcs. I teach it in my class, nail your character arcs. And I have four things that I'm like, these are the four things you need to know. And a story, not end of story, but that's how I teach it. But I created this because I had learned from different other areas and I what I've done with my clients over time, and I've created this method. But all methods come from someone being like, well, this worked for me, this didn't. And I created my own.
And that's what I think a lot of writers do. They end up pulling what works for them from all these different sources and then creating their own writing process or editing process. So I think that's a beautiful thing. But at some point you get to the place where you realize, I don't even know where I start and end. Wow, that sounded bigger than it is. I mean, I guess that's big. That sounded more emotional than I meant it to. But it's true. Sometimes we just start getting all of this feedback from all these places. And one person says one thing, and then another person's like, oh, so tired of it being taught that way. So I do it this way. And then you're like, yeah, wait, but that other way kind of worked for me. But also, yeah, I'm tired of hearing it that way. And so you just start being like, what? What is my base feeling?
So anyway, if this is you, I wanted you to know a couple things. Number one, you're not alone. This is super common. It happens a lot where you just hear so much and you start to lose sight of what is it that you are going for? What is your path? And it's okay if it's not exactly following what someone else says. It's okay if you feel in your gut that you're like, I don't think that advice works for me. Or you hear it and you're like, well, maybe I'll try it or maybe not. It's okay if you don't follow all the advice all the time. Okay, if you ignore it all the time, it's okay if you listen to all of it. At some point, you'll probably reach the stage where you kind of say, I need to quiet it all, right? I need to step away. So then that's the next thing I'll say is for you, this is why I'm doing this episode for you is for you to know that it's okay to shut it off. It's okay to walk away from advice sometimes. It's okay to put a pause on.
And then I also wanted to give you tools for how to do that. So or just a tool or just a recommendation, right? So this is what I did recently. So I was getting all this advice from everyone and it was so much and it was so great, right? And I was really starting to get clear on what I wanted. But then I realized my head was getting really busy and I wasn't taking action. This is where it really showed up for me and where I think it shows up for others. It's one thing if you're getting advice from a lot of places and you start taking action, I think it goes two ways. One way you start taking action, you're like, okay, I know what works for me. I figured out. The other way it sometimes happens, well, I guess three ways. I told you this was an off the cuff episode, guys. I have nothing planned out and written. So my thoughts are going. So there's the second way, which is you take advice and you're like, oh, it all works. And then you take too much, right? And then you start to lose your own vision with it. And then there's the third, which is you just don't do anything. And that is where I found myself. I was in the third place where I was like, okay, well, I have all this fabulous advice from all these fabulous sources. What do I do? And that was even just an excuse me just saying, what do I do? Which one do I follow? That just mean not having enough confidence in myself to say, you know what? I have enough information right now. I could just move forward and see how that goes. It's that place where you can't, it's a paralysis, I think of sorts. And I think it's very common these days where you're like, well, I need to know everything. And once I know everything, then I know exactly how to move forward.
The problem is that you kind of don't always know just because it worked for someone doesn't mean it works for you. So you could put it into action. And then you're like, this didn't work. And you waited so long before you had all the information. And then you finally did it move forward. And you could have just spent a fraction of the time just moving forward right away and seeing if it worked or not. And then moving on to the next thing that works better. Right? So if you find yourself in this position, I just want to say, give yourself a breather. It's okay. Don't be hard on yourself. If you're in a place of paralysis, where you just like don't know how to move forward, because you have too many options for how to move forward. There's too much advice floating through your head. And you don't know where to begin, or you don't know, you're so afraid of beginning and starting and going in a direction that's gonna not be right, that you're just not doing it. Because you think I gotta, well, I gotta sort through all the options, right? Like, let me do mental work first, and then I can apply.
If that's you, hi, I see you so much. And I course I'm here, I'm giving you advice, so take it or leave it. But I'm going to tell you what I've unearthed from my own experience, from seeing this through others is turn it all the fuck off and start moving forward alone. I practically put this in action because the way I did this is I actually decided, okay, I've got me and I've got my money coach. And I have 20 million other sources outside of this. I've got my mastermind, I've got the slack groups, I've got colleagues, all this stuff, right? And so I decided, well, I'm not gonna stop listening to my money coach because like, let's be real, she knows a lot and I'm paying her a lot. And I'm not going to just ignore her advice, even though I decided I don't, I totally have at times and felt the pain of that. But that's what I've got in my head. So I was like, okay, I'm not going to stop listening to my money coach, but she's my money business coach. I mean, she's very like businessy too. And then I was like, well, but I gotta listen to myself, right? So I stepped away from my mastermind, my business book club, podcast, and learning for about a month. So I literally just, I kind of told my mastermind group and I said, Hey, I really want to be there for everyone, but I need to step away right now. And I didn't really preface it too much. I was just like, I'm just not available. And I had a lot of shit going on too, you know, life stuff, the normal daily things and events and trips and everything.
And when I came back after that time away, I felt like, okay, I can, I can contribute again. I can sort through the vice better again. Now I have a better sense of my, I guess, compass that I can, my compass isn't going to be, God, I wanted to come up with like a really good thing. What happens to a compass? Like the frequency, I don't know. I get something like that. Right. So my frequency is not going to be interrupted. My compass is on its track. Right. So that's what I did. I stepped away for a month and that might sound, might be like, oh, that's too long. That's too short for me. It was a perfect amount of time because I didn't want to step away completely. I really like my mastermind group. I mean, I'm co-running it. I want to make sure I'm there for my mastermind group. I also really love reading these business books and talking about them. But I knew I was like, you know, right now I need to quiet it all. And it was kind of hard.
Right. I wanted my, I mean, even my business coach was like, Katie, you have all the information you need at this time. You don't need to, I'm like, well, there's this free webinar I heard about. I really want to take this from this person. I haven't bought things from her yet. Right. And I was like, well, I think she has good advice. People really like her. I'm going to take this. She's like, you don't need it. But if you really think this is going to help, you give yourself your 30 minutes to an hour, listen to this and then let that be it. And she was so freaking right because I listened to that webinar. Right. And I was like, why did I, I know this stuff. And also, even if I didn't, it was like, I didn't need more information right now. I needed to be like, what is Katie need? What is Katie going to do to move forward? And what information do I already have that I can move forward with? Because yes, there's always more to learn. But if I am not actively doing anything about it, it will, it's not helping me. Right. I just keep waiting until I learn enough before I do something. Well, I'll never fucking do anything. If you dig, if someone actually went like digging or they pay attention enough, they're like, Oh, Katie stopped her podcast about three times so far since she started in last year. So now it's been about a year. I've had multiple pauses because I get in my head and I'm afraid of moving forward. And I'm like, well, I got to do, I'm going to be better at podcasting. So I need this thing and I need this thing and I need to talk about this. And sometimes it's okay to just show up and this episode could be something people are like, I'm skipping that shit. Or it could be what you need to hear. And either way, me pushing through to this time to talk to you about something when I wasn't all the way planned for it is probably actually something that's going to benefit me very well in the future because me pushing through now is going to make it easier for me to do it the next time, the next time. And then I'll become more seamless. And then I will be more planned out because I won't be stuck being like, why didn't I have a podcast episode plan to do? Right?
So this act alone, so fuck it guys. This is for me. This isn't even for you. This is for me. This podcast episode right now, this isn't, you don't even have to listen anymore because this is just an act of me moving forward. But if you are still listening, what I want you to take from that is sometimes you just have to say, fuck it and move forward anyway and know that it's okay if you're doing it just for you because that's a whole fucking point of life is us to do things for us to grow, to pursue our passions, our purpose, even though who knows what that means, right? But to pursue the things that matter to us. If you find that you're not because there's too much coming at you or you're trying to do too many things at once, this is your sign, your encouragement to shut it all off for a bit and just get clear on you. Because once you can really hear your voice above the rest, or once you know what your gut is saying, again, you know, a lot of us have like gut instinct. I'm just going to go with this is what my gut is telling me.
When you hear too many things, you start to lose that intuition. You start to not notice what's your gut or what's anxiety has been my case. What's what is my head telling me? Is that really what my gut is feeling? I don't know. And you start to lose sight. If you find that you're in this place, I encourage you to come back, shut it all down. Give yourself a timeframe, you know, maybe a month, maybe it's three months, maybe it's six months, I don't know, whatever you feel you need. So you can really get clear on just you again. And if you're like, I can't just get rid of all the advice or I can't stop, then I encourage you to limit it. Make it one or two. Like I was like, it's me and my money coach. I'm going to shut off the rest for a little bit. Me and my money coach. I mean, I love my mastermind. They're so fabulous. But when it comes down to it, I'm getting voiced a bunch of different opinions, but I'm paying my money coach a lot. And she's an expert in this one area. So maybe she's the one I should listen to on this specific thing. And if it doesn't work, then I move on to the next thing. It doesn't mean she's her advice is bad. It just maybe didn't work for me. And then I move on. Okay, now I can try the next thing. Now I can try the next thing. Instead of just a bunch of people saying, what if you tried this, which can be super helpful sometimes. But sometimes you also need to say, you know what, let me move on one path first. And then I'll try the next thing is when that does or does not work. Right.
Okay. I literally don't have much else to say. I just thought it was important to come here today to talk to you about getting in touch with your gut again. And if you are losing sight, and you're like, I don't even know what I want anymore. You know, what ways I see this come up sometimes with authors is it's not only like with how they change their story. I've told this story so many times. So maybe it's annoying as hell. But this is one thing where I found the too many voices and the critique voices. So in a critique situation, I was in peer critique classes in college, I have a major my one of my bachelor's is in creative writing. So yes, I studied writing in college, and we're in the peer critique groups. And I wrote the short story, and I had a vision for it, but it didn't fully come out. And so I shared it with the class, I got all this feedback. And I was like, well, fuck, I guess they didn't see what I was trying to do. And I guess I really missed the ball. So I listened to like all of the advice, and I rewrote the whole thing. And the next time I came with it, this revision, I was like, I don't even care what anyone says like they started talking out loud and what you're supposed to do is sit quietly, right? You have to sit in silence while everyone gives feedback. This is pretty common in writing academia and stuff. So there I am sitting in silence. I'm just like, I don't even care. Why? Why are we? I'm just sitting there like, why are we spending time on this? I anyone like the story? I wish I didn't even submit it. Like, people have so many opinions on it. And the whole time I'm just thinking, I don't even like the story the way it is. I don't feel like sitting here listening to any of this because I don't even want to revise it the way anyone wants at this point. But I didn't know that until after I had revised it the way everyone wanted. And so then I went back after that session. And I scrapped that second draft. And I was like, okay, let's just go back. Let's start over. I went back to the first version. And then I started thinking, what was I trying to do? And what was I doing? And what wasn't? And what wasn't connecting for the people who read it the first time? And so then I started going through the feedback from the very first session. And I said, okay, what is working? Like, who saw some of the glimmers of what I was trying to do? And where were the issues? And then I also just listened to my gut and listened to what all the feedback altogether was kind of telling me. And then I wrote the third version. And the third version I brought to class.
I've said this story so many times, but here's what the guy said. He said, this is what you meant to do the first time, isn't it? And that obviously has always stuck with me. Because I just keep remembering, God, I tried to make it what everyone thought it was supposed to be and I hated it. And then when I pulled back and got clear on what I wanted, and then did it again, then it spoke to the ones that needed to speak to. And other people, I'm pretty sure were like not into it. Okay. Because it spoke to the person who I want it like, they saw it. I was like, yes, that's what I meant to do.
So the same goes in your life. You know, you hear all these voices and you start to lose sight. And then when you can get clear again, and you can say, okay, what am I trying to do? Then you have a better chance to feel good about what you're doing moving forward.I think that's a huge part. How do you feel moving forward? And the other thing that I'll say to this is, this question comes up a lot. So I'll say, well, what is author's vision? And if you find that you are like, I don't know, and maybe it's not even just on the story itself. So let's say that story was about like, actually what I was writing. But what about when you're going through as an author, and you're like, everyone says, you know, you do X, Y, and Z to get published. And what if you start going through that path, and you hate every minute, you're completely miserable. And you're like, the whole point was just I wanted to write and share my stories. So I think that there's so much emphasis placed on how you're supposed to publish your work and get your work out there that we lose sight of, but what is it that you actually want to achieve with getting your work out there? And not enough authors, in my opinion, are really asking themselves that question. Well, what do I actually really want with my books, with my stories? When you get really clear on that, that's when I think you can build the plan for it versus this is what everyone said the plan is. This is how I do it. This is when I make it is when I get a publishing deal, and then I've made it.
What if that literally doesn't provide you anything that you want it? And I'm not saying that to be like, tragic. I'm just saying sometimes our goals are not what we are told they're supposed to be. But we're afraid of admitting that. So your goal could be like, I really want to know that my stories have influence over someone or that I've changed someone's life. Or you know, you could be like, I want to share my memoir and I really want a course like people who are going to be changed from this. I want them to read it. It's not about much else beyond that. Well, how could you do that? You could go the path they say to become an author. You go you get an agent, you get a publishing deal, your book ends up on the shelf. Or you could do something totally freaking different. You could just start a podcast. That's literally your book. You could just write blogs, you could just start a book, a blog on medium, you can make your whole Instagram account just short blips of your story. I mean, there and this is just a fraction of things. There's so many ways that you can share your work with the world and get in touch with the right people. Do you know your true desire when it comes to your stories and writing? And are you being being true to that every time as you make decisions with your career? Or are you just saying, well, you're supposed to get a book deal and get published and your books on the shelf and that's it. That's the end. That could be the perfect path for some people. That path is probably really good if you have super marketable books. You know, you're like, oh, yeah, I can easily write to the market. I am currently writing to the market. I write fast, you know, things where you're like, yeah, this is about I want to make money writing books or I just want to entertain the fuck out of someone.
But if it might also be something totally different, I just want to help my clients. So as I know, 2024 goal, Katie, Coach McCoach is writing a book and it's going to be for my clients or for authors. It's literally the nail your character arc course. I'm going to turn into a book. And so people will have different ways of accessing this information. Why am I not sharing my method with you? It has made such a huge difference for so many of my writers. And I want to share it and put it out there. So I'm going to go on the journey of writing a book and self-publishing it. And for me, I'm like, this will be sure I could put in the work and try and do the whole book deal and and work with a publisher and all this stuff. But for me, I'm like, well, part of it's just I want a few things. I just want to go through the experience of self-publishing because I have so many authors who do it. And it'll be really fun for me to explore that side of it, too, and have more knowledge on it through actively doing something. And then number two. Well, I just want the book to exist. I want it up there so that anyone who's ever like, Katie, I'd love to work with you, but you're too expensive. And I say, OK, well, my book is four dollars. You know, hopefully you can get that from the library. You can buy it. I am like, I will give it to you. It's really that bad because I want you to have the knowledge for as little as possible. So that's a different way of being like, well, I don't really. I'm not like trying to make money. I'm not going to try and do a whole series. Who knows? Maybe it would turn into that. But it's not something I'm thinking of at the time. I'm just like, I want to share this information. It could help someone. I'll just do it however best suits me and my goals and my vision for that.
And so I went on a tangent there. Not as great as the earlier part of the episode for sure. So if you stop listening, it's cool. If you're still here, thank you. I'm just trying to give you some examples of how things show up in our lives when we need to. When we don't listen to ourselves and how you can also just be honest with yourself and say, hey, it's OK to want something a different way than someone else has proven it's been done. Oh, and then the last thing I'll say is if you are someone who's like, I'm. OK, Katie, I'm going to shut everything off and I'm going to just listen to myself. But what do I do during that time? How do I figure out what I even want or what my voice is?
Then actually have an episode that might be helpful in this situation. An earlier episode is called the five methods to under your why. I give you five really strategic, practical ways of getting clear on your why or your purpose or your passion, right? Swap it with whatever you're trying to work through. But there are five methods where you can really be like, do the work to figure out. What your vision is. And so if you're really struggling, if even knowing that vision in the first place, because that has been an epic thing for me, I'm always like they're like, find your why. Oh, I'm always like, I don't understand. How do you do that? So that's why I made that episode so you can go find your why and get clear on that. And then you'll get clear on how to keep going back to that to know what your gut is saying as you move forward and to get make sure your gut voice or instinct or whatever, your inner voice is something you can reach in and touch sooner, faster. So anytime you start getting feedback from other people or getting some advice or just a consuming stuff, you can say, okay, well, is this something I want to move forward with? Is it something I just want to explore and see how it goes? Is this something that my gut is saying? No, that's a distraction. You'll start to be able to hear that better.
So okay, that's not going to leave you with, I don't even think I can recap because this was so off the cuff. I just want you to know that if you're hearing too many voices, it's okay to shut them off. Take some time for yourself. Get clear on your own voice and vision and come back when you're ready for more advice and information because you know I got you. I cannot wait to hear how this has helped you. If it has, I would love to hear from you. You can always DM me or just comment or anything at Instagram. I'm on Instagram, the most of social. So it's at Katie McCoach. You can of course go to my website, KatieMcCoach.com.
And also as of when I put this episode out, the next day there's going to be a webinar I'm doing for free. So if you get to this episode in time, go to KatieMcCoach.com slash masterclass and you will be able to sign up for my Your Story Isn't Shit Without Good Characters masterclass. And I give you three, the three ways that I diagnose what's missing in my client's books. So I'm going to give you the three tools. It's totally free masterclass. It is Thursday, the 26th at 10 a.m. Pacific, 1 p.m. Eastern. So if you listen to this like Wednesday, then you have a little time to register. Just go to that link, KatieMcCoach.com slash masterclass to register and I will see you there. If you miss it, it'll come up again one day.
Okay. So it's on the waiting list and you'll be able to catch it again. I cannot wait to hear how you guys keep growing and writing and listening to your inner voice. If you like this, rate and subscribe, of course, please. And please share it with your friends.
All right. Until next time, keep growing, writer.
