We covered that you should start. And that your mistakes are what teach you.

But there’s knowing a thing and doing a thing. Words on a page aren’t enough to inch you forward.

They weren’t for me. What was?

Focusing on keeping my dream alive instead of giving birth to it.

Once I saw that and truly understood it? Knowing that everything else I was doing, every day that passes without at least a tiny but of progress? not doing it, it’s not alive.

Meant it was not alive.

And if it’s not alive it’s dead.

I’ll make that make sense momentarily.

I don’t meant alive as a metaphor

To suddenly go from having a set of capabilities that quickly puts money in my pocket to losing all those resources was — is! — terrifying.

That fear paralyzed me in place for years.

I would think – “I need money today“.

Before I got sick I hadn’t had that problem for more than a day. Want money? Sure.

But NEED it? Not for 16 years.

Even the day I got home from almost dying of severe bacterial pneumonia? I had two contracts and about $5k by the end of that week.

So having to sell my money maker site to survive, and losing my 10,000 email subscribers… to me it was like I was being torn apart from the inside.

I kept trying to crawl my way back.

At least, I thought I was trying. I would think “okay today I’m going to write a book/ do a video/ make an audio class.”

Because I used to be able to do that.

Just create a project in the morning, write a sales page, do a little publicity and leave the rest to my search-magnet blog and social media.

By night my problems wouldn’t be ALL solved. But I’d see enough of a trickle of funds to know that I was going to make enough soon.

I knew exactly what to do. But since the way I used to do it was impossible? Every day I’d get frozen in place.

What do I rebuild first? My list? Do I write for the publications that used to love me three years ago?

Do they still exist?

All of those fears locked me in place. I repeated that cycle of fear for almost two years.

Then I started to understand that there was another way. And that instead of trying to resurrect this dead thing?

Maybe I should try not killing it.

I’m sure that seems a bit off.

But the difference between the crying desperate struggle to get a dead thing to be alive again?

And trying to keep your dream baby alive?

Is Everything.

The Excitement of Creation is more electric

In my mind, in my heart, I thought of my career, my product line, my service ability as a thing. Something not alive. Something that maybe COULD be alive, if I tried hard enough.

If I WAS enough.

Then one day, a motivational thread I read on Twitter, at a time I wasn’t expecting, gave me that twinge of excitement again.

Couldn’t figure out what was different at first.

Then I realized. I cared again. And I cared because now my dream wasn’t a building, a trip it could pay for or even an amount of money.

It was a puppy.

And what kind of monster kills a puppy?

I chose a picture of a puppy that most reminded me of my dream’s personality. I love helping businesses. I love writing.

So a scrappy puppy. One I could imagine at a typewriter sipping bourbon.

And I got on WordSwag and wrote a message to myself as a caption “Are you a Puppy Feeder? Or a Puppy Killer?”

And made it my wallpaper.

Thinking of my dream and a cute living pet- it makes me love it again. I can SEE it again. It may not work the way it once did.

And that’s fine. It’s still my favorite. We don’t stop loving puppies when they become dogs. If anything we love them through it.

My first big step wasn’t scary anymore. Nor were the next ten.

They are exhilarating.