In case you’re new here, on my birthday last month (September 22), I declared that I’m doing a year-long delulu experiment to believe—and act—completely delusionally about my goals for my author career.

You can read more about the experiment here:

This is the month one update, where I’m sharing all the details on the past 30 days.

The Month In Delulu

To be totally honest… I haven’t been all that delusional yet. I wanted to be! I wanted to hit the ground running and fully be in delulu levels of belief about my goal.

But that didn’t quite happen.

With everything I’ve had going on in my life, it has taken me an entire month to find my footing in this experiment.

When I announced that I was doing a delulu year, I had no idea what that fully meant or looked like. I was just tired of not having the results I want in my author career yet.

Now, a month in, I’m a lot clearer on what it’s going to take to make it happen in the next 365 days.

Over the last 30 days, I moved from one house to another, and that has pulled a lot of my time, energy, and focus away from this experiment. I kinda knew that was going to happen, since the move was already on the calendar when I decided to do the delulu year thing.

So I figured it would probably take me some time to get settled again, and it did.

But now that I am? I’m ready to go full delulu and see what happens.

The Actions I Took Over the Past 30 Days

Moving was a huge action. I actually feel like manifesting selling a house and buying a new one all within four months was a little delusional.

But it happened. So I almost feel like my delulu year began back in June of this year, when I first decided I was going to manifest an improved life for myself and my boyfriend.

Living in our new house has felt like a huge upgrade—for my life, my happiness, my belief in what’s possible, and my trust in the Universe to have my back.

And I do think that’s the perfect foundation to build the rest of this delulu year on.

Other actions I took this month:

I recorded the audiobook for How To Feel Rich

This was huge because the only recording date my sound engineer had available was the Saturday after we moved into the house.

It made way more sense for me to stay home unpacking and getting things settled. But instead, I went and recorded the whole audiobook.

Since I did that, we’re already almost finished with edits, and I should have the book on Audible in the next couple of weeks.

This audiobook is part of how I’m going to up-level my book royalties over the next 11 months, so I’m happy I decided to record it even in the midst of all the moving chaos.

Taught a masterclass with another author

I know part of growing a bigger readership (for my books and Substack) is getting in front of new audiences as often as I can.

So when an author I know online asked me to teach a masterclass with her, I was all for it. It was the perfect opportunity to expose my work to writers/authors who hadn’t heard of me yet.

We just hosted the class today, and it was a lot of fun. I love talking to other authors about writing stories and how to do it well.

Started walking multiple times a week while listening to my “It’s Already Done” playlist

When I was manifesting love years back, I would listen to a “love” playlist I created with songs that made me feel like I was in love and in an amazing relationship. Within about eight months of doing this, I manifested the love of my life.

So I thought I could use that same technique to manifest blowing up my author career.

A few times a week, I put on my playlist and do a “manifesting walk,” where I walk up and down our driveway for 30-45 minutes (our driveway is a 1/4-mile long). All of the songs on the playlist are uplifting, motivational, and make you feel like you could be and achieve anything.

These walks have not only been great for getting extra movement in, but I’ve received some really great inspired ideas for my current novel project and this delulu experiment.

I love walking with music to get out of my head and into my body. It makes it so much easier to hear the divine downloads (my phrase for inspired ideas from the Universe).

Plus, the weather has been amazing lately, and it’s so vibey to see all of the fall colors and leaves tumbling down from the trees.

Paid subscribers—I’m giving you my full playlist later in this post, so you can start doing “manifesting walks” too.

Upgrade To Paid

I chose an image to represent my delulu year celebration, and then I made it the lock screen on my phone

I’m all about imagery and having a visual idea of what you’ll do to celebrate achieving your goal or manifestation.

When I was manifesting our new house, I imagined celebrating Christmas in the house. I saw my boyfriend bringing our trees up from the basement. I imagined us setting them up and adding decorations, with a holiday movie playing on the TV, and the fireplace lit up in the background, creating a homey, Christmasy vibe.

And I focused on how it would feel to be doing all of that (the feeling is the most important part).

For my delulu year goal to blow up my author career, I had ChatGPT make me an image of a celebratory cake. I saw this exact cake in my mind, with the exact wording and fonts.

To celebrate my delulu year (next September when this experiment ends), I’m going to buy a cake just like this one from my favorite local gluten-free bakery.

Every day until that day arrives, I’m going to imagine seeing the cake, holding it, smelling it, tasting it. And I’m going to feel as if it’s already done.

Planning the celebration ahead of time is how I visualize. You can read more about my go-to visualization techniques in this post:

I applied for a grant to receive $15,000 for my publishing business (aka author business)

Sort of.

I wrote the essays to apply for the grant, but I haven’t had a chance to finish editing or submit them yet. The application is due by Saturday.

Last year, I came across a local woman-owned business grant—and they give out three per month every month! My publishing business fits all of the criteria for the grant. I just haven’t taken the time to apply for it yet.

So I will be spending some time later today finalizing the essays and actually hitting “submit” on them.

I don’t know what will happen, but I might as well be delulu and shoot my shot.

The Results I Achieved Over the Past 30 Days

Part of doing these monthly delulu year updates is to share the real behind-the-scenes of this experiment. And to be totally honest, I found myself feeling a little apprehensive about writing this section of the post.

Like I had to be impressive in some way.

But the honest truth is…

I’ve had very few results over the last 30 days

Other than moving to our new house, which is honestly a huge result, but from a different goal.

With regard to my author career, not a whole lot has changed.

I’m still making about the same royalties I typically make each month, except for the beginning part of this experiment, when my new book (How To Feel Rich) had just come out. There was a spike in royalties for the whole month of September.

But…

How I’ve been feeling has changed A LOT

Prior to moving, I felt anxious and stressed every single day. I wasn’t getting very much work done because of that.

So now that I’m feeling much better—and I’ve finally set up my new writing space—I’m in a better position to achieve some actual results.

I was invited to speak at an online summit

It’s not my first one, but it’s a great way to get exposed to new audiences, which is part of my goal for the delulu year.

The interview was focused on my books and how to apply the processes that I wrote about in them (I’ll share the link for my summit interview when it’s live next month). I know that anyone who listens will get a lot out of it and be able to apply what we talked about in their own life.

That’s about it for this month.

But I feel like my foundation for the next 11 months is in place now. I’m excited to see what happens from here.

What Worked For Me Over the Past 30 Days

There were quite a few things that worked well for me over the last month that I will be continuing with going into the second month of this delulu experiment.

Those things are:

Every night before I went to sleep, I surrendered my goal to the Universe

This is the majority of my manifesting process—I surrender my goal to the Universe (or God, whatever you prefer). That means, every night before I go to sleep, I say, “Thank you, Universe, for helping me to blow up my author career in the next year.”

When I was manifesting selling our house and buying a new one, I surrendered both goals before I went to sleep by saying, “Thank you, Universe, for finding the perfect buyer for our house with total ease and speed,” and “Thank you, Universe, for finding us the perfect house for our next chapter.”

I wrote about this in my book, F*ck the How, but how I manifest delulu things is that I co-create them by surrendering the hard part (aka figuring out the how) to the Universe.

It’s the one thing that always works for me, even if it takes longer than I want it to. I now use it all day, every day for everything from front-row parking spaces to blowing up my author career.

I will be writing about this a lot over the next 11 months, so get ready.

Taking Manifesting Walks a few times per week

I mentioned this in the section above, but listening to my manifesting playlist and walking is pretty magical. The level of clarity I get on ideas and action steps is next level.

It’s worth doing them, even on the days when I don’t feel like it (which is most days LOL).

I will most definitely be continuing these manifesting walks for as long as there’s no snow on the ground or freezing temps outside. I’ll pick them back up in the spring, and will do them on the treadmill until then.

Working in my new writing space

This is the first time in a decade where I’ve had a private writing space in my house, and I’m actually using it. Usually, I write sitting at the kitchen table, or on the couch in the living room.

It worked fine—that’s how I’ve written the majority of my 19 books—but I felt like I’d get more done with a dedicated space to work in.

And I was right.

I’ve been working in my new writing space every day, and it has made a huge difference in my productivity and happiness level. No longer spending the day writing on the couch and then also sitting on the couch to watch TV at night is so much better.

I have a space where I can do my writing and work on my publishing/author business. Then I can shut it down for the day when I’m ready and walk away from it.

And it’ll be there tomorrow when I’m ready for it.

I will, for sure, be continuing to write and work in my new space. And once I’ve done a little more zhuzhing of it, I will show you pictures.

In the remainder of this post, I’m going to explain:

• What didn’t work for me over the past 30 days—the things I tried and failed at or that didn’t go how I wanted

• What I’m tweaking for next month to see what happens—the changes I’m making and why

• The specific divine downloads and inspired actions I received from the Universe—and what I’m doing with them

• The mindset I’m putting behind the next 30 days of this experiment—what I’ll be thinking, believing, and feeling

• My Manifesting Walks “It’s Already Done” playlist—so you can take walks, listen to it, and manifest your goals

When you become a paid subscriber, you get full access to the My Delulu Year updates. You also get a monthly bonus resource to help you achieve your goals + access to the Member’s Vault, where you’ll find every workshop replay and resource I’ve created so far. Plus, deeper insights into the mindset, identity, discipline, and long-term thinking behind manifesting a career and life you love.

What Didn’t Work For Me Over the Past 30 Days

These are the things I tried and failed at, or that didn’t go how I wanted them to:

Read more

My goal in this delulu experiment is to blow up my author career by my next birthday (in September 2027). And part of that includes growing my Substack subscribers (free and paid).

I’ve been reading the Substack, Petal and Hearth with for over a year now. She was one of the first Stacks I subscribed to when I got on here last August.

Petal + Hearth

I share stories and strategies to help you design a life you love and a creative business that supports it. Bestselling Substack writer living in the south of France, here to help you romanticize the everyday and step into your 💫 main character energy 💫

By Olivia Wickstrom

And about a week ago, I upgraded to her Founding Member tier.

When you’re one of her founding members, you get an audit of your Substack once a year. This seemed like the perfect way to move forward on my delulu year goals.

Olivia just completed my audit and sent it to me today.

It was jam-packed with insights on how to refine my Substack + take it to the next level.

I spent a chunk of my time working through the specific tips she gave me for making improvements, and I was able to complete four of them.

Here are some of the changes I made based on Olivia’s audit of The Author Life Project:

1. Tightened up my content pillars

Olivia recommends knowing your “why” for being on Substack, plus your three content pillars, so that you can use them as a lens for every post you write.

She mentioned that my About page listed four pillars, but they overlapped, and the navigation bar on my Substack didn’t match those pillars.

So I looked at what I had written on my About page, and I tightened up my content pillars. I will now be focusing on the following three pillars in all of my content:

• Building an Author Career—Writing, publishing, marketing, and money from 16+ years of being a self-published author

• Mindset and Manifesting—Delulu goals, permission slips, how to feel like the author you want to be, and manifesting processes to help you have more of what you want right now

• My Delulu Year—updates and behind-the-scenes of my 365-day delulu experiment to blow up my author career by my next birthday

I also updated my navigation and post tags to reflect these same topics. Now everything feels cohesive.

2. Clarified The Paid Tiers

She liked what I was offering in my paid tiers, but mentioned that what I offered wasn’t super clear to new subscribers. She suggested clarifying the wording on my “subscribe” page so that it was very clear what paid subscribers get every month.

I also updated the About page and “Start Here” post to reflect that same information, and changed the navigation from “Vault” to “Paid Member Vault,” so paid members know exactly where to find everything.

Now it’s very clear what paid subscribers get when they upgrade:

For Paid Subscribers

Every month, paid subscribers get the full My Delulu Year update report with real numbers, plus a live Q&A, and at least one additional resource (PDF, template, prompt, tool, or audio reflection) to help you take action in your own author career and life.

You also get access to the Vault where you’ll find every workshop replay and resource I’ve created so far.

For Inner Circle members

Inner Circle members get to be part of my book launch team! You’ll receive early access to chapters from my upcoming books, sneak peeks behind-the-scenes of my launches (with opportunities to vote on parts of the publishing process, like cover design and marketing images), and advanced reader copies (ARCs) of my books before they’re available to the public on launch day.

Upgrade To Paid

3. Updated my profile and publication bios

Olivia said my profile bio was enticing, but it didn’t really tell potential new subscribers why they’d want to subscribe to my Substack.

So I went to work writing new bios. I also made sure the profile bio was concise enough to fit without someone having to click on “more” to read the rest of it.

My original bio said: I’m a bestselling self-published author of 19 books, and I’m doing a delulu year experiment to blow up my author career in the next 365 days.

My new bio says: Bestselling indie author of 19 books on a delulu mission to blow up my career in 365 days. Follow along + build an author career (and life) on your terms.

Pretty simple change, but now it’s clear why someone should subscribe to this Substack.

I also updated the publication bio (aka the publication description on the “Welcome” page).

Old description: For authors who want to build a career (and a life) on their own terms—written by a bestselling author doing a one-year delulu experiment to blow up her career.

New description: For authors who want to build a career (and a life) on their own terms—written by a bestselling indie author doing a delulu experiment to blow up her career by her next birthday.

Again, a simple change, but it makes it a lot clearer who I am, who this Substack is for, and why someone should subscribe.

4. Wrote a short “who I am” bio for the end of every post

Something that has always stood out to me on Olivia’s Substack is that she has an author bio—with pictures—at the end of every free post. Just in case someone is landing on her Substack for the first time through that post.

And so it wasn’t surprising that she recommended I do the same thing on my posts, plus link to my books.

Going forward, at the end of all of my free posts, this will be there:

A Little About Me

Hi—I’m Jennifer, author of 19 books (with more in the works) and this Substack!

I’ve been writing and self-publishing since 2010, earning consistent monthly royalties since 2016, and building a career where my books now provide a substantial part of my income since 2023.

I recently started a Delulu Year experiment to manifest blowing up my author career by my next birthday, and I’m documenting all of it right here.

Hit “subscribe” to follow along with my journey + start manifesting the author career (and life) you’ve been dreaming of.

Welcome to the Author Life Project ❤️

P.S. You can check out my books here 📚

Additional Changes In the Works

Olivia gave me so many amazing insights, and I now have so much to work with and consider. There are a few things I’m still figuring out, but here are the next changes I intend to make:

• Add a Substack invitation at the end of all of my most popular books—so Substack can be driving people to my books and my books can be driving people to my Substack #ecosystem

• Give the 8-day “How to feel rich” challenge from my book of the same name to anyone who subscribes to my Substack (free or paid)—this challenge is so much fun to complete, and it’s a great way to start creating a richer-feeling life right now. It will be a great reason for someone to become a subscriber.

• Turn My Delulu Year into my next manifesting book—last year, I actually started writing a manifesting experiments book, but it stalled because I felt like something was missing. Now I know exactly what that is—a live experiment—and I plan on merging that book draft with the Delulu Year experiment after it ends in September 2027.

• Start writing and posting Notes on Substack at least once a day (twice if possible)—this is something I’ve been meaning to do for… a while now. But I hadn’t pulled the trigger on it because I’ve had so much going on, and I wasn’t clear on what I wanted to write Notes about. Olivia gave me a full schedule for exactly what to focus on in my Notes each day, so I plan on becoming a lot more consistent with Notes now.

There are a few other things I have planned for updating this Substack, but these are the main takeaways I had from Olivia’s audit.

It was definitely worth upgrading to the Founding Member tier of her Substack just for this information alone. And I still have a whole year to enjoy the benefits of being a paid member.

If you have a Substack with a paid tier—or you want to have one—I highly recommend you upgrade to a paid subscriber for at least one Substack that you enjoy reading. Not only will you be supporting another writer, but you never know what amazing stuff you’ll get out of it!

Subscribe now

Author Life: Implementation

This week, go through your Substack publication and look for the following:

• Inconsistencies

• Places where things could be clarified or refined

• Ways to make your paid tier(s) more enticing

• How you can create more of a connection with potential new subscribers

• Any updates you’ve been meaning to make but haven’t yet

Then choose at least one thing to update or change.

And if you have questions or need support, drop me a comment below. I’m always happy to help!

~jennifer

A Little About Me

Hi—I’m Jennifer, author of 19 books (with more in the works) and this Substack!

I’ve been writing and self-publishing since 2010, earning consistent monthly royalties since 2016, and building a career where my books now provide a substantial part of my income since 2023.

I recently started a Delulu Year experiment to manifest blowing up my author career by my next birthday, and I’m documenting all of it right here.

Hit “subscribe” to follow along with my journey + start manifesting the author career (and life) you’ve been dreaming of.

Welcome to the Author Life Project ❤️

P.S. You can check out my books here 📚

Now I want to ask you… What could happen if you stopped using your current circumstances as evidence of what’s possible for you?

And, most importantly, do you want to find out?

So often…

Read more

At first, it felt like a blessing. Imagine having all of that space to spread out! No more dual-use rooms, like a gym-office, because we’d be able to have space for both a gym and an office.

And think of all the fun projects and cosmetic changes we could make. We could build a garden. We could get an ATV. We could create our dream kitchen.

But the romanticizing we were doing about the house and the property was a little different than living life in the house and on the property. There was a lot of upkeep—both expected and unexpected—that had to be done, which left little time for those fun things we had planned.

Even still, we were enjoying living there with our two senior dogs. The property was so beautiful, and the diversity of wildlife was like living in a nature preserve.

We took long walks around the property. We sat on the balcony with the dogs and enjoyed the seasons changing. We celebrated holidays and cooked a lot of delicious meals in our kitchen.

Then in 2025, we lost both of our dogs within 90 days.

To keep our spirits up, we started to do some little upgrades here and there, like getting some new living room furniture and finally setting up our gym (in my office LOL! So much for the single-use rooms).

But not long after losing the dogs, we started to notice something... There was a lot of upkeep that had to be done at this house and on this property. On the weekends, we were no longer enjoying our downtime. Instead, we spent them checking things off on a long list of to-dos that just seemed to get longer.

Not only that, but the house and property were a 30-minute drive from my boyfriend’s store, so he was commuting an hour a day (and that’s not counting the winter months when the weather would make the commute even longer), putting a lot of miles on his truck, and spending a lot of money on gas.

One Sunday, at the beginning of June this year, my boyfriend told me how burned out he was feeling. Between owning and running his store, commuting five days a week, and all of the upkeep required at the house and property, it was starting to feel like a lot. Like almost too much.

He didn’t have time for the fun projects and activities he wanted to do. We barely saw each other anymore because he was either working, commuting, or outside taking care of the property.

Our quality of life was suffering.

And the truth was, for a year and a half since losing the dogs, I really started to notice how empty the house felt.

The majority of rooms had nothing in them or were being used for storage. We were mainly living in a small handful of rooms, and the rest of the space was going to waste.

I just kept feeling like two people didn’t need a 5,100-square-foot house.

So when he told me how burned out he was feeling, I decided to say something I’d been holding in for more than 18 months. I said, “Maybe we need to find better work-life balance.” I explained that maybe we needed to downsize and find a property we still loved, but that needed far less upkeep, had a smaller, more updated house on it, and was a lot closer to his store.

He agreed with me. But he was worried we’d never be able to find something as good as what we had.

Then I reminded him that we had manifested the house and property together, and if we did it once, we could do it again. So he got on board, and we decided to sell the house and find a new one.

From early June of this year through the end of July, we worked on repairs and cleanup, and got the house ready to go on the market. We wanted to make sure we were selling the house to the new owners in better condition than the original owner had sold it to us in.

We knew it was a unicorn house and property (aka something unique with no comparable houses or properties), and that it would require the right buyers to see its potential and fall in love with it the way we did. Our realtors even warned us that unicorn houses/properties usually take longer to sell.

But I didn’t want the house to sit on the market for months waiting for that buyer to find it.

So while we were getting the house ready to be listed for sale, I began delegating the job of finding the new owners to the Universe. Every night before I went to sleep, I would say, “Thank you, Universe, for finding the right buyer with total ease and speed.”

(This is a process I call F*ck the How, and you can ​read more about using it in my bestselling book of the same name​.)

I wanted buyers that would love the house and the property, take full advantage of all the space available, and who didn’t hunt (keeping the property park-like and the wildlife safe).

The house and property went on the market the final week of July, and within five days, it sold for more than the asking price to a family with five kids and a love of all things outdoors (our realtors were shocked it sold so fast!! … But I wasn’t #ManifestedIt).

They already owned dirt bikes, four-wheelers, and other outdoor toys. Not only that, but the parents are electricians by trade and had experience renovating houses.

They were literally the perfect people to buy that house from us—thank you, Universe!

My boyfriend and I planned to rent for a few months while we searched for our next home. We figured it was going to take some time to find exactly what we were looking for.

But even still, I decided we needed to get the manifestation in process. So we made a list of everything we wanted in the new house and property, and then delegated the job of finding it for us to the Universe.

I talk all about how to do my “surrender” manifesting process in my books, F*ck the How, and Manifest Everything.

Read Them Here

And only two weeks later, we found ourselves putting in an offer on a house and property we had been looking at online but thought for sure would sell during delayed negotiations. And then it didn’t.

We went to see it in person and were blown away!

The property was almost six acres, with a ginormous pole barn garage that had just been completely renovated, and a 1,600-square-foot house that had also been renovated. And it was only a 10-minute drive to my boyfriend’s store. (Side note: yes, six acres is still a lot of land, but we like owning land, and this property isn’t in the middle of the woods, so there’s not nearly as much upkeep.)

Turns out, the owners of the house had just built a new house and needed to sell this one quickly so they weren’t paying two mortgages. They had several offers from people who only wanted to buy the house, but not with the six acres or the pole barn garage.

So we had a huge advantage because we wanted the house, the land, and the pole barn. They accepted our offer right away, and we got the house and property for less than we had budgeted to spend!!

Today, I’m writing this post while sitting in my brand-new writing space, looking out the window at our barn, property, and even a pond with a fountain (talk about this or something better!!).

Within four months of deciding to manifest a change in our lives, we are now living a totally different life. One with more balance, less upkeep, and more time for our relationship and to actually enjoy our lives.

The best part is, when we were moving out of the other house, the new owners stopped by to meet us. They were telling us how excited they are to start renovating the house so they can move in later this year (AND they don’t hunt, so all of the beautiful wildlife on the property will continue to thrive!).

I mentioned that I had been manifesting people exactly like them buying our house. They laughed and then told me something pretty crazy: Right before they decided to buy our house and property, they were in the process of having an architect draw up plans for building an extension on their current house. With five kids, plus family all over the country who came to visit often, they were bursting at the seams.

Then they saw our house and property listed for sale, and decided to check it out. They fell in love and realized it was the perfect solution for them!

The Universe did an INCREDIBLE job finding us the right buyers and the right sellers, and I’m so freaking beyond grateful. Now we all get to live better quality lives, and that’s really the whole point.

Author Life: Implementation

This week, think about an area of your life you’re no longer enjoying, and brainstorm some ways you can make an improvement to it. Sometimes it requires something big, like selling one house and buying another, but most of the time, it only takes a couple of simple tweaks to make life a whole lot better.

~jennifer

Thoughts. Emotions. Song lyrics. Memories. Moments in time.

Tucking things away for possible use later. Or not.

Over the weekend, my boyfriend and I moved to our new house (I’ll tell you the manifesting story behind this soon—it’s a good one!!).

As I began unpacking boxes, I realized how much stuff I’ve had stored away that I totally forgot about. Take, for example, my early writing.

Today, I found my journals from middle school, high school, college, and the year after I graduated from college and moved to SoCal for a magazine internship that turned into my first post-college job.

SO many things documented!!

Things I totally forgot about. Things I remembered but tried to forget. Things that I’ve used in my books without even realizing it. And even more that I plan on using in my future writing.

Evidence of the writer and author I was always meant to be and always going to become.

My soul on the page.

Author Life: Implementation

This week, go back and review some of your previous writing and enjoy a nostalgic moment. You may never use any of it, but it’s great evidence that your soul has always known you were going to be a writer.

~jennifer

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He was relentlessly determined to get what he wanted, and he was always unavailable for not getting it.

He expected to get it and would not give up until he did.

Take, for instance, one morning a few years ago. I put some gluten-free toast in the toaster and then set everything out to make a BLT (yes, I eat those in the morning). I hate making sandwiches when the toast is hot because it melts the mayo and I like my mayo cold. So once the toast was done, I left it in the toaster to cool down, and I went into the living room to listen to a podcast episode.

Normally, Weiland followed me everywhere I went. But not that morning. That morning, he wanted some of the bacon he knew was on the counter.

And he wasn’t going to give up until he got it.

So while I sat on the couch listening to the podcast, Weiland stayed in the kitchen, sitting like a perfect angel in the middle of the floor.

He didn’t follow me into the living room. He didn’t wait for a few minutes and then decide it wasn’t going to happen and give up. He waited there the entire time.

Because he knew.

He knew I would eventually come back into the kitchen to finish making that sandwich. He knew when I did, he would get a small piece of bacon.

He wanted that bacon. He was not gonna give up until he got it.

And a little while later, he did.

Another example: After my divorce in early 2019, my ex-husband was still tied to my old business taxes from a few years prior. At that time, we had a shitty tax accountant who didn’t tell us that when one spouse owns a business, you should file your taxes “married filing separately,” so that the business taxes stay with the business-owning spouse and don’t become the responsibility of the non-business-owning spouse.

So we filed our taxes as “married,” and that’s how my now-ex-husband ended up tied to my old business tax debt.

But once we were divorced, I wanted him off of those taxes. I wanted to be fully free of him.

And those taxes were the final string tying us together.

The only problem was… every tax accountant and tax attorney I spoke with told me there was no way the IRS was going to remove him from my taxes. They told me once taxes are filed as “married,” the IRS will hold both spouses responsible for paying them until the taxes are paid off.

Well, that response was not acceptable to me.

I wanted him off of those taxes. Not only that, but I also wanted the IRS to refund all of the money they took from my ex’s annual tax refunds to pay for my tax debt.

So I decided that’s what was going to happen. I was relentlessly determined that it was going to happen.

No matter what anyone else thought, believed, or told me, that is the end result I was determined to get.

I just kept affirming over and over again that he would be removed from my taxes and get his money refunded. When there was an action to take, I took it. And when I hit a brick wall, I just continued to believe.

It took about two years, but that is the result I ended up with!

I received a letter from the IRS letting me know they agreed the tax debt didn’t belong to him, and that they were removing him and refunding all of the money he had paid toward it.

(You can read the complete story of how I manifested that result in my book, Quantum Leap Your Life.)

This is what relentless determination looks like. That is what it means to expect what you want and to be unavailable for not getting it.

If you want something—to grow your author career, change your life, make more money, etc.—you must be relentlessly determined to get it. You must believe that you get to have it. You must expect it.

And you must be focused on it and unavailable for anything else. That is how you get everything you want (or something even better).

Author Life: Implementation

This week, think about something you want that you need to be more relentlessly determined to receive, and then recommit to having it.

~jennifer

P.S. I am relentlessly determined to go full delulu over the next 12 months and manifest my author career blowing up!

Want to join me?

Read this post:

And then declare your delulu year goal in the comments below.

Subscribe now

But this year, I’m doing something a little different.

I’ve decided that it’s time to be a lot more delusional about my goals and start to believe for and pursue what I actually want, even without any evidence that it’s going to work.

So… Welcome to My Delulu Year!

The Delulu Year Experiment

For the next 12 months, I’m going full-on delulu about the dreams, desires, and goals I have for my author career. That means I’m no longer using my current circumstances as evidence for what’s possible.

Instead, I’m deciding what I truly desire, and I’m believing that it will happen. Period.

My goal for the next 365 days—from my birthday today until my birthday in 2027—is to blow up my author career.

Is this a little crazy? Sure. But I’m tired of playing small, fearing the worst, and accepting the bare minimum from life.

I’m way more powerful than that (and so are you).

So I’m going to prove it to myself by suspending all doubts, disbeliefs, and previous results, and being completely delusional for the next year.

The Goal

As I mentioned, my goal with this experiment is to blow up my author career. But what does that even mean, right?

In manifesting, you have to be as clear as possible on how you’re defining your desired end result.

And I like to break my goals into different levels—so I know what I want, but I’m also stretching myself past that point and reaching for even more (because why not?).

I sat with it for a while, and this is what I came up with:

The end result

At the end of the 365 days, I want to have a thriving author career, which I’m defining as:

• Making enough income from my book royalties and Substack subscriptions to not need any other sources of income

But there’s more to it than that. Because I honestly don’t just care about the money.

I care about the people who read my books. I care about the results they’re getting and the impact it’s making in their lives. I care about entertaining people with my stories.

And I want as many people as possible to know who I am and love reading my words.

All of that is a part of this too.

The big goal

Since my desired end result isn’t just the income that I’m making, but it’s the impact as well, the next part of how I’m measuring “blowing up my author career” is like this:

• I’ve become an author with a real fanbase—aka people are buying my books all day, every day and leaving 5-star reviews; people are emailing me and posting on social media to share how my books have helped and/or entertained them; and my online audience is full of people who love me and my work

This is a stretch for me, especially considering I’ve always hidden behind my laptop and never really believed that I could be someone who’s known and loved. It goes against all of the limiting beliefs I’ve had programmed in me since childhood, when I was getting bullied by kids in my class and being shunned for just being who I am.

But I’m ready to outgrow and reprogram all that shit. Doing so is now part of the My Delulu Year experiment.

The delulu goal

And, of course, no delulu experiment would be complete without a totally delulu goal to go with it. Something that stretches me so far outside my comfort zone that I almost can’t believe it, except I’m choosing to.

The delulu way I’m defining “blowing up my author career” is like this:

• One of my novels fucking takes off and becomes a movie

Now, the novel doesn’t actually have to become a movie within the next 12 months, since movies take a lot longer than that to come to fruition. But being in talks for the novel being optioned for a movie, or anything along those lines, will count.

Yes, I’m insane. I know.

But I’m also exhausted from playing so small that I end up with crumbs.

I’m ready to claim the author career and life I’ve been dreaming of since I was 11 years old. The one I absolutely know is possible for me if I just get the hell out of my own way, put a little skin in the game, and have some faith.

So here I am, doing exactly that.

How This Is Going To Go Down

Every day for the next 365 days, I’m going to be working on all of this.

And then once a month, I will share an update on Substack where I give you a behind-the-scenes look at:

• The month in delulu—What happened overall

• What I actually did—The actions I took

• What inspired actions/ideas came to me—The divine downloads and nudges I received from the Universe

• What happened?—Actual results and real-world evidence

• What worked—What I’m going to continue with

• What didn’t—What flopped or didn’t go how I hoped

• What I’m tweaking—What I’m changing based on what I learned

• The mindset behind all of it—what I’ve been thinking, affirming, believing, etc.

I will also be doing extras each month—livestreams, Q&As, audio reflections, and more. This will be for paid subscribers only:

Upgrade To Paid

Because this experiment isn’t just about me. It’s also about you.

Your Delulu Year

What could happen if you stopped using your current circumstances as evidence of what’s possible for you? And, most importantly, do you want to find out?

So often we play really small in our lives. We don’t believe we’ll ever have anything better than what we currently do.

And we allow ourselves to forget how powerful we actually are and that we’re always co-creating our lives with the Universe.

This is an opportunity for you to remember that and use it to your advantage.

If you’d like to join me in creating your own Delulu Year experiment, here’s what you should do:

1. Get clear on what you want if you could have anything in the next 12 months

Focusing on realistic goals is pointless because you have no idea how much time you have left on this planet. Why waste it trying to achieve a mediocre life?

You were created for so much more than that. And you’re capable of it.

Being realistic is why you keep getting realistic—or less than—results. And convincing yourself you don’t want something you actually do want just because you don’t know how to make it happen is a misuse of your co-creative powers.

So forget about all of your current circumstances, everything you currently think is possible for you, and give yourself a moment to go full delulu. Okay?

Now grab a notebook and a pen, and write down everything you’d LOVE to make happen in the next 12 months. Even if it feels a little crazy, out there, or beyond what you believe is possible right now.

This is an opportunity for you to stop playing small and go for what you actually want. Your true desires, if you could have anything and there were no limits.

No more “should” desires (as in, I “should” want this…). No more FOMO goals. Just giving yourself full permission to want what you actually want.

Got it? Good.

Once you’ve made your list, go back through it and decide what you want to commit the next year of your life to making happen.

And if you’re still not sure, here are some resources to help you get clear:

• The Desires vs. Shoulds audio + worksheet

• The Clarity + Decision workshop (see below)

• How To Lock In and Align Your Life With Being An Author (see below)

2. Define your goal by end results (not hows)

Now we need to make sure what you want is an end result and not how you think you’re going to get there. It’s very easy to confuse the two.

Example: you say you want to write every day for an hour ←that is a how. Why do you want to write for an hour every day? So you can finally finish your next book and publish it ←that is an end result.

You can finish your next book and publish it without writing for an hour a day, which is why writing for an hour a day is a how and not an end result.

See the difference?

An end result is a specific outcome. A how is the steps you think you need to take to achieve that outcome.

It also helps to define your goal with different levels of achievement, like I did with my delulu year in the first part of this post:

• Level one is achieving your desired end result

• The next level is stretching just a little bit beyond that

• And the final level is going full delulu and believing for something that you want but is currently outside of your comfort zone

Now take a minute to review your goal(s) from step one and make sure it’s an end result and not a how.

3. Why do you want this goal?

A year is a long time to maintain a single focus, so you’ll want to make sure that you have a deeper reason for wanting to achieve this goal. The surface-level desire itself will only take you so far.

But when the journey gets tough? You need something else to keep you putting one foot in front of the other.

So, why do you want this goal? What will having it do for you and your life? And why does that matter to you?

Example: my why for wanting to blow up my author career is so that I can make the impact I desire to make with my words, stories, and books. It’s so the people who need what I write can find me and be entertained (for fiction) or transform their lives (for nonfiction).

It’s to see my childhood dream of being a successful author fulfilled beyond what I ever imagined was possible back then.

All of that is way more motivating for me than making a lot of money. That’s just a side effect.

4. Create a daily mindset practice you will use during this experiment

Mindset is an extremely important part of achieving your goals, but when you’re going for a delulu year? It’s even more important.

First off, sticking with something for 12 full months is a challenge in and of itself. And trying to achieve a delulu goal will make it more challenging.

So your mindset must be on point at all times.

Yes, you’re going to have moments where it slips. You’re human and that will happen at times. The key is getting back on track as fast as you can.

For a daily mindset practice, I recommend that it have three parts:

• Clear the clutter—you have to get and keep the noise out of your head (noise, as in the negative thoughts, limiting beliefs, old BS stories, and nonsense from the outside world), otherwise, it will take you down. The best way to clear mind clutter is with freestyle stream-of-consciousness journaling. You can also meditate and do EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique).

• Claim what you want—decide who you’re now choosing to be and what you’re now choosing to believe, and then affirm it for yourself. My favorite way is by writing out “I am” statements every morning, but you can also make a list of your new beliefs and read them every day, or you can record yourself saying them out loud and listen to the recording over and over again.

• Feel it—to manifest what you want—especially a delulu goal—you have to feel as if you’ve already achieved it. So you have to do something that makes you feel that way. My favorite ways to feel it are by doing EFT and my celebration visualization (which I detailed how to do in this post). You can also do anything that makes you feel good, like dancing, singing, listening to music, working out, etc.

And if your goal for the next 12 months is to grow in your author career, you will definitely want to check out this workshop replay:

5. Start doing what you already know to do

This is probably one of the most important steps of the entire delulu year. You can’t just sit around doing mindset work and feeling good without taking any action. Action is always needed.

That doesn’t mean you have to figure out or try to manufacture the how of achieving your goal.

But it does mean you have to start moving in the direction you want to go by doing whatever you already know to do. And then, as you do, allow yourself to be inspired to other actions (we’ll talk about that in the next step below).

Example—If you want to write and publish your next book, what do you already know to do? Make a list if you need to.

You know that you have to: find an idea you feel excited about, write an outline, start to research anything you need more information about, sit down and write the first draft, etc.

These are actions you can start doing right now.

6. Trust the inspired actions and follow them

As you begin doing what you know to do, you’ll receive ideas for inspired actions you could take. These ideas will usually come to you out of the blue, when you’re not doing anything related to your goals, and will sometimes feel like a “lightning bolt” hitting your brain. They may also come to you as inner nudges—aka a feeling inside yourself—telling you to do something specific, go somewhere, post something, write something, talk to someone, etc.

It’s very, very important that you trust these inspired ideas and take action on them right away. (So long as they feel good to you—you never have to do anything that doesn’t.)

This is the Universe trying to reach you with its magic.

As you move in the direction of your goal by doing what you already know to do, you’re sending a signal to the Universe that lets it know what you want. And when it receives that signal, it will help bridge the gap between where you are and where you want to be with inspired ideas and actions.

Manifesting and achieving your goals—especially the delulu ones—is a co-creation with the Universe. You do your part, and the Universe does its part.

But when it sends you an idea for something you can do, you have to trust it and take action on it. Even if it feels challenging, slightly intimidating, or outside your comfort zone.

That is how growth happens. And this is how you become the version of yourself required to achieve your delulu year goal.

Author Life: Implementation

This week, go through the six steps for creating your Delulu Year and start taking action right away. There’s no time to waste!

And if you have questions or need support, drop me a comment below. I’m always happy to help!

~jennifer

Want an author-friend to join you for the Delulu Year experiment? Share this post with them:

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That we should accept our limitations and our lot in life, and just be realistic.

But you know what I say? Fuck that.

What is the point of being realistic?

I mean, really. What is it?

I’ll tell you what the point of being realistic is: To keep us playing small and creating a mediocre life.

And so, again I say, fuck that.

We were made to do big things. We were designed with the power and the ability to create something magnificent from no how and no way.

All we have to do is imagine it. Believe that it’s possible for us. And then do our part and stay out of the Universe’s way so it can do its part.

But we forget this.

Society convinces us that we’re powerless. That we’re at the mercy of everything around us: the economy, the state of the world, the people in our lives, and our current circumstances.

And I call bullshit on all of it.

We are not powerless. We are powerful.

We are unstoppable beings who can do anything we set our minds to.

And we can create any reality we desire for ourselves. Even a big, unrealistic, delusional one.

Unless, of course, we choose to believe otherwise.

The Problem With Realistic Goals

The biggest problem with realistic goals is that they’re not motivating.

Sure, you can motivate yourself with a realistic goal to a certain point. But eventually, you’ll stop caring.

You’ll let life, and circumstances, and societal nonsense, and fear get in the way. You’ll convince yourself it’s not a big deal and you can always do it at a later time.

Later. Later. Later.

Until. Until. Until.

One day. One day. One day.

All of that is code for: I don’t really care.

Because when something really matters to you, when you’re excited about it, and you want it bad enough, it will light a fire under your ass. One that life, circumstances, and society can’t put out.

Not even fear can stop it.

Because what you want is so big and so compelling that it consumes you. It consumes your every waking thought. It consumes your dreams at night.

And it gives you a purpose beyond waking up and repeating the same day that you lived yesterday.

This Is How To Choose Your Goals

Let me ask you something: What would you go for in your life if you no longer used your current reality as evidence of what’s possible for you?

If you could set aside “what is” and have anything you wanted. If your previous results and current circumstances had no bearing on your future.

What would you want? What would you allow yourself to desire?

THAT is what your goals should be based on.

Nothing more. Nothing less.

Author Life Reflection

• Journal prompt: What would you go for in my life if I no longer used my current reality as evidence of what’s possible for me?

And tell me in the comments—what would you want for your life if anything was possible and there were no limits?

~jennifer

Buy How To Feel Rich Here

I always knew I would eventually write a money book. I assumed it would be one day in the far-off future when I was financially rich and could look back and explain how I did it. I never expected to write this book while still on my money journey.

But what’s that saying? Make plans and then watch God laugh at them?

Yeah. That.

When the divine download (my phrase for an inspired idea from the Universe) came to me for this book back in February, I had a lot of fear around writing it. Like, who the hell am I to write a book about money?

But once I finally gave myself permission to just sit down and write it, something surprising happened... I discovered that this book is about so much more than money!

It’s about creating a rich-feeling life, no matter how much money is currently in your bank account.

The Rich Author Life

Before writing this book, I wouldn’t have called myself a rich author. I’d have thought I needed to be making so much more money from my books than I am right now to qualify for that title.

But after writing it, I’m clear that I’m already living my rich author life.

So I thought I’d share some of what that looks like for me, so you can get inspired to see that you’re already rich too.

Here’s a peek into my rich author life:

Waking up without an alarm

Every morning, I get to wake up without an alarm. I get to sleep until whatever time my body decides is appropriate each day.

No loud beeping sounds ripping me out of my sleep before I’m ready to wake up. Nowhere I have to be at a set time.

Total freedom and flexibility.

Daily mindset work before I even get out of bed

After I wake up, I sit in bed and do my daily mindset work, which right now includes writing “I am” statements about the things I’m manifesting for my author life + at least one tapping video (aka Emotional Freedom Technique) and/or a visualization while listening to meditation music.

This helps me start my day focused on who I want to be and on what I’m claiming as “already done.” It also helps me to connect with that rich feeling inside myself first thing in the morning.

Time and space to make delicious meals for breakfast and lunch, and actually be able to enjoy eating them

Since I’m a full-time author, I don’t have a day job I have to rush off to. I get to take as much time as I feel like taking each morning to get my day started.

And that includes the space to make delicious meals for breakfast and lunch (and dinner), and actually enjoy eating them.

The freedom to write and work on my author business from wherever I want to each day

Most days, I work at home. But sometimes, I feel like getting out. And when I do, you’ll often find me writing at Starbucks or a local coffee shop.

I love that I have the freedom to order a drink, sit down at a table, and work while drinking it.

No rushing in and out like most people do. Just enjoying the ambiance of the coffee shop while getting my work done for the day.

Being able to take time off whenever I want, without stress or worry

Going to the beach with my boyfriend on a Monday. Taking a Wednesday morning off to attend Buffalo Bills training camp with my nephew.

My schedule is 100% in my control, and I get to do whatever I want to do on a daily basis without stressing or worrying about work.

The opportunity to indulge in my hobbies anytime I choose

Writing is my hobby that became a career. And that career has given me the freedom to spend time indulging in my other creative hobbies, like charcuterie and pottery, whenever I choose to.

This includes making a charcuterie board in the middle of the day just because I feel like it, and taking a three-hour pottery class in the middle of my work week just because I can.

Having a dream relationship with my dream man

Before meeting my boyfriend, I used to settle for crumbs in relationships. Now, I have a dream relationship with a dream man who is everything I’ve ever wanted and more.

A man who not only loves, encourages, and supports me, but is also the most thoughtful person I’ve ever met, who always considers me in everything he does and in every decision he makes.

We’re not just a couple; we’re partners in life and best friends.

Friendships with women who are my soul-sisters

Growing up, I didn’t have many female friends. Girls tended to bully me and treat me badly, so I avoided being close with them.

But after healing from all of that, I now have soul-sister friendships with some of the greatest women I’ve ever known. One of them——even wrote the foreword for How To Feel Rich.

Getting to be a mom for 16 years to the best dog on the planet

Probably the thing that makes me feel the richest of all was getting to be a mom to the best dog that ever lived: my late toy poodle, Weiland.

Even though he’s no longer with me, I will always be grateful for the 16 years we spent together. Our daily walks, road trips, and adventures are some of the best memories from my life so far.

Nothing has ever made me feel richer.

I write books for a living

Best of all, I get to write books for a living. I get to wake up every day, put my ideas into words, and turn those words into published books.

I’ve sold almost 35,000 copies of my books so far!!

And How To Feel Rich (Even If You’re Not Yet) is my 19TH BOOK. I’ve been blessed to be an author for nearly two decades.

I have the career of my dreams. And there’s so much more to come.

My 11-year-old self would be so freaking proud of me!

All of this (and more) is why I’m living my richest author life. Because being rich is about more than just having a lot of money.

It’s about having a life that you love. It’s about making the most of every day.

And it’s about being grateful for the things you already have that make you feel like the wealthiest version of yourself.

Author Life Reflection

• Journal prompt: What in my life already makes me feel rich?

• Micro-action: Choose one thing from your list of what already makes you feel rich, and spend time with that person/place/thing today. As you do, really feel all of those rich feelings. You are wealthier than you realize.

Tell me in the comments—what in your life already makes you feel rich?

~jennifer

P.S. If you’re ready to feel richer in your life—no matter how much money you have—be sure to check out my book, How To Feel Rich (Even If You’re Not Yet). It’s now available in ebook, paperback, and hardcover, and the audiobook is coming in October.

Buy How To Feel Rich

Most people were commenting things like, “Good job!” and “I love this!” But I couldn’t help wondering… What is her goal in writing these 100 posts? And when she hits 100 posts and hasn’t yet achieved that goal, is she just going to quit?

I see this a lot with writers and authors. They invent arbitrary deadlines and, without realizing it, give themselves a permission slip to quit.

Like:

• I’ll pitch agents for six months, and if I don’t get one by then, I’ll quit (or I’ll self-publish)

• I will try this Substack thing for a year

• I’ll post on Instagram three times a week for the next 90 days

Oh yeah? And then what? Quit?

How about: I will pitch agents until I get one. Period. No matter how long it takes. Or I will write Substack posts until I get the results I want. Period. No matter how long it takes.

If you’re not all-in, fully committed to what you say you want, then maybe you don’t want it as badly as you think you do.

Clarity Is The Starting Point

This is why clarity on what you actually want is so important. Without it, you’ll often find yourself going for goals that you don’t, in your heart of hearts, really want, or setting arbitrary deadlines to give yourself an out if you don’t achieve them.

Because “I’ll write 100 Substack posts before I allow myself to quit” is just a permission slip to quit hidden behind a goal you say you want.

But if you really, truly wanted to be successful on Substack or be an author with an agent, you would keep on writing until you are, or pitching until you sign with one. Even if it takes years.

In 2010, I self-published my first book. I didn’t start making royalties every month until 2016. I didn’t make royalties I could live off of until 2023. And I’m still not making the level of income from my books that I desire.

But next week, I’m publishing my 19th book anyhow.

Pre-Order How To Feel Rich (Book #19!)

I didn’t tell myself, “I’ll publish five books, and if I’m not making the income I want, I’ll quit.” I didn’t decide that I’d give it a decade, and if I’m still not where I want to be, I’ll do something else with my life instead.

I wrote a book, published it, and then got to work on the next book.

I’m in this for the long-haul. And I don’t have any permission slips to quit.

My mindset for being an author is: There is only Plan A. Which means I will achieve what I dream of and desire for my author career… or I will die trying.

Quitting is not an option. Ever.

That’s how I know I truly want to be an author, and that this dream, this goal, isn’t just something I’m doing until something better comes along. It’s my life’s work. It’s my purpose. It’s my North Star.

Can you say the same thing about your goals?

Drop The Permission Slip To Quit

You will spend your life going for goals that you don’t even care about or truly want, for so many reasons, the main ones of which are:

• FOMO—someone else has it, and you think that you should too

• Not knowing how to get what you really want, so you go for a lesser version of it

• Not believing you can have what you actually want, so, again, you go for a lesser version of it

• Convincing yourself that you have to do certain things to achieve your goal, even though your heart really isn’t in doing those things (like getting an agent, starting a Substack, etc.)

And meanwhile, the thing you really want—your true North Star goal—is slipping through the cracks.

So it’s time to once and for all get clear on what you actually want.

Not what you think you should want. Not what someone else told you to want. Not what you currently believe is possible for you.

But what you really and truly, in your deepest heart of hearts, want.

This is how you drop the permission slip to quit and finally go all in on having the career and life you dream of.

If you’re having trouble getting clarity + making a decision, this will help:

When Is It Actually Time To Quit?

You’re always allowed to change your mind, pivot, or go down a different path.

But in my opinion, when you’re going for what you truly want, there’s never any reason to quit. And you also won’t want to.

You will genuinely want to see it through to the end, no matter how long it takes, because the goal itself fuels you and gives you life.

If your goals aren’t doing that for you, then it’s time to heave-ho and get clear on what would do that for you.

Here are 4 ways to know when it’s time to quit on a goal you’ve set for yourself and focus on something else instead:

Read more

Yeah. THAT.

That feeling is what “rich” feels like for me.

Knowing that I have the freedom to be creative every day, to change things at the drop of a hat (like renaming this Substack—hello, Author Life Project!), to get a great idea and immediately act on it, to be able to choose what I write about and where and how I write about it… all of that makes me feel abundant. It makes me feel like I won the life and career lottery.

But so often we take our lives for granted. We think we have all the time in the world to live, and so we wait.

We wait for the “right” moment. We wait for better timing. We wait for perfect conditions. We wait until we achieve the next big goal. We wait, and we wait, and we wait... and sometimes we wait so long we miss out on all of the beautiful moments that add up to the life we’ve been dreaming of.

Example: It has always been my dream to live by the water.

And I had that opportunity in my early 20s when I was living in Southern California. I was renting a house that was two blocks from the ocean. I could’ve been walking every morning to see the water and listen to the waves crashing on the shore. I could’ve spent my weekends at the beach, reading and writing while sitting on a blanket on the sand.

But I didn’t do any of that because I was way too focused on the future. I was constantly trying to figure out how to get to the next milestone or thing that I wanted. So much so that I missed out on an opportunity to live my dream life.

Two years later, I relocated to Texas. And when that happened, I finally realized what I’d done.

I had my dream life right in front of me, and I completely ignored it and took it for granted because I thought I had all the time in the world with it. Because I thought I had to be focused on the things that society deems important in your early 20s: climbing the corporate ladder, finding someone to marry, and spending the weekends drinking and partying with my friends.

I had no idea life was going to interrupt that dream and take me away from it two years later.

After that, I ached for California. I wanted nothing more than to be living in that house, two blocks from the beach, and taking full advantage of it by walking to see the water every morning and spending my weekends on the sand.

That never happened. And I haven’t lived that close to the water since.

Living on the water is still a dream I intend to fulfill, and I know that when I do, I will enjoy it to the fullest. Because now I know what I’m missing, and I know how much it matters to me. But it took losing it for me to see that.

I don’t want you to miss out on your dream life. I don’t want you to wake up one day and realize you have regrets about things you didn’t do or didn’t try.

I want you to make the most of every single moment, because that’s what life is actually about.

It’s not about achieving the goals, or making a lot of money, or finally arriving “there” (wherever “there” is for you). All of that is nice, but it’s not the point.

The point is the journey.

The point is all of those days between here and there, where you decide to stop waiting until you arrive and just make the most of what you’ve got and where you are right now.

That’s what I live for. Those in-between moments.

For me, the process of writing a book is always more exciting than launching it. Sure, I enjoy that part too.

But I live for the process.

Yesterday, I was working on final revisions for How To Feel Rich (Even If You’re Not Yet) so I can get it uploaded to Amazon KDP by my pre-order deadline, and I was feeling so fucking good. I was feeling so proud of how this book came together. I was absolutely loving the words I wrote and how natural it felt to write them.

I was feeling so excited about the last-minute idea I had to write an 8-day challenge into the book, so it’s easy to implement all of the feel-rich practices I talk about. So the book is tangible and not just something you read and then put on a bookshelf to collect dust.

Whether I live by the water yet or not, I am already living my dream life.

I write books for a living. My day job is putting words on the page and turning them into a published book that can entertain, educate, and/or help someone transform their life.

That, to me, is as rich as it gets.

And that’s what my upcoming book, How To Feel Rich (Even If You’re Not Yet), is really all about.

It’s not about having a lot of money—that’s just a side effect. It’s about knowing that you get to create your life however you want it to be, no matter how much money is currently in your bank account.

It’s about realizing that you’re living more of your dream life right now than you’ve maybe ever allowed yourself to notice.

A dream life isn’t something you achieve one day. It’s something you create in the everyday moments, on an ordinary Wednesday, when nothing special is happening.

And How To Feel Rich is a guidebook to help you do that. To help you make the most of every single day.

pre-order the ebook

Whether you read my book or not, I hope you’ll take this message to heart and start looking at your current life through a different lens. I hope you make the most of every moment you have. And I hope you learn to enjoy the ride more.

Because that’s the whole point.

Author Life Reflection

• Journal prompt: How can I make the most of my day today?

• Micro-action: Choose one action from your journal response and do it today.

And tell me in the comments—what are you going to do today to make the most of it?

~jennifer

That workshop? How To Feel Rich (Even If You’re Not Yet):

The idea for the workshop came to me when I was brainstorming ideas for different trainings I could do to help paid subscribers grow and expand in their author careers.

And one of the ways I wanted to help them do that was by talking about money.

I wrote a bunch of articles that month all about money:

• The Problem Wasn’t Money, It Was Me

• Money Triggers and How To Neutralize Them

• Clean Up Your Inner Money Programming

• No Longer Available To “Stick My Head In The Sand” Around Money

Money is one of those topics we’re told not to write or talk about. Because it’s triggering for people, or it’s “disrespectful,” or it’s “not appropriate.”

But writing about and talking about money has been an interest of mine for nearly two decades as I’ve gone on my entrepreneurial journey and built my author career.

I find money fascinating—especially the energy of it and the mindset behind it.

So there I was, uploading the How To Feel Rich workshop to my Substack, hoping it would make a difference for anyone who watched and implemented it.

Then when I was finished, it was like a bolt of lightning hit my brain—THIS IS MEANT TO BE A BOOK!!

But while I was totally fine writing about money on my Substack and recording videos for my paid subscribers about it, I was not as comfortable with the idea of going public with it.

And turning that video workshop into a book would be going very public.

So even though the idea sparked excitement in me and I knew with 100% certainty I was meant to write it, I didn’t. I put it off for months. For most of this year, actually.

I kept thinking about it. The idea kept nudging me, reminding me that it was there. I kept feeling inside myself that I was being called by the Universe and my higher self to write it.

But I still procrastinated.

I let fear… of judgment, ridicule, criticism, haters, and online trolls stop me. I let the “noise” in my head from society make me believe I wasn’t qualified enough to write it.

I kept saying to myself, who the fuck am I to write a book like that?

I almost let all of that win. I almost didn’t write the book.

And then mid-summer, a deeper part of me—the part that more than a decade ago made the rule that when I receive a divine download, I trust it and I act on it—reminded me who I am.

I’m not someone who lives her life by fear. I’m someone who feels the fear and does it anyway.

But I wasn’t doing that… and I knew it was time for me to.

Trust Your Inner Nudges

I really thought the Universe got it wrong. Like it gave the idea for this book to the wrong person.

But as the idea stayed with me, I knew the only way it was going to leave me alone was if I just wrote the damn thing.

So I did. I sat down, and I wrote it. And what happened next surprised me.

I discovered that this book was about SO MUCH MORE than money.

It’s about giving yourself permission to stop waiting until... until you have more money, until you retire, until you lose the weight, until you have more subscribers, until you get the book deal, until your kids graduate, etc.

So many of us are putting our lives on hold until. This book is a permission slip to stop doing that!

It’s also a book about understanding how you define the word “rich” and accepting that it’s okay to define it your own way, and to let go of all the other definitions you’ve been hanging on to. It’s about discovering the ways your life already feels rich and indulging in more of that.

It’s about creating a rich-feeling life, no matter how much money is currently in your bank account.

And when I realized all of that??? I couldn’t not write this book and put it out into the world. It would’ve been selfish for me to hold this back from anyone ready to create more of the life they want right now.

So How To Feel Rich (Even If You’re Not Yet) is making its debut on September 9.

Pre-Order the Ebook

I chose this date because in numerology, 99 (or 9/9) represents the end of a cycle and a transition into a new phase.

For me, it’s ending the cycle of holding back with my message and my writing, and with believing anything other than positive things about myself, my books, my purpose, and my life. For me, it’s about closing the chapter on the limited, lack-feeling woman I used to be, and stepping into the rich-feeling, abundant woman and author I know I’m meant to be.

It can be a transition point for you too. An opportunity to shed what no longer fits who you’re becoming, so you can step into being the version of yourself you’ve been waiting on.

And How To Feel Rich (Even If You’re Not Yet) can be the catalyst to help you do it.

The ebook is available for pre-order right now—the paperback lands on September 9, and the Audible will be out in October.

How To Get Over Yourself and Do What You’re Feeling Called To

Whether it’s a book you want to write, a trip you want to take, a job you want to leave, or anything else, there are things we’re all being called to do.

The problem is, it’s not always easy to do those things. Especially when they come with any kind of unknowns or sunk cost.

But what kind of lives would we be living if we always just played it safe and never made ourselves do things that we’re afraid to do?

So I’ve made you an audio that walks through the 7 specific things you should do when you’re feeling called to do something but are feeling afraid to do it, including:

• Understanding that your desires are lighthouses

• Making a decision for real—no more negotiating with any other option

• Giving yourself permission (to consider it, to trust it, to go for it)

• Working through the mental “noise”

• Taking one small action… every day

• Staying connected to your deeper “why” to stay motivated

• Trusting and continuing forward

Career Author Reflection

• Journal prompt: What am I feeling called to do that I keep putting off?

• Micro-action: What’s one thing I can do this week to start moving in the direction of that calling? Do it right now (before you can talk yourself out of it)!

If you have any questions, drop ‘em in the comments below (or send me a direct message on Substack), and I’m happy to help!

~jennifer

Subscribe now

And that’s exactly what I’ve been doing.

Experimenting. Pivoting. Sharing the lessons I’ve been learning. Using writing as a tool for moving through my grief. Finding my motivation again. Giving you a behind-the-scenes look at building a self-publishing career.

It’s been a really fun year of writing and creativity!

But somewhere along the way, I realized something… It’s about more than that.

I don’t just want a successful author career. I also want to create the life I dream of living.

With a career that gives me more freedom, not less. A business that supports my creativity rather than consuming it. Money that expands what’s possible for me. Time for the hobbies and people that I love. Space for romance, adventure, beauty, rest, and reinvention.

And the freedom to change my mind about what success looks like as I become different versions of myself.

So as The Career Author Project enters its second year, I’ll still be talking about writing, publishing, books, marketing, and building an author career.

But I’m also going deeper into the things underneath all of it: Desire, creativity, money, identity, mindset, ambition, reinvention, manifestation, and the messy process of creating a life on your own terms.

Because it’s not really about becoming a successful author. It’s about getting clear on the kind of life you want your author career to make possible for you, and then figuring out how to design your career to support that life.

So that’s the experiment I’m stepping into for Year Two. And you’re invited to come along for the ride.

If you’ve been here for the past year, thank you, truly, from the bottom of my heart. And if you’re new here, welcome! I’m so glad to have you join us.

The Career Author Project is for authors who want to build a career—and a life—on their own terms.

I can’t wait to see what Year Two brings! ❤️

~jennifer

Career Author Reflection

• Journal prompts: What kind of life do I want my author career to make possible for me? How can I design my career so that it supports the life I want?

Subscribe now

Take the Survey Here

And the majority of the people who responded said they’re worried about burning out as an author. Burning out on marketing, burning out on writing books, and burning out before they’ve created the career success they desire.

So I wanted to address this. Because I get it—being a self-published author requires a lot.

You aren’t just the one writing the books; you’re also the one who has to publish the books, launch the books, market the books, sell the books, provide customer service for the books, all while thinking up and writing new books.

It can be exhausting. But it doesn’t have to be.

Over the course of my 16-year author career so far, I’ve found ways to make things easier on myself. So even though I’m pretty much doing everything (besides editing my books and designing my covers; I hire people to do that stuff), it feels like a flowing system and not like something that’s hard to do.

The caveat to this would be if you also have a day job. That can make a lot feel like even more. If you do, you have to figure out a schedule for yourself that works with your day job and still allows you to do what you need to for your author career, whether that means using PTO days when you’re on a deadline or skipping the Netflix binge after work so you can put words on the page.

Here’s a post I wrote about how to structure your work week even if you have a day job:

Being an author and a writer is my day job. So that makes it a little easier for me.

But even still, there are ways to avoid burning out, whether you have a day job or not.

Here’s what has helped me to keep writing books and building my author career for the past 16 years—and what will help me continue to do it for the rest of my life:

1. Create Foundational Beliefs To Support You

The number one belief I created early on in my career is that my books sell themselves. I knew I wanted to spend more time writing books than I did marketing and selling books, so creating that belief has helped me be able to do that.

These days, I rarely promote my books unless I’m launching a new one, and yet every month I consistently make royalties from Amazon and Audible.

Why? Because my books sell themselves.

If you want to move the needle without having to work super hard, I highly recommend creating some foundational beliefs that align with the results you desire to achieve.

Here’s how to do that:

2. Know Your Why

It can be tough to stay motivated 24/7/365 to keep moving forward on your goals. That’s why it’s so important to know your why.

As in, why are you an author? Why do you want to sell books? Why does any of this matter to you?

Why are you doing this?

When you’re clear on your why, it will be much easier to push through when you feel stuck, overwhelmed, or want to quit.

Many authors are just writing books but without any bigger vision or reason for why they’re doing it. And that’s what makes burnout an option to begin with.

But when you know why you’re doing something, that why will overpower everything else, including burnout.

So figure out your why and use it as a North Star to guide your career journey.

3. Do What Works For You

As self-published authors, it’s so easy to get caught up in trying to follow what traditionally published authors are doing or what other self-published authors say you should do.

Be on social media. Start a Substack. Post five times a week. Market your books every day. Pay for ads. Make videos for BookTok. Send emails out every week. Collab with other authors. Run free book promos. Record an audiobook.

There’s an endless amount of potential things you could be doing or that other authors are doing. But that doesn’t mean it’s what you should be doing.

In my opinion, the only way to avoid burning out on being an author is to do what works for you.

And that means doing what you want to do and what feels good for you to do, and letting everything else go.

Don’t feel like making videos? You don’t have to. Don’t want to spend money on ads? Don’t do it. Have no desire to learn how to do email marketing? Skip it.

Burnout happens when you’re trying to do everything or comparing yourself to what other authors are doing and feeling like you’ll never measure up or get it all done.

There are no “musts” when it comes to being a successful author other than writing books, so find the marketing tasks you actually enjoy, and stick with those.

4. Prioritize For Real

Since there are so many things you could be doing, you have to figure out what you want to be doing. And then you have to prioritize doing it.

As I mentioned, I never wanted to spend a lot of time marketing. I prefer to write more books.

So that’s what I prioritize.

My entire work week is built around putting words on the page, moving the needle on my current book project, and getting it to the finish line by my set deadline.

If I have time for other stuff, like posting on social media or writing Substack posts, I do it. But if I don’t?

I don’t worry about it.

5. Commit To Doing What Moves the Needle

For me, writing more books is what helps me to sell more books. Whenever I launch a new book, sales for my backlist books start picking up too.

Example: when I published F*ck the How, it did okay sales-wise. But a year later, when I published Quantum Leap Your Life? Sales for F*ck the How took off.

And the sales increased even more when I published the audiobooks.

So in my career, writing books is what moves the needle, and that’s what I focus the majority of my time and energy on.

What moves the needle for you? Figure that out and then commit to doing it consistently.

6. Drop Everything When You’re On A Deadline

When you’ve got a deadline, you have to be okay with letting everything else fall by the wayside for a while. It’s only temporary.

That means focusing on getting the book done, or launching the new book, or whatever your deadline is for, and not worrying about your social media or Substack or anything else you usually do.

Trying to hit a deadline while also doing all of that other stuff at the same time is why authors burn out. It’s just too much to handle.

I’m a high-volume writer. I post on social media, I write posts on Substack, I send a weekly email out to my email list. I also have multiple book projects in various stages I’m working on simultaneously.

But when a deadline is coming up? I drop everything else.

I’m okay with not posting on social, skipping a Substack post, or not sending any emails for a couple of weeks, but I’m not okay with missing my deadline.

7. Throw Money At It

As a self-published author, you can learn to do everything yourself, but you don’t have to. You can also hire help.

Whether that’s a virtual assistant, someone to design your book covers and format the interior of your books, or just running some ads to sell your books so you don’t have to, hiring help is always an option.

This is tough for a lot of authors.

But if you want to do this long-term, you have to get better at asking for and accepting help, and setting money aside each month that you can invest in your author career.

By getting some help, especially for the tasks you either don’t enjoy, don’t want to do, or don’t know how to do, you can avoid wasting time learning skills that someone else already has and focus only on what you’re good at.

Authors who don’t do this are the ones who eventually end up burning out.

My Burnout Signs + How I Avoid Burning Out

While writing this post, I thought about what happens for me when I’m heading toward a feeling burned out/wanting to quit phase, and what helps me get out of it quickly.

I made you an audio where I talk through what my burnout signs look like, and what I do immediately to avoid burning out, so you can get clear on your own signs and what you can do to avoid landing in that phase yourself.

You can listen to it below:

Read more

Several years ago, when I was still doing freelance writing, a woman reached out to me about ghostwriting her book. She had just signed a traditional book deal, and she needed someone to help her write it. A writer friend of mine recommended she reach out to me.

And so she did. We got on the phone to discuss her project, and I gave her a quote for working on it with me.

At this point, I had written and published a dozen of my own books—three of which had become bestsellers and sold thousands of copies—and also completed developmental edits on dozens of client manuscripts. I knew what it took to write a book worth reading.

But she had a problem with the fact that I was “only self-published.”

She said she was concerned the book wouldn’t be good enough if she had a self-published author help her write it, since she had a traditional book deal. She also said because I was “only self-published,” she couldn’t pay me what I had quoted her, and that she had to pay me less so the fee “matched my level of authorship.”

The funny thing is, even though I had written and published 12 books, I still had some limiting beliefs about being self-published; that it wasn’t as good as being traditionally published. That my books would never be taken as seriously or be as successful as a traditionally published book would. That I wasn’t a real author.

And then this woman came along and mirrored those limiting beliefs back to me.

That’s how it works when you’re still holding onto limiting beliefs in your subconscious mind. You will experience those beliefs in your external life until you finally change them.

But I hadn’t made peace with choosing to be self-published yet. I was still holding onto those old beliefs and stories about what it meant to be a self-published author.

That was the real problem, not what some woman who didn’t even want to write her own book thought of me.

When I was finished with the phone call, I was pissed! How dare she say that I wasn’t good enough to be paid what I charge to help author her book, just because she had a traditional publishing deal? What made her think that getting a book deal automatically made her better than me? And she wasn’t even planning on writing the book herself!

That’s when I realized, shit. I still didn’t feel confident being self-published. Something in me was still treating self-publishing like it was a lesser-than way of getting a book out into the world.

But I wanted to self-publish. I chose to self-publish. I could’ve just as easily spent time pitching agents and publishers and gotten myself a traditional book deal.

That route just never appealed to me.

Why spend months of my life pitching a book to an agent or publisher, only to then wait another 18-plus months for the book to come out after they gave me a book deal, when I could just publish it myself and move on to the next book? And why should I give some publishing company ownership of my intellectual property?

I couldn’t make it make sense.

And then I remembered, oh yeah, I intentionally chose self-publishing. It’s not that I wasn’t good enough to be traditionally published; it’s that traditional publishing wasn’t good enough for me.

Once I remembered that, those limiting beliefs about being self-published fell away. I no longer believed them. I was solid and confident in my choice.

And I never questioned being a self-published author ever again.

It’s Limiting Beliefs, Not Lack of Confidence, That’s Holding You Back

Everyone has limiting beliefs about something. But the issue is that those limiting beliefs, if you don’t ever deal with them, will continue to create what you experience in your life and in your author career.

For example, if you believe marketing your books is hard or that it will lead to burnout, that’s exactly what you’re going to experience. It’s going to feel hard to market and sell your books, and you’re going to feel burned out on it pretty quickly.

Life is giving you exactly what you believe internally.

I don’t believe marketing books is hard. I believe that my books sell themselves. So I do very little marketing, and still manage to sell enough books every month to make decent royalties.

And on the months when I actually try? I make even more.

So, what have you been experiencing in your author career that you’re not happy about? And what limiting beliefs could be hiding under the surface?

Those questions are worth spending some time digging into.

Create New Beliefs To Increase Your Confidence

When I first started my author career, I knew I wanted to spend more time writing books than I did marketing books. So I decided to create a belief that “my books sell themselves.”

Because if my books sold themselves, I would get to spend more time writing books and less time marketing them.

I wrote that belief down over and over again every day. I repeated it to myself all day long. My books sell themselves. My books sell themselves. My books sell themselves.

I chose to believe that even when my books weren’t really selling or making me much money.

Any time my results showed that my books do not sell themselves, I chose to ignore the results and continued to focus on my belief that my books sell themselves.

What happened?

That belief eventually became planted in my subconscious mind. And then the “how” for my books being able to sell themselves started showing up.

I received inspired ideas for book titles where the title itself got people interested in the book (hello, F*ck the How!). I started putting teasers for my other books in the back of my new books and created an ecosystem where every book promotes another one. I made audiobooks for my most popular books, so I was reaching every kind of reader (people who like to read on Kindle, people who prefer paperbacks, and people who only want to listen to books).

I make hundreds of dollars every month in royalties from my audiobooks, and I literally never promote them except right when they first come out.

Why? Because my books sell themselves.

This belief has, of course, increased my confidence in myself as an author and in my books themselves.

I know my books are worth reading. I know they’ll change your life if you implement the stuff inside of them. And I know as I continue to add more books to my catalog, the books will sell themselves even more.

What new belief do you need to make it easier to get the results you want in your author career? Make a list of every new belief, and then choose the one that will make the most impact, and start programming it into your subconscious mind through repetition.

It doesn’t have to be any harder than that.

How To Reprogram A Limiting Belief

You can create new neural pathways in your brain by changing how you think and believe (and act). You can change the results you experience in your author career by reprogramming your subconscious mind and letting go of the limiting beliefs you’re currently holding onto.

My bestselling book, Quantum Leap Your Life, dives deep into how to change limiting beliefs and create beliefs that are more supportive of your goals and dreams.

Here’s how to do it:

Step 1: Identify the limiting belief

The easiest way to identify a limiting belief is to look at the things in your author career that aren’t going how you want them to, and then ask yourself: What limiting belief could be hiding below the surface of this?

For example, if your book isn’t selling as many copies as you want, possible limiting beliefs could be things like: My books aren’t good enough, I don’t have what it takes to be a successful author, or I’m not a real author.

The limiting beliefs are usually the thoughts that cause emotional upset, or that trigger you in some way. So dig deep!

Step 2: Choose a new belief

Next, you’re going to take a look at the limiting beliefs you uncovered and determine what you’d like to believe instead.

You can do this by grabbing a piece of paper and a pen—on the left side of the page, write down what the limiting beliefs are, and then on the right side, come up with a new belief you’d like to believe instead. You can come up with something totally different or just flip the limiting belief from negative to positive.

Example: “My books aren’t good enough” could become “readers love my books.”

Step 3: Repeat the new belief until you actually believe it

You can reprogram multiple beliefs at the same time, or you can just choose the one limiting belief that would make the most difference if you changed it to something else and start there.

Using the example from above, if your new belief is “readers love my books,” that’s the phrase you’d repeat to yourself all day, every day. Most especially during the times when your subconscious is most active:

• While you’re asleep (you can record yourself saying the belief and then listen to it on repeat)

• When you first wake up

• Right before you go to sleep

• Right after you meditate

• While doing mindless activities that don’t require you to think about what you’re doing (like cleaning, washing dishes, etc.)

The more you can repeat your belief, the faster your subconscious mind will get the message.

But there’s a little more to it than that, so don’t skip the next step!

Step 4: Get your nervous system on board with the new belief

You can repeat affirmations and belief statements all you want to, but if your body rejects them or feels emotionally triggered by them, they won’t stick.

So you have to make sure you’re also regulating your nervous system whenever it gets triggered by or rejects the new belief. For example, let’s say every time you tell yourself, “readers love my books,” your stomach gets a knot in it, or your chest feels tight. That’s your nervous system signaling you that it doesn’t believe and/or feel safe believing that readers love your books.

Whenever that feeling comes up, you can shift it by doing the following:

• Emotional Freedom Technique (aka EFT ←this is my top recommendation for nervous system reprogramming)

• Meditate

• Visualize

• Breathwork

• Or whatever other nervous system regulation method you prefer

The goal is to make sure your mind and body are both on board with your new beliefs.

Step 5: Look for and keep track of evidence

As you go along reprogramming your new belief, you’ll want to keep an eye out for evidence that it’s true. The more you can train the reticular activating system in your brain to look for what you want to see, the more you’ll see it.

So, for example, when someone buys your book, that counts as evidence of your new belief. If someone leaves a positive review, more evidence. If you receive an email from someone telling you how much they enjoyed your book, more evidence.

Evidence can also just be simple things like you’ve been feeling more confident, you didn’t get that stomach knot/tight-chest feeling when you repeated the belief to yourself, etc.

I like to keep a notebook by my bed and right before I go to sleep, write down at least 1-3 ways I saw evidence that day of my new belief.

Step 6: Don’t listen to the noise in your head

As you program your new belief into your subconscious mind, you may find yourself thinking things like, “that’s a lie” or “oh yeah, then how come you’re not making any book sales?”

This is just your brain trying to protect you from something it currently thinks is a threat—your new positive belief. So don’t let it take you down or stop you from believing it.

Any time those old thoughts spring up, notice it, thank your brain for trying to keep you safe, and then tell yourself that you’re still deciding to believe that readers love your books (or whatever your new belief is).

The more you can do this, the faster your brain will get the message that it’s safe to accept this new belief.

Step 7: Act like you believe your new belief

You can’t do belief reprogramming work without also including some practical action in the mix. Practical action is always required, and as you demonstrate your new belief through new actions and behaviors, you’re sending a really strong signal to yourself and to the Universe about who you’re now deciding to be.

So you can now ask yourself: If I believed that “readers love my books” (or insert whatever your new belief is), how would I show up in my author career today? What would I be doing that I’m not right now?

The version of you who believes your new belief is going to act and behave slightly differently than the version of you who’s still holding onto the limiting belief.

Belief reprogramming is a process, and it takes time and practice. So don’t be hard on yourself if it takes a while before you start seeing results from it.

You will see the results the more you commit to following these 7 steps.

In-the-Moment Reprogramming

The other really important—and powerful—time to reprogram a limiting belief is in the moment as it comes up. This is a huge opportunity to create an interruption in your patterned way of thinking, and change it immediately.

I’ve recorded an audio to explain what “in-the-moment” belief reprogramming is + how to do it.

You can listen to it below.

Read more

Essentially, I was building a safety net in case being an author didn’t work out.

I still built my author career, but it never compounded the way it should have. There was no space for it to. I was spread too thin with everything else I was doing.

The truth was, I didn’t really want the safety net. I just didn’t believe I could have the life I dreamed of simply from being an author.

But now I do.

So I’m done hedging. I’m finally all in on being an author. And I’ve never felt better in my entire life!

How To Stop Hedging

Let me start by saying this doesn’t mean you have to quit your day job or put yourself into a risky financial situation. You never have to do that, even if your goal is to be a full-time author eventually.

But you do have to understand the difference between hedging and locking in.

Hedging means you’re doing a variety of things in order to mitigate risk. You’re working a day job, and you’re writing books, and you’re trying to be a coach, and you’re offering services, and you’re taking on freelance projects.

All of that is actually fine, so long as it’s all focused on the same outcome. The problem is, it’s usually not.

If you’re like me when I was doing all of those same things, there was no focused outcome. I was just trying to make the money I desired to make, so I could finally go all in on being an author.

Nothing was growing vertically. It was only growing horizontally as I continued to add more things into the mix. None of the things I was doing were feeding into one place.

Here’s an image from that illustrates it perfectly:

If you want to stop hedging, you have to figure out what your one thing is—I’m assuming it’s to be an author, since you’re subscribed to and/or reading this post—and then you have to make sure everything else you’re doing is feeding into it.

Meaning what you’re doing has to either be supporting or funding your one thing.

If it’s not, it has to go. That’s the only way to stop hedging.

Step 1: Identify Your Hedges

You have to get clear on everything you’re doing right now, whether it’s supporting your author career, funding it, or not. Get out a piece of paper and make a list of everything you spend the majority of your time doing every day and week.

Yes, that includes the hours you spend mindlessly scrolling on social media or binging Netflix shows at night.

How To Lock In

To lock in, you need to have a clear goal and a set period of time that you’re locking in for. Six months should be the shortest amount, so you actually have the space for compounded growth.

If your goal is to be a full-time author, everything else you’re doing has to support that goal or fund that goal.

Example—you have a day job, and the extra money you make from it after you’ve covered your personal bills and life expenses goes toward you being an author. Whether that’s saving the money in an account to use for your author career needs in the future, or if you’ve got needs right now, like paying for book covers, editors, advertising, etc.

In that example, your day job is supporting and funding your one thing. (And if it’s not, that doesn’t mean quit your day job, but it does mean taking a look at what your day job is currently funding that isn’t aligned with your author career and making some tough decisions.)

Another example: you’re offering coaching services, and every client you sign gets a copy of your book and/or you sell your books directly to your clients. In this case, your coaching is supporting you in being an author.

If you find that you’re doing something that isn’t supporting or funding your author career, like making funny videos on TikTok or posting daily quotes on Instagram, those activities get benched. Doesn’t mean you can’t do them again later, but for now, you can’t spend time on them.

Or, if you want to continue posting the videos or quotes, they have to support your author career or sell your books. Now they’re a cog in your author ecosystem and not a totally separate task that isn’t helping you compound.

Locking in on your one thing may come with some grief. It may be hard to let go of the stuff you’ve been doing simply because it doesn’t fit the criteria for either supporting or funding your author career.

But that’s something you have to make peace with.

Step 2: Decide If The Hedge Is Supporting, Funding, Or Doing None Of That

Go back through the list you made from step 1, and honestly ask yourself: is this activity supporting my author career and/or funding it? Circle anything that is (or that could be), and cross out anything that’s not.

Now you know which activities get to stay and which ones get benched.

Reinforce Your Goal In All Ways

Now you’ve got to demonstrate to yourself and to the Universe who you are going forward from here.

You’re no longer someone who hedges. You’re someone who’s locked in on your one thing—being an author—and allowing it to compound.

Do whatever you need to do to reinforce that you’re locked in on your goal.

Change your social media bios. Unsubscribe from emails or Substacks that distract from your goal. Create a writing-first daily schedule so you do your writing before you do anything else. Practice introducing yourself as an author when someone asks you what you do. Brush up on or learn the skills you need to become the author you want to be.

From here on out, everything you’re doing is supporting or funding you being an author.

Step 3: Stay Locked In

Your old identity—aka the version of you who hedges—is going to try to come back into the picture at some point. So you need to practice staying locked in. If you come up with some goal-based guidelines, you’ll be able to lean on them every time that happens.

Grab a notebook and pen and write out your guidelines using the phrases “I am no longer…” and “I am now…”

Examples:

• I am no longer getting distracted by FOMO

• I am no longer scrolling on Instagram for an hour when I could be writing

• I am no longer waiting to feel ready

• I am now the author I dream of being

• I am now showing up fully for the books I desire to write

• I am now someone who finishes what she starts

Whenever your hedging identity tries to pop back up, lean on your guidelines and send it packing.

Every small action is a vote for your author identity. You become the author you dream of being through hundreds of tiny decisions that reinforce, "This is who I am now."

And if you want a copy of my Author Lock-In Checklist: 83 Tiny Ways to Align Your Life with the Career You Want, you can grab it below:

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Which is why, over the last 15 years, I’ve tried pretty much everything.

I’ve been an author, a freelance writer, a coach, an editor, a book cover designer, a marketing support person, a social media manager, a charcuterie business owner, and a manifestation teacher. I’ve had a t-shirt line, an e-magazine, an online radio show, several blogs, and profiles on all of the social media sites. I’ve made thousands of videos, podcasts and audio recordings. I’ve gotten certified in holistic health and in interior design. And I’m sure there’s stuff I’m forgetting.

It’s been a fun era of my life.

But this year, I’ve been thinking a lot about the differences between hedging—what I’ve been doing for 15 years—and locking in on one thing long enough to see it compound.

Since I’ve been doing all of the things these last 15 years, I’ve been spread really thin, and nothing I’ve done has had the chance to grow vertically. It has all just grown horizontally.

Then a couple of weeks ago, I read this article from about hedging versus locking in:

Slay with finances

You Have 6 Months To Lock The F*ck In

Six months from today, you will either be someone who proved that locking in works, or someone who proved that hedging doesn't…

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4 months ago · 406 likes · 45 comments · Jessica Onne

It really got me thinking. It forced me to finally take a hard look at what I’ve been doing over the past 15 years.

Since reading it, I’ve had to ask myself if what I’ve been doing is sustainable. And the truth I’ve come to is that it’s really not.

Not if I ever intend on actually reaching my goals in life.

Betting On My One Thing

No matter how many different things I’ve tried over the past decade and a half, there’s one thing that has always stuck around. There’s one thing that has stood the test of time. There’s one thing that I have never gotten bored with.

Being an author.

Writing my novels and nonfiction books (and screenplays) has been the joy of my life. It’s what gets me out of bed in the morning and makes me eager to go to sleep and do it all again tomorrow.

And it’s also the one thing I’ve never really bet on. Not fully, anyhow.

Yes, there was a period of time—from January 2021 until June 2024—when I focused on being an author. When that was the one identity I was reinforcing, and the main activity I was spending my time doing.

During that same time, I was also making the highest book royalties I’ve ever made, and I was the happiest I’ve ever been.

But even then, I was still hedging.

I was also offering coaching, creating online courses, teaching classes, making videos, and running a podcast. And I still had my eyes on what everyone else was doing and how I was measuring up to them (talk about FOMO!).

I have never been fully all-in on being an author and only an author.

To be honest, I think I've always been slightly afraid to go all in on it for real. Because what if it doesn't work? What if I let everything else go and I still don't achieve what I want? What if I don’t have what it takes?

And, well, that’s the work.

The work is setting all of those fears aside and making the decision to go all in anyhow. The work is dismantling all of the limiting beliefs that pop up along the journey and continuing to double down on my decision. The work is choosing my author identity every single day and doing only what aligns with being her.

This is where faith, trust, and belief come in.

Faith in myself and in the Universe. Trust in the knowing I’ve had since I was 11 years old, writing short stories and novellas, and dreaming of being an author for real. And belief in what I have confirmed to be true in my life over and over again: that when you make a decision and fully back that decision in all ways, it will work.

Even if I don’t know how right now.

I believe that it’s always this or something better, and there’s really nothing better I could think of to spend my life doing. So I’m going all in on being an author. Finally and fully.

I’m betting on myself and letting the Universe surprise me with what happens from here.

Locked and Loaded

For the rest of this year, I’m focusing entirely on being an author. Everything else is either supporting that focus or it’s getting benched.

This decision hasn’t come lightly or without some grief. To lock in on being an author, I’ve had to make peace with the things I’m letting go of, which includes the second business I started last year.

I’ve unsubscribed from or unfollowed all coaches and coaching-related stuff. I’ve stopped opening emails with remote and freelance job alerts. I changed the paid tier of this Substack so it’s no longer service-providing and instead offers Bonus content that expands on what I write about in my free content.

I’ve changed all of my social media accounts so my handle is now Author Jennifer Blanchard, or so that my name on the account is. I’m learning how to post on Instagram and TikTok as an author and not as a manifestation teacher or coach.

I’m no longer honoring sunk cost for anything I invested in previously and have only continued to do because of said investment. I’m accepting that I got out of every investment what I needed to, and I’m moving forward.

I’ve been writing my ass off over the last couple of weeks to get my new nonfiction book finished this month, so I can prepare to launch it in September. I’ve been working through my revision notes and creating my index cards, so I can start revising the novel I finished in April, as soon as this nonfiction book is off my plate.

I’ve got another novel queued up and ready to be drafted as soon as I hand my other novel off to my editor and Beta Readers.

I’ve prepaid for the cover designs for the nonfiction book and novel, so I’m ready to work with my designers as soon as the time comes. I’ve got my editor waiting in the wings to hand my book off to her on the first day of August.

And I’ve been consistently doing my daily mindset practice immediately upon waking every morning, before I even get out of bed. I’m reprogramming and working through any and all limiting beliefs stopping me from believing that I can be the author I dream of being. Right now.

No more waiting. No more hedging.

Welcome to Author Jennifer Blanchard 2.0.

She’s a badass bitch with a take-no-prisoners attitude who will no longer let anything get in the way of her writing dreams and her desire to shake the world with her words and her stories.

And if you’re subscribed to this Substack, you’ve got a front-row seat.

P.S. In Thursday’s Career Author Lab post, I’m going to show you how to stop hedging and start acting like the author you dream of being—in practice, not just in theory.

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Career Author Reflection

• Journal prompts: What would it look like for me to go all-in on being an author?

• Micro-action: Add “author” to your social media bios if you’ve published at least one book. If you haven’t yet, add “currently writing my first book” to your profile. Go ahead, I dare you.

Have you been hedging instead of locking in? I’d love to hear what your experience has been like—share in the comments.

~jennifer

There are a lot more words to come, and I’ve been writing them diligently. But I didn’t start from scratch.

I started with a transcript from a video I made. A video where I talked through a topic, gave my insights and processes, and shared my stories and examples.

This isn’t the first time I’ve done this either.

A majority of my early books were written from content I repurposed from my blog, social media videos, and a membership site I used to run.

I’m all for writing an entire book from scratch when I need to. But when I don’t?

I’m all for being lazy and using what I’ve already spent time writing and creating previously to turn it into something new.

If you’re ready to make writing your first or next book even easier, keep on reading.

The Repurposing Process

Like I said, I’m all for writing books from scratch. All of my novels have been written from scratch, and so have most of my nonfiction books.

But not all of them.

And the ones that started with content I repurposed from something else I created followed this process:

Step 1: Review What You Have

First, you’re going to go through all of the previous content you’ve created and take a look at it. Read through your old posts. Scroll your previous social media captions (Facebook memories is great for this). Re-watch any videos you’ve created.

Get an inventory of what you have to work with.

Step 2: Find the Overarching Theme

As you look through everything, make sure to have a notebook and pen with you. Then, as you start to notice content you think would be good to repurpose, you can write down what it is, where it’s currently located, and what topic it’s on.

I’d also recommend starting a document where you can add links to any of your videos or copy-and-paste the actual blog posts or social media captions you want to use, so you have them all in one place.

As you do this, you may start to see an overarching theme coming through. Or a type of person who would be a good fit for the information.

For example, when I was putting together my very first book, after I pulled 50-60 blog posts, I noticed the overarching theme was “overcoming the stuff that gets in the way of sitting down and writing.” So that’s when I decided to make the book a guide for writers who struggle to get started.

What type of person or overarching theme are you picking up on with your content? And if you can’t see one clearly yet, just keep writing down the content that stands out to you. Later on, you can create an overarching theme and fill in the gaps.

Step 3: Organize The Content and Look For Gaps

Once you’ve pulled all of your content together, if you don’t already have a theme, this is the time to create one. Think about how all of that content goes together. Are there similar topics? Maybe steps in an overall process? Or a specific type of person who would benefit from it?

If you’re using content from a video you recorded, be sure to get the video transcribed so you can have the words written out in front of you. (I typically use Rev.com for transcripts.)

Now you’re going to start organizing the content so that it flows like a book would. Think about an intro, the different chapters you may have, and a conclusion.

Once you’ve done that, the final part of this step is to look for the gaps. Is there missing information? Are there processes or practices you’d like to include? Do you want to add journal prompts or exercises someone can complete to help them implement what they’ve learned?

Also think about whether you’ll need to write transitions between the posts/content so that it feels cohesive and flows well together.

Step 4: Fill the Gaps and Write Transitions

Now this is the part where you’re doing some writing, but you’re not starting from scratch. You have your video transcript, the text from your blog posts, and your social media captions.

You just have to put them together so they’re all in one place, like a Word or Google Doc, or in Scrivener (that’s the app I use to write my books).

Once all of the content has been copied over to the doc or app, you can begin actually writing what you need to so you can fill any gaps and add your transitions.

This part will take you some time, but not nearly as much time as if you’d started completely from scratch.

Step 5: Self-Publish Your New Book

Once your new book is put together and you’re happy with it, you can walk it through the self-publishing process, which includes:

• Hiring an editor

• Hiring a cover designer

• Hiring an interior formatter (or formatting it yourself if you have access to formatting software—I recommend Vellum or Atticus)

• Uploading your cover and book interior to Amazon KDP

• Filling out all of the information for the book sales page (title, subtitle, book page copy, A+ content, etc)

• Order a proof copy to make sure everything looks good

• Submit your book for publishing

Done and done! And in about half the time it would take you to write an entire book from scratch.

And if you’d like a copy of my “Your Next Book Starts Here” content repurposing planner, you can grab that below:

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I had no idea how I was going to do it. Writing a novel had been my goal pretty much every year for all of the prior years.

But I was turning 25 in September of that year, and I felt like it was finally time to woman up and do the thing I kept talking about doing.

There was only one problem. I was a huge procrastinator.

At that point, my procrastination felt like a disease I had somehow been infected with, and I didn’t know how to heal it.

After a few months of trying and failing to write said novel, I made another decision. I decided to start a blog and write about my journey to writing my first novel.

I wanted to share what I was doing, what I was learning about how to overcome procrastination, and anything else that came up along the way.

Over the course of those nine months, I wrote one post per week on my blog. Topics included overcoming procrastination, how to find writing ideas, creating a writing schedule, and more.

And in September of that year, two weeks before my 25th birthday, I finished the draft of my very first novel.

I had also discovered that I really enjoyed blogging. So I kept it up. I began posting multiple times per week and loved every minute of it.

Two years later, I had hundreds of blog posts. And then I received a divine download (my phrase for an inspired idea from the Universe): I should turn some of these blog posts into a book.

Butt-In-Chair

I had been wanting to publish a book for such a long time. My novel was nowhere near ready (and neither was I ready to publish a novel).

But a nonfiction book? That had never occurred to me before that moment.

And I was ready for it.

So I went through all of my blog posts looking for a theme and found one: helping writers overcome the stuff that gets in the way of doing the writing.

I chose 50-60 blog posts that all fit this theme. I figured out what else I could add to make the book even more helpful. I wrote transitions between blog posts so the whole thing felt cohesive.

And a couple of months later, my very first book, Butt-In-Chair: A No-Excuses Productivity Guide For Writers Who Struggle To Get Started, made its debut.

Since I had no idea how to publish it, I ended up making it a paid downloadable PDF on my blog. I charged $19.99 per copy and sold hundreds of copies over the next couple of years.

I couldn’t believe it!

I made thousands of dollars from a book that was so easy to put together. From a book that didn’t require me to sit down and write the whole thing from scratch. One where I took what I had already created and turned it into something brand new.

I felt like I was onto something.

Stop Starting From Scratch

A couple of years later, I started publishing my books on Amazon, but I never stopped repurposing my writing. Most of my early books were repurposed versions of content I created for my blog.

And as it turns out, this is still a strategy that works for me.

I have a brand-new nonfiction book coming out soon, and it’s based on a video I originally created for The Career Author Project.

Right after I finished filming the video and posted it on this Substack, I received a divine download. It was like a lightning bolt hitting my brain—this is meant to be a book!

My personal rule is that I always follow the divine downloads I receive (when they feel good to me, of course). So I got to work on this book.

I’ve been quietly working on it for the last few months. And it’s almost ready to make its debut. More on this soon…

But for now, I’ll leave you with a question: What have you already created or written that could be repurposed into a book?

Whether it’s Substack articles, blog posts, email newsletters you’ve sent out, or simply a collection of content you’ve created for your social media, there is gold to be mined.

Writing a book doesn’t have to be hard work. It doesn’t have to take a lot of time, and it doesn’t have to be something you create from scratch.

You can use what you already have. You can take what you’ve already spent time writing and creating and repurpose it.

Your first (or next) book could really be as simple as that.

In Thursday’s Career Author Lab post, I’m going to show you how to repurpose stuff you’ve already written and created into a book. I’ll be teaching you my specific process for how to do this and what to consider as you’re doing it.

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Career Author Reflection

• Journal prompts: What have I already created and/or written that could be repurposed into a book?

• Micro-action: Go through your Substack posts, blog posts, random writing projects, social media content, etc., and see if anything sparks inspiration. See if anything stands out as “this could be a book.” And then come back here on Thursday, and I’ll show you what to do with it.

What previously created content would you like to turn into a book? Share in the comments.

~jennifer

When you begin to identify as—and then act like—the version of you who already has what you want, it can and will show up in your life. And you don’t have to know how.

In fact, the how will begin to reveal itself to you the more you close that gap with your identity work.

As I mentioned in my post the other day, all options, outcomes, realities, and possibilities exist all at the same time, which means there’s a possible reality where you already have what you want.

But how do you turn that reality into your life? Through your identity (aka how you see yourself).

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Choose The Reality You Want

Since every option, outcome, and possibility exists all at the same time, you have a lot of potential realities to choose from.

So the starting point is getting crystal clear on what you want for your author career (and life)—either specifically or in general. And you have to be honest with yourself about it.

For example, I am so clear on my desire to be a successful romance novelist whose books get turned into movies. It’s been my dream since I was 11 years old, and it hasn’t ever gone away.

Even though I’ve done everything to try to push it away over the years, it just keeps coming back. That’s how I know it’s the reality I truly desire and am meant for.

If you’re not sure what you want—or if you’re still stuffing your true desires down—there’s a journal prompt I created that I recommend you try.

It’s not a prompt for the faint of heart, but it will change everything for you if you do it and are completely honest with yourself when you do.

I call this prompt: Fast-Forward to the End.

Here’s how it works:

• Grab your journal or notebook and a pen (it’s best to do this one by hand)

• Sit in a quiet, comfortable place

• Close your eyes and imagine that it’s the final day of your life as who you are right now. You’re about to take your last breath, and you’re looking back on everything in your life that you lived, created, achieved, became, did, had, etc. BUT--and here’s the part that matters most--based ONLY on you having stayed on the path you’re currently on right now.

• Then open your eyes and, in your journal, answer the following questions: Am I happy with what I’m looking back on? With what I’m seeing? With the outcomes I got? With what I achieved and created in my life? With what I did or didn’t do? And, most importantly, what would I change and/or do differently given the chance?

This kind of journal prompt can be VERY confronting, but it’s also an opportunity to get really clear on the author career and life you want for yourself.

Before you can choose the reality you want, you have to be clear on what that reality is. Once you’re clear on the reality you want to create for yourself as an author, then you actually have to choose it.

Meaning whenever you start doubting yourself, whenever a limiting belief comes up, whenever you feel afraid that it won’t happen, you have to set all of that aside and choose the reality you want.

Over and over and over again until it feels inevitable for you.

And you do that by no longer entertaining any other reality (with the caveat that it’s always this or something better—knowing what you want, but not gripping so hard to it that you don’t allow something even better to happen).

You decide, and you decide again.

In making the decision, on repeat—that you will have what you want—you claim the identity of that version of you.

Release, Reprogram, and Let Go

This is probably one of the most difficult steps in the identity up-level process, because it’s hard to let go of who we used to be and who we’ve been up until now, for a version of ourselves that isn’t here yet.

But here’s the thing: your past does not define you. And it’s also not evidence of what you’re capable of doing or who you’re capable of being.

You can always become a new version of yourself at any time.

Knowing that, who do you now choose to be? What version of yourself do you want to become?

And who do you need to be in order to align yourself with your author dream/goal?

Because the version of you who has achieved it? She’s different than who you are right now.

She thinks and believes differently. She acts differently. She shows up for herself differently.

So who is that version of you? What does that version of you:

• Look like?

• Dress like?

• Walk into a room like?

• Make decisions like?

• Have habits like?

• Believe about herself?

• Believe about being a successful author?

Most importantly, what do you now need to:

• Stop doing?

• Put an end to?

• Let go of?

All of this is how you figure out who that version of you, the one who has already achieved your goal, would be.

Become That Version of Yourself Now

And finally, to bridge the gap between who you are now and who that dream-reality version of you is, you take your answers from the previous section and start acting on them right now.

For example, if, as that version, you would stop spending three hours a night binging Netflix and use two of those hours to work on your writing, that’s a simple habit you can now implement.

If you would stop dressing like a slob and actually care about your appearance, you could act on that right now. If you would no longer let your family tell you your dreams are impossible, now’s the perfect time to set that boundary and let them know what you’ll no longer tolerate.

As you consistently do so, you’re shifting your identity and becoming the version of yourself who is aligned with achieving that dream/goal.

Career Author Lab: Implementation

This week, go through all three steps in this identity up-level process and choose at least one gap-bridging action to implement starting now.

And if you want my author identity shift journal—that you can fill out and use every day—you can download it below:

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