The Fourth Draft

(gentle music) Headspace Studio. Hey, friends. It's Rosie. Welcome back to "Radio Headspace". So let me tell you about the emotional rollercoaster that was my second book proposal. If you've never written a book proposal, here's a short version. It's basically a business plan for your book. You pour your heart, soul, research and every ounce of creativity you can muster into 50 to 80 pages of pitches, summaries, sample chapters, marketing plans, all to convince a publisher that your book is worth investing in. Sounds fun, right? Now, imagine doing that four times, because that's what happened with my second book. I wrote one full proposal, done, sent to my agent, crickets. I wrote a second. Same thing. I wrote a third, better, but still not it. By the time I got to the fourth, I was exhausted. I remember hitting the send email to my agent with the sinking feeling in my chest. Here we go again. Another fail, another reminder that maybe I'm not cut out for this. And that's when it hit me. This wasn't just disappointment, this was fear. It reminded me of how fear is described as one of our inner enemies. It's not always loud or obvious. Sometimes it shows up as that quiet, insistent voice in the back of your mind saying, why bother? You've already failed. You're wasting your time. If you were really talented, this wouldn't be so hard, yada, yada, yada. Fear doesn't just warn us about danger, it tells stories, and if we're not careful, we start to believe them. Psychologists called this catastrophic thinking, our brain's tendency to jump from one setback to the worst case scenario. In my case, a rejected proposal suddenly became a prophecy. You'll never publish again. You'll embarrass yourself. Your career is over. Sound dramatic? Yeah, but that's what fear does. It hijacks the narrative. Fear is persuasive because it's dressed up as protection. It says, if I convince you to quit now, you won't have to feel this pain again. But what it really does, it keeps us small. By the time I finished that fourth proposal, I almost didn't send it. Fear was screaming, don't do it. Protect yourself from the rejection, because it does sting every time. But I've learned something over the years. Fear isn't the truth. It's just a really dramatic storyteller. And mindfulness helps me pause long enough to remember that. And instead of reacting to fear, I can step back and say, oh, I see you. Thank you for trying to protect me, but you don't get to decide my future. So I hit send. And you know what? That proposal eventually became the seed for something real. It took time, it took revisions, but it moved me forward. Fear didn't get the last word. So here's what I took away from that experience. Number one, fear is data, not destiny. It tells you something matters to you. It's a sign you're stretching, but it's...