What if I fail? What if I have modest success but never write for dream publications? What if I write for dream publications but never quiet the inner voice that says I’m inadequate?
I’ve posed these questions. Maybe you have too.
How do you stop them? Well, I’m not sure you do. But I think there’s something you can do that’s even better.
I wrote an essay for Entrepreneur two weeks ago about a fly fishing trip I took to Idaho and Montana. I took that trip because I wanted to find answers for the questions above. I’d heard that fly fishing was a great way to relax the body and, in turn, the mind.
But fly fishing’s not like that. It’s hard. The rush of the river, its power, astounded me. I could barely stand up against it. I had to learn to keep my balance amid the current’s strength and the slippery rocks of the river bed. Then I had to learn to walk upstream.
And then, amid all that straining, I had to learn to keep my right arm loose and light enough to carry out the metronomed rhythm of a good cast.
It took half a day to learn all this.
But when I did, and started to haul in trout, and even later when two aspen at the river’s edge framed a mountain bluff in the distance and I thought to myself, “I’ll…
