The Hidden Barriers Between You And Your Goals

This is a guest post by Emma Newman of Post Apocalyptic Publishing.

I once heard that former British Prime Minister Mrs Thatcher said “Happiness is a ticked off list”. I have no idea if that’s true, but regardless of how one might have felt about her politics, I can certainly relate to that statement. I always write a to-do list for every project, and having recently completed a major one, I realized something about the process that causes it all to break down.

You see, as detailed as my lists are, I’ve realized that there are certain types of items that don’t appear on there. At best these unlisted tasks can slow things down, and at worst they can grind a project to a halt. I call these my hidden barrier tasks, perhaps an illustration is in order.;

My to-do list for the project of publishing my first e-anthology of short stories:

• Obtain a professionally designed book cover
• Format document in line with style guide
• Sort out PayPal
• Sort out PO Box for press releases
• Write sales blurb
• Write copyright notice and appendix
• Create landing page for e-book purchasers
• Research e-book pricing and decide on a price
• Publish e-book

Note how each of those seem perfectly reasonable and pretty detailed in some cases. When I was writing the list, I knew that some tasks would be relatively quick to execute and more straight forward than others. What I didn’t realise was that there were other tasks I had to tackle before the project could be completed. What it should have said was:

• Get over reluctance to ask my busy best friend for help
• Obtain a professionally designed book cover
• Format master document in line with style guide
• Sort out PayPal
• Sort out PO Box for press releases
• Figure out what the essence of the anthology is
• Write sales blurb
• Write copyright notice and appendix
• Create landing page for e-book purchasers
• Get over extreme block about charging money for my creative writing
• Research e-book pricing and decide on a price
• Push past the fear of failure
• Publish e-book

When I look at that second list, I feel like a fool! Those four hidden barrier tasks stalled the launch of my anthology by at least a week. The first of them was resolved in a conversation with the aforementioned best friend who turned out to be delighted to help.

Project launch delayed by: 1 day.

The second required consultation with a reader, as I am far too close to the stories to see them with enough objectivity.

Project launch delayed by: 3 hours (plus a huge amount of frustration incurred by my inability to write a sales blurb for my own project!).

The third hidden task really stalled the project, which was still secret at the time. It ultimately required the creation of a secret project support group of lovely people who were prepared to listen to my plan, look at specific concerns I had and then give me feedback and lots of kind encouragement. They also encouraged me to blog about it, and that helped immensely too. The lesson I learnt at that stage was that developing things in secret might lead to a grand unveiling, but doing something way beyond your comfort zone in secret is a recipe for procrastination.

Project launch delayed by: 5 days (ouch).

The fourth hidden barrier, well, that’s still there, but I have that fear with everything (even writing this post)! I did just have to take a deep breath and push the publish button regardless of the fear. But becoming aware of that fear made it easier to deal with, and squeeze past.

Project launch delayed by: 1 hour (that was me actively fretting about whether to click the button -  it was probably hours and hours spread over the last month).

I guess that’s what this is all about: awareness. So the next time I write a to-do list, I’m going to take a moment to see how I feel about each task, rather than a purely logic-based, practical appraisal of what needs to be done. After all, it was the emotional side of it that slowed me down, but bringing them out into the open helped me immensely. I’ll also be sure to prioritize tackling those previously hidden barrier tasks, to make sure the project proceeds more smoothly.

So, do you have a big project on the go? Or a to-do list the length of Italy? Are there any items on it that are taking far longer than they should, or just aren’t being tackled at all? Maybe there is a hidden barrier task that needs to be drawn out before you can continue? I hope this helps!

You can get Emma’s e-book, From Dark Places, here.