In this episode of the Impostor Syndrome Files, we talk about overcoming self-doubt. Self-doubt gets in our way more often than we think. It creeps up on us in big and small ways that keep us from leaving our comfort zones, even when those comfort zones are making us miserable. My guest this week is Amy Bernstein, author of the upcoming book Wrangling the Doubt Monster: Fighting Fears, Finding Inspiration. Amy shares her own story of pivoting from a career in government to a full-time writer and the steps she took to make that transition. She also encourages us to have an honest reckoning with ourselves and offers great practical advice on how to reconnect with our joys and passions so that we can find more meaning and purpose in our lives.
About My Guest
Amy L. Bernstein's nonfiction book of inspiration for creative people, Wrangling the Doubt Monster: Fighting Fears, Finding Inspiration, will be published by Bancroft Press in 2024. She is also the author of four novels and when not writing, she is coaching other writers to success as a certified book coach. Learn more on her website and on Substack.
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Connect with Amy:
Author Website: https://amywrites.live
Doubt Monster on Substack: https://amylbernsteinauthor.substack.com
Wordfirst Book Coaching: http://wordfirstbookcoach.com
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Connect with Kim and The Impostor Syndrome Files:
Join the free Impostor Syndrome Challenge.
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Join the Slack channel to learn from, connect with and support other professionals.
Schedule time to speak with Kim Meninger directly about your questions/challenges.
Websites: https://kimmeninger.com
Transcript
Kim Meninger
Welcome, Amy, I'm really excited to talk to you today. And I'd love to start by inviting you to introduce yourself.
Amy L. Bernstein
Thank you, Kim, I'm really happy to be here with you today. So I wear many different hats, I guess over many different years, I come out of a sort of a government, quasi-corporate nonfiction, excuse me, a nonprofit working background over many, many years. But I made a pivot really, in middle age to become a full-time writer, and I'm also a book coach. So I write my own fiction and nonfiction, but I really help other authors on their path to publishing as well and teach a number of writing courses. So I cover a pretty broad gamut there.
Kim Meninger
And so I want to actually talk about the pivot because that tends to be a moment of self to hell for a lot of people. And so can you tell us a little bit more about what was happening for you, as you decided to make that change? And what, what stimulated it? And what kind of feelings? Did it bring up for you? How did you navigate that?
Amy L. Bernstein
Absolutely, I think it is so important for people heading into their 40s and 50s, to recognize that who you are now in that moment, is not necessarily who you will be forever. And then we all have the capacity to make significant changes that help us become even more the people that we want to be, we shouldn't we don't need to, we may feel that and we don't need to stay there. It takes a lot of courage and internal commitment to make those changes. But I can tell you from the other side, it's really rewarding. So let me tell you quickly kind of what my own path was through that. I was working for the federal government in a in Washington DC and an extremely high-stress job with very long days, you know, I didn't see the sunlight on either end of the day, there was a lot of pressure to do a tremendous amount of work under a lot of scrutiny. And, you know, I was doing really well. And I was really unhappy. I just felt that I was working so hard for other people and not not working hard enough for myself. So I made a decision over time that I didn't want my left to continue on that path. I didn't want to be unhappy every day. And, and I determined that my passion has always been to try to write more, because I'd always been in the communications and writing field anyway. But I wanted to take charge of that. So I wasn't doing that work for other people. And I basically with my husband's support, and it really is important to feel supported on this journey. With my husband support, I made a series of step, step changes, which is to say I didn't, I didn't make this change all at once. I began writing fiction, in my free time I started with playwriting to see how that felt. I wrote a novel commuting on the train mostly to and from DC. Because I really want to do that and to see how that felt. So I was trying to step into my creative passion for really unplugging from, you know, the world that I was that I was in. And then I started a series of job changes where I could pull back on the intensity, cut down on my commute. So I did this gradually over time, and a day arrived within a couple of years. And the pandemic really helped this actually, by the time the pandemic hit, I was actually working part time and this, this has taken you know, about five years to go down this road, right? I was writing more I was working less didn't happen all at once. I was feeling better. And I turned to my husband one day and I said, you know, it's a question of when not if, meaning I was going to pull out from what I call the formal wage world to do my own thing, and probably never go back. And that was a huge, huge step. Because our work identities are such a big part of who we are. And when we don't have that anymore. Who are we? And believe me, I went through days after I went I did this, I went through days of what have I done this was a mistake. I'm never going to do anything meaningful. Again. I'm invisible. I, I can't earn any money. I was I really got it even though I thought I prepared myself. That's all by way of saying, you know, fast forward. Here we are in 2024 I am so creatively challenged, fulfilled, sort of jazzed up to do the work that I do now, with book coaching with, with my own writing with my own books. I'm plugged into a writer's community around the world, I'm in a much better place, you know, mentally, in a sense physically because they don't have those same types of stress on me and just feeling that I'm heading into my later years with, with passion and purpose. So I really recommend this and what I say that everybody has come on in the water's fine. You can plan a path to step into your passion.
Kim Meninger
I love that so much. There's so much about what you said that really resonates with me and I Love the step changes that you described. Because I do think that as humans, we tend to think in all-or-nothing terms, right? It feels like I have to abandon my financial security and, you know, make this flip of the switch kind of a decision that feels incredibly scary for so many reasons to then transition into this other world. And so the fact that you did this in this very gradual way, I think, can give hope to people who can't see how they get from point A to point B.
Amy L. Bernstein
That you're so right. And, you know, I don't know that I, I don't know that I planned it so cleverly is that it's the way it had to happen. Looking back, I do think that scheduling off ramps for yourself in sort of a cascade series makes all the difference. And so you know, that first, that first logical step might be when you find a job, that, you know, while meeting still meeting your financial goals, or at least most of them, perhaps gives you more breathing room, take a step back from that all-consuming work, whether it's a combination of your work hours, and your commute and the fact that you're on call 24/7. If you can start with a step back from that, and take make some space for yourself sort of inside, then you can then you can begin to give yourself time to think about where do I really want to go? What really lights me up inside? You know, what, what, what would I do if I really could take back more of my own sort of time, and both emotional and intellectual energy. And so you need to create that breathing room as you begin to sort of step into these transitions. And I think that combination can be very powerful. And I also encourage people, when they make that when they begin to make that time, find a course or class or workshop to experiment with something you feel drawn to that you wouldn't that you wouldn't have done any otherwise. I mean, it might be a cooking class, it might be a sculpting class, it might be a clay works class, whatever it is, and maybe it's a writing class, step into that because there's no downside for you to do that. You may realize, Oh my gosh, I feel like a different person when I'm sitting at the with a pottery wheel, like a different human being. But that's the human being, I want to feel more like you may make that discovery. But you need to give yourself the time and the permission to do that. And it's really, it's really worth you, you owe yourself that because you have a whole, you know, second half of your life to lead and why not find a way to lead it in ways that are that are fulfilling.
Kim Meninger
One thing I love about what you just said, the idea of taking a class that interests you is one of the things I talk about a lot is how high achievers in particular, tend to curate their worlds in such a way that we only do the things that we're guaranteed to do well, even if they're things that don't make us happy, right we, we kind of create these very small worlds for ourselves. Because we're so afraid of failure, we, we have often perfectionist tendencies. And so what you're describing in terms of taking a class has so many layers of benefits because a it might introduce you to or reinforce a passion that's been dormant for a while because you haven't been giving it time. But also it reminds you that it's safe to be a beginner again, it's, it's safe to learn and not be perfect at something and, and then I love what you're saying too about. It gives you a chance to experience yourself in a different domain. Like you said early on, I was doing really well. But I was unhappy. And I think that is an experience that so many people have and they don't understand how to break out of it. Like, if this is what I do, well, then maybe I just have to accept the fact that to do well, I have to be unhappy, as opposed to having the opportunity to experience a different version of yourself where you can be both at the same time, right? I can be happy and do well.
Amy L. Bernstein
That you know, you're, you're so right about everything you just said. And you reminded me of a really important epiphany that I had when I you know when I made this transition and I started to write more. And I started submitting my work to all various kinds of places and getting a lot of rejection like a huge amount of rejection. And I felt horrible. I mean, like so horrible. And I, I realized I had this really big realization. It's like, I get it. All my professional life. I've succeeded like I've been whelk. I managed to get very well compensated, I won tons of awards and I for all the things that I did like I was, I was like the gold star student at work, right? I always excelled. I always did well. And I was that was recognized despite my being unhappy, which is sort of this interesting paradox. But I realized that when I started writing full time, especially, especially like fiction, it's an incredibly difficult craft. And you very few of us sort of just are born being phenomenal writers. You really have to learn it and practice it a lot. And I've suddenly realized oh, I stepped out of my zone of expertise and experience in practice. And I stepped into this whole new arena where I did not have as much experience and practice. And I'm not doing very well at it. And so my I have to, I have to, I have two options here. I can conclude, well, I still I'm terrible at this, I better stop. Maybe I should go back to what I know I'm good at that's Option A, but I say no, don't do that. Because you're just going to recreate the wheel in an unhappy way. Option B is work at this thing that you want to be better at. I mean, you're never we're never too old to try and learn, you know, and tackle something new and get better at it. I have to I still get rejection. Oh, absolutely. But I've also gotten better. And so I realized that I wasn't used to failing at something I worked really hard at because I didn't have a lot of because I had been succeeding. And you have to be willing to live with that discomfort that comes from doing anything new. You know, whatever it is.
Kim Meninger
Yeah, you're absolutely right. And I think that what you said, too, about that temptation to just go back to the comfort zone to go back to what you know, and what you, you know, you can do well can be really strong in those moments of transition. It's just that voice that says no, no, it's this is dangerous. Go back to the familiar. And so I want to talk a little bit about the, the self-doubt piece of what you're talking about. Because I know that that's a big part of what you think about and what we, we sort of talked about offline is how, how do we navigate the self-doubt that's going to creep in in these moments, especially, you know, like, we're talking about the sort of the devil, you know, kind of attitude of like, like, well, at least at least this is predictable. At least I know that I can make a living at it, or at least I know what to expect. But, but Can you say more about your experience of self-doubt or how you think about it?
Amy L. Bernstein
Absolutely. Because it's, it's something I've been studying and writing about now for well over a year. Let me start with a distinction that I make between impostor syndrome and self-doubt. I view imposter syndrome is very real, no question. But imposter syndrome tends to arrive. I think it is most acute when we have in fact, we have indeed gotten very good at something. And we're recognized for that. But somehow inside we don't feel we've earned the competence, we feel we feel it maybe came easily to us. And we just feel that it's not earned, we feel that people are overestimating us, which means we're just setting ourselves up for failure somewhere down the line, even though we keep on succeeding. So I feel impostor syndrome is this very particular thing that often arrives when, in fact, you've done really well. Self-doubt, in sort of the broadest sense, can be a very crippling set of messages or tapes that go on and on in our head that often prevent us from even making an attempt at this thing we might be good at down the line. It, it holds us back, because it's the it's the tapes that are playing that are saying, you know, you're really you don't have this talent, you're not good enough at this, you know, you're not, you're not going to make it you know, I don't think you should try this, you know, this is gonna, you're gonna fall flat on your face, you're not you're not cut out for this, don't do it. And so it's this, this sort of negative force that's holding us back from even trying. And what I always say is that you cannot expect to completely conquer and overcome self-doubt, I do think that it is built into the human condition. It also has protective qualities for us at times, means you're standing at the edge of a cliff, and you're thinking, you know, should I should jump? Well, you're right, you know, your, your doubt, your doubts are keeping you nice and safe, right? But we can manage it. And there are many different ways of doing that. One of the things that it's important to do is sort of a common trick that I think is used a lot in various kinds of therapy, which is when those, when those horses are coming up inside you in your head and saying, Don't do it, don't take the risk. Hold off, maybe later. And all those things are sort of coming loudly to for what you need to do is acknowledge that what you're doing feels scary. But you're going to go ahead and do it anyway. And you're going to take that self-doubt and say, I see you, I feel you, I get it. I'm stepping into a risk. I might look foolish, I might do a bad job. I get it. But you know what, there's a potential upside here and I'm going to try anyway and let's see where it goes. Because more often than not, the upside is going to emerge when you push past the self-doubt . Rather than letting the self-doubt win the day. You need to kind of just watch on pass and you know, let's respect the fear, right? I mean, fear can, can also be an ally, right? I mean, flight or flight Fight syndrome is, is also built into us for a reason, because it heightens our or heightens our senses and enables us to really sort of respond to the moment. And so it's a good reason to sort of acknowledge those doubts, respect them, but force yourself to push on anyway because you'll be so glad that you did.
Kim Meninger
And that really aligns with how I think about confidence building in general is that confidence follows action, not the other way around, right? There's never going to come a day when we jump out of bed and say, I'm ready to do the scary thing I've been putting off, right? Like the, the competence comes after you do the scary thing. And you realize, oh, the world didn't collapse, like I lived to tell about it. And actually, there was a positive outcome, whatever that might be, right? Because, you know, as someone with a lot of anxiety, my imagination is always far darker. And so I think what you're, what you're saying is really important of, you know, the self-doubt is going to be there, the goal is not to get rid of it, it's to understand it to and to move forward. Don't let it hold you back.
Amy L. Bernstein
That's absolutely right. And you know, I can attest, and I'm very open about it. I mean, I have had some epic failures. I mean, I've had failures, where it's so funny, it's so funny how badly I failed that you that you want to laugh. And you know what I lived. And I've gone on to do all kinds of other things. I mean, just, just real really quickly, I had an organizing event. And I got a local, a local celebrity in my neck of the woods to be the emcee for this event. And everything they could every single thing that could go wrong went wrong, the performers were not properly rehearsed, the person who was supposed to be rehearsing them, didn't do his job. It was a dark and stormy night, and no one could find the church, we were holding the event, let alone the entrance. The word did not get out properly, it was not properly publicized. And nobody came. So there I was with this local celebrity, who had given me his evening for free, deliver this script. And there's nobody there was I mean, literally, like one person in this sea of chairs. And I could not have been more mortified. You know, that feeling, you know, when you're having like, the kind of dream where like, you're suddenly like, you're naked on stage, or you forget you're on stage you can represent, it was exactly as I was living this, I was I actually was laughing to myself and saying, This is that nightmare, in actual real life, actually living that nightmare right here, right now. And I told myself, in the moment, as mortified as I was, and believe me, I could not have been more mortified. This will pass, this is a thing, this is happening. It's one of the most horrible days of my professional life, but you know what? It's going to end. And we'll go on and do something else. You see, you have to teach yourself to be ready to fail and know that you can move on, it's just not the be-all and end-all.
Kim Meninger
Yeah, that's such a powerful way of thinking about it, you reminded me too, I have two boys that are eight and 13. And they're at that point where their social experience is becoming more and more important to their identities. And you know, I just remember how uncomfortable middle school and high school and everything was. And I tried to say that to them to have like, feelings feel really strong in that moment. Right? Like, there, it feels like this is the biggest thing that's ever going to happen to you. But then you, you know, with time you realize like, oh, yeah, you can still look back on it and think, Oh, that was horrible. But it doesn't define your life. Right? And so I think that's a really good way to, for us to think about that, as adults, too. Is we've lived to tell about every moment that didn't work well for us, right, it feels catastrophic at the time. But we keep moving on. And, you know, anything we also learned from that the right like they, though, that is part of when I think back on, you know, more recent moments where I'm like, oh, that just was horrible. And I wish I had done it differently. I also feel like I got something valuable. I had the experience to I learned something that I now apply proactively. You know.
Amy L. Bernstein
That’s so true. And you know, we one of the gifts we get in middle age is perspective. And so unlike I mean, unlike the adolescent who cannot be expected, they haven't lived long enough to put things in that sort of perspective and everything lose like the biggest thing ever. Right? And that's understandable. That's, that is that phase of, you know, psychosocial development. But we have a gift of saying, oh, you know, this, this isn't going well or this didn't go well. But you know what, I'll just, as you say, I'm going to learn from this. I'm going to move on and so one way of looking at self-doubt is that Yep, things might go wrong. Yep. That self that voice of self-doubt might be right. But doesn't mean you shouldn't prepare and try because as I said before, There's really is an upside in so many different ways. And it's, you know, it's, it's better to try than then not to try it's better to test yourself in new ways than then not to because you just, you grow in the end in ways that you will really appreciate.
Kim Meninger
Yeah. And I think about what you were saying to keep coming back to how you described yourself as doing very well, but we're unhappy. And I think that what self-doubt fear and a lot of these feelings and themes that we're talking about do is they keep us comfortable, but unhappy, right? And so we don't often think about, we were wired to think about what do I lose by taking this step? We're not wired to think what do I lose by not taking this step? Right? And if you think about where you are today versus where you were like, yeah, the safer, safer choice would have been to stay where you were because it was predictable and familiar. But what that would have ensured is ongoing unhappiness. And so I think that's part of the analysis, too, that we have to proactively insert because it doesn't come naturally to us is, yeah, but what's the risk of not doing this? What am I giving up by giving into the fear or the self-doubt?
Amy L. Bernstein
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And, you know, it's, it's change doesn't come easily to many of us, we create, and we're going to culture, at least the United States, we're in a culture where, you know, stability, sort of a price during economic stability, your days have a predictable course to them, you know, you know, what your obligations are, you know, kind of day by day, you know, who you're responsible for, you know, and so, we build this sort of predictability into our lives and routines, and we rely on that, and there's a lot about it, that's both supporting and comforting. But there comes a time when it's worth breaking those routines and disrupting that, to find Prius to find a new kind of normal, and it can be uncomfortable when you're going through it. I mean, I look, I was I was essentially a writer earning a really good six-figure salary, I never dreamed I would earn that much money, given my skill set, which is basically you know, writing communication. So all those things journalism. And it took a lot for me to be able to say, You know what, this isn't worth it. I need to I need to break out of this comfort, this routine, this cocoon, it's not worth it. I'm paying too high a price. And you I think we talked about what the first step is, you have to have a really, really honest reckoning with yourself, set aside for the moment, a practical side of this, I have to you know, I have to be the breadwinner, or my family or I have to be a co-equal breadwinner. I have too many financial obligations, I can't possibly, you need to set that aside and interrogate your own psyche. And, and say, I'm, I'm miserable, and I deserve not to feel miserable. So how do I begin to think about changes in these off-ramps, ramps, where I don't feel so miserable? And as we said, it may be baby steps. But there are things you can almost always do to begin that process. And, you know, it's worth it because we deserve to pursue not happiness, not in a not in a selfish sense, but in the sense of, we deserve to pursue feeling fulfilled, and that what we do matters, and that we're making the kind of difference we want to make, and that we're, we're that we're exploring sides of ourselves that we that have lain dormant, you know, all these years, when I started writing, plays almost out of the blue, I don't know, a dozen, dozen or so years ago, and I was thinking to myself, Why? Why am I writing play? Why did I gravitate to this? Why do I want to replace a theater-goer like anybody else, but I wasn't rabid about it. And took me months to remember that I'd been a theater kid. In middle school, I did drama all the time. I was in many, many plays. I was crazy about it. I thought I was maybe I was gonna go on to do it professionally. And I forgotten all about that. I buried all that passion under all those, you know, practical adult things. And then it sort of resurface to this back door. Why am I writing plays? Oh, I was a drama kid. I forgot.
Kim Meninger
That's a really important point, too. Because, you know, sometimes it might seem silly to look back at our childhood interests. But those are the purest versions of ourselves, right? [Yes.] The world started telling us No. And so to be thinking about what was it that you love to do back when there were no boundaries? Or you know, you had to worry about how much money you were going to make, et cetera. And really think about are there aspects of yourself that you can express in new ways that link back to those interests?
Amy L. Bernstein
Absolutely, and I think it's worth you know, this part of this process that we're gonna go through in the beginning when it's just all in our head is trying to remember What is your, did you do things that as a kid that you loved? You know, and what were they? And what was it that you loved about it? You know, what was the feeling that it gave you and why? And it may not you may not be able to duplicate that today, but you may be able to find some core truth about that feeling and find a way, you know, back into that.
Kim Meninger
Exactly, exactly. And I think about when you were talking earlier, too, about, we deserve to feel fulfilled and to feel like we're making an impact. This is gonna sound really cliche, but at the end of our lives, right at the end of anyone's life, nobody says I wish I'd stayed in my comfort zone.
Amy L. Bernstein
I wish I spent more time at the office. Right? Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yes. No, absolutely. Absolutely. And I have to say, you know, I certainly reached a point, you know, I think when I got into my 50s, and I knew, you know, I mean, for all intents and purposes, it's half over, right? And I knew, you know, this, this isn't I'm not, I'm not done being who I need to be. And I would say that I, you know, I was super, super, super late bloomer. Some people are, you know, they hit 22. And they know what they are destined to do for life. And they do that they're really happy. That's great. I'm not one of those people, I had to go through long, long, long sort of slog to figure out, you know, what, this is not, I need to be over here doing these other things, you know, I need to step away.
Kim Meninger
Yeah. And even if you do know, at 22, that might change at 40 or 50. Right? So maybe, maybe, and I think that's part of it, too, is that we sometimes you talked about how our identities get wrapped up in what we do. And there's this sense of, you know, I'm a failure, I'm not following through on these commitments, but maybe you got what you needed, from that part of your life, or whatever stretch of time you invested in that education or that career. And now, it's not that your failure walking away because of failure, you're walking away, because you've changed, your values have changed, your interests have changed.
Amy L. Bernstein
So true. And, and, and finally, sort of having the courage to take to take action where actions needed, I thought about it for years before I did it. The other thing I'd note that is that all these experiences that we have leading up to say a pivot are additive, which is to say, a lot of what I do today and do pretty well, today, I really did develop and practice skills, in all those years, and I was doing the things that maybe I was less happy with, but I was doing things that that really helped me get skilled. And so you know, being a journalist, and being in communications and working with a lot of dense material, and having to produce, you know, clear written stuff fast, helps me today, you know, to write, say, a subset newsletter more quickly and efficiently than maybe someone who, who doesn't have that kind of training, because I've just got that sort of those journalistic reflexes, you know, and so I'm grateful. I can't, I can't be, I can't totally regret all the years, I put in doing those other things because they helped me do the things I do today. But I did need to make a change, you know, stop doing those things. But they did help.
Kim Meninger
And that's a good way to think about it, too. For anybody who's listening and thinking, Oh, I'm not ready to even take what seems like, you know, the next step, to just think about how can you do more of what interests you in the job you have today? Right? Because there may be ways that you could have a conversation with your manager to say, Hey, I really like to write and I'd like to find a way to do more of that in this current role, or whatever it might be right, is incorporating it into the experience that you have now?
Amy L. Bernstein
Absolutely, absolutely. It really does have to begin with, you have to you have to know yourself, right? You've got to really be honest with yourself and learn what really is calling to you sort of on the inside that you may have been sort of neglecting or not even aware of, and you need to figure that out. In order to in order to do that for sure.
Kim Meninger
Yeah. And I think that when you talk about the reckoning with yourself, which I think is such, such a great idea, is there anything in particular that you would suggest people ask themselves? Or like, what would be an effective way in your mind? For people who haven't even created the breathing room, as you described it to have this conversation or this kind of reflection with themselves? Is there something you would use as a prompt?
Amy L. Bernstein
Yeah, I think there's some really simple basic exercises that you can do. They're tried and true. There's, there's nothing magical about them, except that they force you to focus in that moment, honestly. So there's a couple of ways of going about it. One is sort of a visioning exercise, which you can do a couple of different ways. You can do it on paper, or you can do it really kind of by trying to take a meditative moment. And I don't mean like hardcore meditation, like breathing, ohm and all that kind of thing. But I do mean literally sitting in a quiet space by yourself, not at work with your eyes closed. and asking yourself, Where have the what have I been doing and the moments in my entire life, where I really felt free and joyful, what was I doing? And give yourself time to try to remember. And so for example, it might literally have been wow, you know, when I was a kid, I was on the soccer team. And I love that feeling of running down the field. And it was, it was amazing, I felt so in control of my body and the ball. And so you can take a moment like that, where you remembering that, that joy and that sort of that passion. And that just being sort of at one with the universe, doesn't mean that you're going to suddenly become a pro soccer player at 48. But, but it may mean that you want to get back in touch with something that's really athletic, something that's competitive, maybe you want to actually coach others to others to have that experience, you can begin to really interrogate what really sort of in your gut brought you those moments of joy. And I think that there's ways of doing that also, on paper, you could literally do like a free writing exercise, where you set a timer for three minutes, and write down everything in your wildest dreams you always wanted to do and if never done, just write them down. It's not a practical list. It's just the list. You want to travel around the world you want to sail around, you want to learn how to sail you want I mean all the things, but then begin to look at what's coming up. What patterns are coming up here. What kinds of experiences are these? And what are they saying to you? And how do I how do I take a look at these and think about how to capturing some of that joy and passion and sense of freedom and sense of sort of self-control and sort of being at one with the world? How can I connect that in the life that I have? This is what I mean about finding the pathways, because it may not You're not going to just walk out on your family and say I'm going to sail around the world because I can tell that that will make me really happy. So I'm not talking about that, right? Talking about doing this in a way that's practical that gets you to this new place. But practically, because that's, that's reality, right? We can't just all throw everything up and go do the dream.
Kim Meninger
That's exactly right. But this is a really great starting point. I really appreciate these suggestions. Amy, I think that they're, they're really practical as you suggested. And as we come to a close in our conversation, which has been fantastic. Thank you so much. Where can people find you if they want more of you?
Amy L. Bernstein
More of me, the easiest place to start simply my author website, which is Amy writes dot live, it's a-m-y-w-r-i-t-e-s Amy writes dot live l-i-v-e there you can find my books. I would love people to join my mailing list, which is extremely easy to do. You will not be spammed you won't hear from me endlessly, you will get a free literary gift when you do join my mailing list. And, you'll learn about my book that's coming out this fall, which is proposed this conversation is called Wrangling the Doubt Monster Fighting Fears Finding Inspiration. And it really is meant to be a book of inspiration for every person who wants to be sort of creative and manage those self-doubts that are holding them back.
Kim Meninger
Oh, I can't wait. That's great. Thank you so much, Amy. All of the links will be in the show notes and just really appreciate having this conversation with you.
Amy L. Bernstein
Thank you, Kim. It has been a pleasure and a wonderful conversation.