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Episode 367: Overcoming Self-Doubt as a Cookbook Author · Cookbook Love Podcast

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You're listening to the Cookbook Love podcast with Maggie
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Green, episode number 360 7.
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Welcome to the Cookbook Love Podcast.
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A podcast that celebrates cookbook readers, buyers,
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collectors, writers and clubs.
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And now your host.
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Cookbook author, culinary Dietician, and Cookbook Writing Coach Maggie Green.
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Hi everybody.
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Welcome back to another episode of the Cookbook Love podcast.
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How's everybody doing today?
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As always, hope you're doing well and I am enjoying a quiet morning
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here inside my cookbook Bunker.
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I actually have about a half hour before.
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Some workers show up to do some work on our garage door, and I thought it
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would take some time to record this episode for you because I have just
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finished enrolling new students in the most recent round of cookbooks on KDP,
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and after having many conversations with aspiring cookbook authors, I
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wanna talk today about something that.
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I keep hearing over and over again, and it's the number one reason that
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successful cooks, bakers, dieticians, chefs, uh, people give me for not.
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Joining this program.
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And the interesting thing about this is it's actually the same things
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that I might even tell myself for not doing something new, joining a new
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program, taking another opportunity.
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And it's the same thing that I hear a lot of people say when
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they're, uh, maybe thinking about another opportunity in their life.
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And on the surface, here's the things that we hear.
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We don't have enough time.
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We can't figure out the tech.
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I don't think anybody's going to care.
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I don't think I'm qualified.
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I need more money, I need more expertise.
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But those are all the surface things that we say, but underneath every
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single one of them, the root is the same, and it's called doubt.
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D-O-U-B-T.
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Doubt or self-doubt?
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If you wanna think about it as self-doubt and self-doubt is so insidious because
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it doesn't show up shouting, telling us that we can't do the thing, we can't
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publish the book, we can't make it happen.
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It whispers and disguises itself as something that we start to
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think is perfectly reasonable.
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Well, if we can tell.
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Maggie, she doesn't have time.
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Or if we can tell Maggie she's too old, or if we can tell Maggie she's not techie
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enough, or if we can tell Maggie that nobody's gonna care that who is she, that
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she's not as good as somebody else, that she doesn't have an audience, or that it's
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not gonna turn out like she hopes it will.
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It whispers lies to us.
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So if you've ever thought one of those thoughts.
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You're not alone.
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I've thought of those two.
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My students have thought them, and even people who are thinking about joining a
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program like cookbooks on KDP, thank them.
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In fact, every creative person who wants to do something in their life
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thinks these things and wrestles with this concept of self-doubt.
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Even though you may not really realize that's what it is.
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But underneath all of these excuses, I think it's like a
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simmering pot of soup on the stove.
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And I like to call it doubt soup.
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And if you let that doubt bubble long enough, it flavors everything you think.
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It seeps into everything you wanna try.
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It convinces you that even if you start, it will not work.
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And then what happens is because we don't think it's gonna work, a
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lot of times we don't even start.
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It's dangerous.
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It stops us, it keeps us circling, it keeps us overthinking.
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It erodes our trust in ourselves.
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And in other people.
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And when you're considering something as personal as writing a cookbook about your
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food, your family, your memories, your knowledge, the whispers get even louder.
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So I wanna talk about this today because.
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This really gets people all balled up, and I heard it over and over again,
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and in particular from one of my, uh, potential students who thought that
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in order to write this cookbook she needed, and if she wanted to talk
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about fresh food and cooking tips, she needed to be a registered dietician.
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I also heard it from people that said that their recipes are just a mess.
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They got this messy pile of recipes.
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And so what that meant is that doubt showed up telling them
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that before you write a cookbook, you have to fix something.
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You need to do something else.
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You need to get those recipes in shape, or you need to get another certification.
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And the truth is, is that doubt will always tell you that you
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need something else to succeed.
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Money, time, support, uh, organization.
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You need more, uh, knowledge.
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You need more expertise, more tech, bigger audience.
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More, more, more, more, more.
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That's how you know doubt is talking.
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So if you've ever heard.
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Your brain whisper to you something about you need more before you do such and such.
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That is doubt.
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But the anecdote to this, from what I have learned in my life, writing
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cookbooks and helping people publish cookbooks, is you have to anchor what
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you want to do and something else.
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And the anchor is in what you already know.
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Food, cooking, nutrition, cookbooks, baking, chopping vegetables, uh, sharing
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meals, sharing recipes, what you already know that those experiences can do because
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cookbooks aren't just about the recipes.
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Cookbooks and your success is about what those cookbooks and
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recipes do for other people.
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Meaning helping someone cook a meal they never thought they could cook.
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Giving family a way to reconnect around a recipe that holds a memory, supporting
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someone's health with food guidance that makes their daily life better, healthier.
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They maybe feel better bringing a sense of joy and ease and belonging.
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To a person when you share a meal with them, and the way you already know that
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this is true is because you have lived it.
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And this is where cookbooks start to become such interesting studies is
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because we all have different lives and we all have lived different things.
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And an example from my own life is, let's just take chicken soup.
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I know for a fact through lived experience.
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What Chicken Soup does.
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Four people who are not feeling well.
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In fact, I currently have a little bit of a runny nose,
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little bit of a scratchy throat.
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One of my, uh, sons in, uh, Chicago was kind of feeling the same way this
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week and I suggested that he get some chicken soup, make some chicken soup
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because we know what chicken soup does for people when they're not feeling good.
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And we also.
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It's kind of like if you talk to a Jewish grandmother, Jewish mother,
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they call it Jewish penicillin.
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We know what chicken soup can do.
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Lemme give you a few more examples.
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We know what a birthday cake does for someone whose birthday it is.
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We know that.
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And if we experienced it as a child or we experienced someone giving a cake
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to us, or we experience the joy of baking a cake for someone else we know.
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What a birthday celebration does for people.
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We know what it feels like to share recipes.
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We know what it's like to receive a recipe from someone that was so
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great that we make it all the time.
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For example, the Focaccia Bread from Marcella Hazen.
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Essentials of a classic Italian cookie, and I've kind of talked
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about that for the past few weeks.
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I know what it feels like to have that focaccia bread recipe that just.
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Was my go-to recipe for focaccia bread.
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And we also know what it's like to be on the giving end of those recipes
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to someone who treasures the recipe.
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I know what it's like to slow down and cook to chop, to turn on my favorite
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podcasts, to maybe pour a glass of sparkling water to enjoy cooking.
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I know what it does for my soul.
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This is what I mean when we can start to anchor into these things that we already
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know are true because we've lived it.
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Doubt goes away.
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This is what it means to begin with.
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The end in mind.
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There's a book called The Seven Habits of Highly Effective
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People written by Stephen Covey.
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Um, it's written a long time ago, uh, but it's still so true.
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When we begin with the end in mind, to overcome our doubt, we're not
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talking about the Amazon listing.
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We're not talking about the finished manuscript.
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We're not talking about the book proposal or the book deal,
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or the agent or the publisher.
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The end is the lived experience in knowing that you already carry.
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Right now, you need no more of anything to.
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Know what a meal can do, what fresh food can do, what Homecooked meals
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can do, what cooking with other people can do, what slowing down to cook
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can do, what sharing recipes can do, what baking a lovely cake can do.
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You already know that.
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And all the cookbook authors that I have worked with interviewed
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on this show, they might not have known it from the beginning.
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The self-doubt could have cret up for them, but they were able
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to overcome it and they were able to tap into what they knew.
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To be true also about recipes, food, cooking, baking meals, sharing meals,
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celebrating birthdays, slowing down.
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We already know it because we have done it.
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We've cooked, we've baked, we've shared meals.
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We've had some failures, we've had some successes.
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We've had experience with food in our own life.
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So when this doubt starts to creep in.
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Saying you need more experience.
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You need more time.
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You need more money.
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You need more of something to write a cookbook, you have to remember this.
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You don't need more of anything, go to the end of the story and say, I am the
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one who already knows what food and cooking and nutrition and fresh food
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and lovely cakes, and sharing recipes and enjoying good food together with
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people can do because it has done it for me in my life here in my home with
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my family over and over and over again.
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And you see this takes.
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Sharing, uh, recipes and stories in a cookbook out of credentials.
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It's not about our audience.
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It's not about perfection.
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It's not about tech.
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It's not about time.
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It's not about money.
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It's about knowing with the anchor about, in my own life, food has done this for me.
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So I want you to, I wanna help make this real for you because.
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If you're thinking about anything, doing something new, maybe writing a
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cookbook, I want you to think about memories and experiences in your own
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life related to food, cooking, eating better nutrition, sharing meals.
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Receiving good meals.
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Um, the power of food for healing, for having fun, for learning the
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power of cooking, growing your own herbs, growing your own tomatoes.
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Um, what are the moments in your life when food did something bigger for you than
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just food in your mouth and swallowing it?
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Maybe it's when you delivered, uh, soup to a neighbor who was sick.
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Maybe someone brought you something when you were sick.
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I can specifically remember before I even had children.
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Um, I had, uh, have a medical procedure done and I was working full-time at
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the time and I recuperated on the couch and the doorbell rang, and my
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best friend from work was standing at the door with a pack of m and ms,
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which is my very favorite thing, and, um, uh, casserole that she had made.
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I will never forget the power of that act of kindness ever.
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What about pies, cakes, something that related to maybe a generation of people
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who came before you, grandmothers, aunts, grandfathers, uncles, people who loved
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to cook, and the memories that you have with that, I could go on and on and on
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about memories I have of my own mother.
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I have memories of my father trying to cook and follow recipes.
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I have memories with my grandmother, my two aunts.
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I have memories of relatives coming from Germany and teaching my mother
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how to make wiener schnitzel tons and tons of really positive food memories
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that no one can ever take away from me.
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And I know the power of learning how to crunch saltine crackers to coat the wiener
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schnitzel, so it's nice and crunchy.
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Maybe it's, uh, memories of experiences in your own kitchen
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with your own family and things that really move the needle for them.
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Uh, the smell of garlic in our house, whenever I did that, always brought
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my kids like outta their room.
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Like, what are you cooking?
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Of course baking cookies is a, is a popular example.
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Um, maybe it's recipes that you've given to people.
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That people keep asking for over and over again, or that you hear people
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saying, yeah, I made your recipe and it works for me every time, and it really
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makes me feel like a successful cook.
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I kind of talked about that last week related to the Thanksgiving dinner.
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So start with this exercise of thinking about these things from your
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own life, because what happens is.
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My experience of food, cooking, meals and sharing is
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completely different than yours.
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And yours is completely different than the next person.
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And this end, knowing that we all have, is what makes our books so unique.
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So start with the sentence, I know what blank can do and just.
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To use a food word noodle on that for a while.
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Give yourself some time to think about it.
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Don't overthink it.
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Don't say I'll do it when I have more time.
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Don't say it when I'll have more, um, energy when I have a cleaner desk because
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that again is do creeping in saying you.
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Um, you can't even do this exercise, which isn't true.
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These things are your anchors, and knowing what your anchors are is the
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anecdote to any doubt that you will ever have about, let's just say writing a
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cookbook or getting published, publishing a cookbook, and in cookbooks on KDP.
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What I teach is a way that we can all become published authors.
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Through technology that is readily available right now for every single
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person that has a computer or access to, um, something that's online.
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And aren't we lucky to have that availability and to be able to
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use tools like this that make publishing so much easier?
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So let's wrap this all up.
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First of all, I think self-doubt is so sneaky it doesn't come barging in.
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It comes in disguised as what we think are reasonable excuses.
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And the way you know it's doubt is because it's gonna tell you you need
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something else before you can succeed.
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And again, I've heard everybody say all the same things and it's the very same
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things I probably say and doubt tells me to say when I embark on something new.
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Typically relates to time.
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It relates to money, it relates to experience.
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It relates to writing, it relates to we need more of something else.
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We need more education, more experience, more time, more money, that we're missing
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something, we're lacking something.
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And um, the anecdote isn't more credentials.
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The anecdote is not more time, it's not more money.
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It's beginning with the end in mind.
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And the end is what you already know to be true about what food cooking.
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Fresh food, baking birthday celebrations, Thanksgiving
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dinners, memories with family.
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What has that done for you and your life?
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That is all you need to move forward.
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And then we take one step at a time toward becoming a cookbook author, who
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knows in his or her heart the power of what food has done in your life.
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So in cookbooks on KDP, that's the heart of what I do, and it's actually
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the heart of what I teach people and get paid to get published also, which
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is my traditional publishing program.
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We're not just collecting recipes, we're anchoring everything we do
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and what we already know to be true, and this allows us to publish
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from a place of helping people.
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A place of generously sharing what we know to be true and of trusting
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that we have everything it takes to become published cookbook authors.
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I think doubt is like a fog, and I think doubt is something that is going to stop
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us from being, uh, the cookbook authors that we want to be, and it's gonna stop.
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Us from changing the world with cookbooks.
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So the next time doubt comes rolling in on you, especially if you hear you need
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something more, just remember that your strength is in what you know to be true.
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And if you're ready to take the next step, you can join the wait list for
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the next group of cookbooks on KDP.
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I'll put a link in the show notes and I want to thank you all for tuning
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in today to all my loyal listeners.
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I love you all so much.
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It's so good to be here and talk with you, and hopefully we'll be
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back next week with an interview.
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I had a couple of, uh, people who had colds this past week.
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A couple of interview cancellations, but it's really great because it gave
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me the opportunity to explore this topic and to really see how it shows up in
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my life, how it shows up in the lives of people who want to write cookbooks.
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And I just want you to know that you're not alone if you're feeling that way too.
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So that's it for today's episode of the Cookbook Love podcast.
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This is your host, Maggie Green, and until next time, have a great
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day and keep loving your cookbooks.
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Thanks for listening to the Cookbook Love podcast.
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You can find out more information@www.cookbooklove.co.