Following Lance Armstrong's final victory in the Tour de France, I was interested to read that he received regular psychological exercises as well as daily physical training from his personal coach.

A lot has been written about what we can learn from the top athletes; one of the most revealing classic studies was described in Scientific American's Mind Magazine. The study revealed that athletes who qualified for the Olympics had the same levels of anxiety and doubt as their less successful peers. The difference was that the Olympians were better at constantly encouraging themselves.

Forging a career as a writer can be compared to running a marathon or competing in an endurance event: you have to develop both skills and stamina, and you are bound to encounter setbacks. By adopting the techniques used by athletes, you can also increase your chances of winning.

ACTION: To learn from the world of successful athletes, do the following six things:

Pace yourself. Set small goals to work toward. Nobody writes a novel or a non-fiction book in one go, they do it page by page, chapter by chapter.

Reward yourself for reaching milestones. Have a little celebration when you reach the quarter mark, the half-way mark, and the three-quarter mark, not just the end.

Make a list of your previous successes. When you doubt that youre going to achieve your current goal, its useful to remember times in the past when you have succeeded.

Get and give support. Find a writing buddy or a writing group so you can get constructive feedback, help when youre stuck, and general encouragement.

Become aware of your self-talk. If you are saying negative things to yourself, consciously stop and change to statements like, I have finished writing projects before, and I can do it this time, too; or, Look at all the other people who have written a novel, surely I can do it, too.

Taking a leaf from the book of Olympic athletes, accept that anxiety and doubt are a natural part of the process, not a sign that you should give up.

With these tools at your disposal, you can overcome self-doubts and go on to win the writing success you desire and deserve.

Jurgen Wolff
http://www.timetowrite.com