How to know when to go for it

When I wrote my first novel, I only told two people what I was doing: my husband and a dear friend of mine who was undergoing treatment for stage 4 cancer. Both of them knew that my lifelong ambition was to become an author, and they’d encouraged me to, you know, actually start writing a novel. 

Like me, my friend was in her early thirties, and she’d always wanted to write a book, too. She lived a few blocks away from me in Brooklyn, and we used to go out for coffee and talk for hours about getting published. We both worked in publishing, so we knew the so-called odds of success, but she truly believed I would become a novelist. 

I wish there was another reason I decided to sit down at my computer every night after my daughter, who was a newborn, went to sleep and write that first draft. But the truth is, watching my friend undergo grueling treatment for the illness that would ultimately take her life was the reason I finally stopped dreaming and started doing. 

Yes, I was bleary-eyed from middle-of-the-night feedings. I was working full time as a journalist then, so my brain hurt from writing health stories all day. Yet I wanted to show my friend that she'd inspired me to go for it. I still get choked up when I think about this, because she died the month before I sold my novel and proved that she was right about me.  

Author Brian Tracy says life is so much easier when you accept that every two to three months, you’re going to face some new disaster. Fortunately, most of these disasters are temporary and not life-altering. Still, they keep us stuck because we’re always waiting for things to calm down ... when honestly, they rarely, if ever, do. 

Chances are, it will never be the “right” time. There’s only now.

And now is the very best time to go for your dreams.