224. Get Inspired to Finally Write Your Book (Without More Discipline) feat. Kim O'Hara

Samantha Hawley (: 00:00

Welcome to Beyond Awareness. I'm so excited for the conversation today because I can't tell you how many clients, but also like friends and family that I've had tell me that they want to write a book, that that is something on their bucket list in their vision board. And so today's episode is for those girls who have write a book on their bucket list and maybe you haven't started or you have

writer's block and because you have started or you're doubting yourself. Maybe you've even written the book, but now you're stuck on what to do next or you don't even know where to begin. Any and all scenarios. Today I have Kim O'Hara with me and she is going to share why successful women who have the most to say are the ones who keep waiting to feel ready and some of the identity shifts that have to happen before you give yourself permission to write. Welcome to the show, Kim.

Kim O'Hara (: 00:57

Thank you so much for having me. This is obviously a topic very dear to my heart. I've been doing it for the last 12 years. And I have seen so many women who have wonderful messages finally break through and give themselves that permission to write the book. And they're so glad they did.

Samantha Hawley (: 01:17

I love it. And you call yourself a book vision strategist. So just love how you embody your message. And you've been doing this for 12 years, but I think we should start like back up a little bit. Cause I think that your story is really inspiring and like who you were before and how you got into it. Could you share a little bit about that season and what that was like for you?

Kim O'Hara (: 01:39

Absolutely. I believe anybody can make themselves something from whatever space you're in. If you have, you know, like a vision, right? And our visions change over time, right? So like 12 years ago, I was a single mom who couldn't come up with a resume. So ⁓ I had been a movie producer for years and then I had my kids and I was basically like a stay at home mom.

which I never thought I would be in a million years, but we had moved to an area that I was basically unemployable ⁓ because my resume was a movie producer. I mean, I was like a storyteller. This was like way before storytelling was like something people hired people for. So people were like, what you do what? then, so I built the book coaching business off of the backs of women holding me up. ⁓

Samantha Hawley (: 02:19

Yeah.

Kim O'Hara (: 02:30

and telling me that I could do it. And I'm so grateful they did because it landed me in this life of being around women after I had come from the movie business where it was all mostly men and no women supported each other. It was very cutthroat. Into this world where like I was just constantly at women's conferences and constantly learning about what women, what holds women back from doing things that feel delicious for them. And one of those is a book. And I decided to write my own book.

beautiful. I put that out in: 2022

Samantha Hawley (: 03:28

Yay!

Kim O'Hara (: 03:28

It's

like I'm journeying with the journey my clients are on always. And the book vision strategist is a new title that actually came through a retreat I did with Amy Nelson from the Riveter. I gave her a lot of credit for this because we spent a weekend and she said, you do big vision. You're not just an editor. You're not just a coach. You see big things for women. And that's where it's come to after 12 years. ⁓

Samantha Hawley (: 03:58

So powerful. And before we get into more of the book stuff, one thing that hit home for me was when you were sharing that you were working on yourself all the time, especially when you were in that season of your life, but then you were still burning out. what was that disconnect when you felt like you were doing all of the things? Because I think that my listeners can relate to that. They're reading all of the personal development books.

exercising, they are journaling, they are trying to do the healing that you mentioned, and yet they're still exhausted, they're still burning out.

Kim O'Hara (: 04:38

Right. Well, that's like, look, I have to talk about my newest brand because it's something that's really been percolating under the surface all these years that I've been a book coach because I spent a lot of time with women and I've spent a lot of time with exhausted women trying to write a book at like 5 a.m. or like after the kids go to bed or like, you know, locking themselves in the bathroom or like whatever it takes, you know.

Samantha Hawley (: 04:55

Yeah.

Yeah.

Kim O'Hara (: 05:01

And I found in all my personal development, you know, look, the personal development books are great, but we as women, like we don't really have time, I believe, especially sandwich generation women, 30 to 60, are taking care of parents that are aging and also kids, whether they're little or adult children, they don't have a lot of time to sit and read long tomes about values and guilt and shame and like feel bad about ourselves and like have to do all this work.

Samantha Hawley (: 05:31

Yeah.

Kim O'Hara (: 05:32

I did a lot of that work. eeked a lot of that time to make that work. And what I found has helped me the most is delicious moments with myself, just me doing something really small. And for some reason that just built my value and my self worth faster than any of the like long conferences I've been to.

that have like wrenched my soul out of my body and it's taken me months to recover. And maybe that's just where I'm at now, but I do think it's like a fast track to seeing like, wait, why am I after I've already done enough today, why am I sitting at my desk at 10 PM doing more? Why am I getting up at 6 AM to eke out more? Who's telling me

I have to do more. Where does that panic come Where does that convincing that we haven't done enough? And that's what gets in the way of books all the time. And I always used to say, well, maybe you can't go to your Pilates class and that'll help you write a book. It's only for four months. But now I start to say, really look at your calendar. You're probably doing a lot of things that you can start to say, I don't want to do those right now.

I could do those in a couple of months. Because we think everything's critical. Everything.

Samantha Hawley (: 06:57

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, and I almost think that one reason that women don't start their book is because it's one more to do and they're already capped out. And yeah, a lot of it is, is it necessary? Like what they're doing? Maybe, yes, maybe not. Like that's some of the work that they have to do, but no matter what, they're already overwhelmed, overstimulated, exhausted. So this inspiring

goal that they have is just too much. But I love what you said of how learning to speak up in a book, that's kind of how I got started on this journey. It wasn't necessarily writing a book, but I had so many big feelings right after I had my son, and I didn't know how to voice them to my partner or to anyone. And so...

Kim O'Hara (: 07:48

Mmm.

Samantha Hawley (: 07:54

I locked myself in a spare bedroom and I journaled and I just brain dumped because I was like, I just need to not even make sense of it. I just need to get it out. And so can you speak to more of that? Because even that could be like the start of potentially writing. Yet it's not formal writing. might not appear to be writing and it's not like typical I'm writing a book. And I had no expectations for that, which is maybe why it was easier.

Kim O'Hara (: 08:23

Right, right. I have so many different ways that I note my thoughts and note my feelings, right? So I have on my laptop and I've had this since 2020. ⁓ it's COVID that got me doing it. I'm not quite sure, but I have a Dear God letter. And every day I try to at least get on my computer and I put the date and I write Dear God. And I write about like the things that are that are like going on that day or like

you know, why is this not happening fast enough? Why do I feel confused about a lot? It's a lot of like, why, you know, like, why is this happening? Why do it? Or it's like, I can't believe this most beautiful thing just occurred and I want to like document it. That I can look back on at the end of the year. And I literally see my year unfolding in a way that I couldn't see on a day to day basis. And if I look at the prior year, I'm always like blown away because I don't think I'm advancing.

Samantha Hawley (: 09:18

Yeah.

Kim O'Hara (: 09:19

And

then I look at it I'm like, Oh my God. I also carry around my phone a lot, like most of us do. And if I have a creative download or an idea, I put it on a note and, I make a note, you know, recording to myself and I text it to myself. I have a journal that I write in that's notebook so you can carry it with you wherever you go. Um, that's just like, I don't know, like, like nonsensical stuff.

And I also, ⁓ you know, meditate like a lot and I walk a lot and I think a lot and I, and I'm in my feelings a lot. So when you sit down to write the book or you do the, like the vision strategy session or something like that, you get to incorporate all that into like an outline that feels condensed and organized. And it embodies all the parts of you that have been in all these like little scattered.

places, right? I think women feel overwhelmed by all the little scattered places that they've been writing everything down. And it's true, like none of those are going to equal a book until you do an outline.

Samantha Hawley (: 10:29

Yeah, as you were saying that, was thinking, how do you know when someone has something to say versus it's just a list of complaining? And I want to pause too, because I thought you were going to say that your dear God was more like affirmations, but I love that you were like, why is this not happening? Because I think it's so therapeutic to release the frustration.

I love that, but what if someone looks at their list and they're like, my gosh, I'm just venting or, or, you know, March was a really great month for me or whatever it might be. How do you know if you have something to say or it's just like, ⁓ I actually live a cool life or life is okay.

Kim O'Hara (: 11:14

that want to be authors, the dream will not die ever. So if somebody wants to write a book, it will haunt them until they write it. I've done this long enough to tell you a hundred percent that's true. Everybody's like, really like, put it down. said, no, what do I have to say? I'm just a cool girl living in a cool world. And then the next day they wake up and they're like, won't shut up, you know. ⁓

Samantha Hawley (: 11:19

Mm.

Kim O'Hara (: 11:42

And so that's, that's really something to, to, honor, to honor, because there's millions of people that wake up that do not care about writing a book. They do not care. I know it seems like there's millions of people writing books, but there's billions of people in the world. So there's not real, I mean, you know what I mean? Like.

Samantha Hawley (: 11:55

Yeah.

Yeah. ⁓

Kim O'Hara (: 12:05

And

why don't you have the right to write a book? Why can't you just write a book? Who says you can't? Why does it have to be so like, just write the book and see what happens? We put so much pressure on everything. ⁓ I just want to say one more thing to go back to the Dear God letter. So I need that Dear God letter to track progress.

And the reason why I say that is because I will get in my head that, ⁓ like I haven't done the work. Right. So for example, signing the book agent, I've signed a very big book agent for my next book. I've, I made that goal that that goal, but when I get antsy about things aren't moving fast enough.

s to starting in September of: 2023

Constantly calling people, emailing people and not giving up on the dream, but yet at the same time, surrendering the dream constantly. Constantly. Why? Why is this happening? I don't know. I surrender. all you can do when it comes to books, because they're so, or any dream, really, any dream. And through the whole thing, I just had fun. I just kept going.

Samantha Hawley (: 13:34

Mm.

Kim O'Hara (: 13:44

I'm not gonna sit here and stress out. I've spent too much of my life stressing out. I spent my 20s, 30s, and 40s, a stress machine. I'm not doing it anymore. I'm gonna go have fun.

Samantha Hawley (: 13:54

love that. And I was right about to ask you, so why is it that women don't star and then what do you tell them to help? And I almost feel like what you tell them to help is have fun and like surrender and don't put as much pressure on the book writing process. Is that right?

Kim O'Hara (: 14:12

Think about when you're starting a new romantic relationship, right? And you sound like you're married and you have a kid. So it might be, you you might not be able, or people listening, they've been in a relationship for a while, so they don't remember, but like nothing fosters, nothing develops if you cling to it, right? So like women that get into relationships that like cling, right? They suck all the air out of the relationship and they wonder why it ends, right?

Samantha Hawley (: 14:36

Yeah.

Kim O'Hara (: 14:40

friendships, if you're like glommy, right? So like the book doesn't need you to be like, right? The book wants you to just take a deep breath, expand and flow, right? And trust that from this like powerful, magical construct is going to come more opportunities that you could even imagine, but you have to like, let go of it. You can't.

sion, permission, all through: 2024

I need people to understand. And she was like, I want you to do what you are and you live a delicious life and you need to write about that. And I threw that book away and started from scratch. That is what books want. So people will come to me sometimes with a book that's like been one draft and they'll say, I want you to help me make this better. And I'll read it and I'll go.

I just don't think it's your book. I think you need to start again. ⁓ I've spent some time with you now. I've gotten to know you and I think you've got a lot more to say on a higher level. And they will freak, out. And they'll either become my client and start again or they'll bail.

Samantha Hawley (: 16:21

Yeah.

Yeah.

Kim O'Hara (: 16:25

I don't want to work with anybody that's not willing to go for the gold.

Samantha Hawley (: 16:29

The word that's coming to me is trust. And it's coming from when you said earlier, once you have the vision to write a book, it's going to haunt you. And I almost think it's like trusting the haunting, trust that that is your goal. And it won't go away. And I'm loving this conversation because so many people would come on and they would say, what you have to do is write one hour a day. You have to write during, like what you said, when your kids are asleep.

Kim O'Hara (: 16:36

You see?

Mm-hmm.

Ugh.

Samantha Hawley (: 16:59

Right, and also set the candle, have an intention, like get your stage set up. I've heard podcasts and I've had guests that say that. And I love that it's like, trust the haunting, trust that it won't go away, and then like release it and know that maybe a different topic for your book will come up and it'll be more fun, it'll be completely different, and letting go and having more fun with it, maybe a different time will create more space for you.

k, I'm thinking it's like the: 2023

Kim O'Hara (: 17:28

Mm-hmm.

Thank you. Thank you.

Samantha Hawley (: 17:58

Do you feel like there has been an identity shift from the 2023 you and like, what is that shift from when a woman decides that she wants to write a book and then when she's actually going to write the book?

Kim O'Hara (: 18:14

Well, I had this client and her name is Katie Post and she's amazing. And she was like a, like a coach who, ⁓ came to me to write a memoir. And through the memoir writing process, we became really good friends. And she was like, wait, what do you mean you've never been to a writer's conference? How can you be a book coach and such a writer your whole life? And you've never taken yourself to a writer's conference. And I was like,

Why have I never taken myself to a writer's conference? Like I was, I was like a guest. I was like, how is this possible? She goes, I'm going to France, to Collier, to Karen Carbos writing, writing, and Lydia Miles, who just did a movie with Kristen Stewart, just did her chronology of Water Book into a movie, was the guest teacher. And I went to this retreat in France and I actually spent a week after in Paris alone in an apartment writing this permission book.

She said, you know, go with me. I, when I look back at that now, it's like I was like a baby embryo. I don't even know. I was so young. It's weird to explain. mean, I was only 56, I was 53. It was like I was young in age, but I was young in like, was so unshaped. And they like shaped me. The women there shaped me and

Samantha Hawley (: 19:23

you

Kim O'Hara (: 19:44

spit me back out into the world. It gave me the legs to... It's really like, there's a lot of retreats right now that are being, retreats seem to have blown up and there's a lot of like, come to Portugal and do walking tours and dinners and tastings and pizza makings and we'll write a little. And I'm like, no, no, that's not a writer's retreat. We wrote every afternoon and we wrote every morning. It was a writing retreat.

Samantha Hawley (: 20:03

...

Kim O'Hara (: 20:14

⁓ you have to go on writing retreats to not social events. ⁓ anyway, this is a very long winded answer, but, ⁓ I have to say that that's what kicked it off was her saying, you need support. You need support. Like you give support. And, that changed my life forever. I mean, that's, that's changed everything. It changed everything.

Samantha Hawley (: 20:23

Yeah

you

Yeah.

Kim O'Hara (: 20:44

Because I,

Samantha Hawley (: 20:44

Yeah.

Kim O'Hara (: 20:45

after that, I wrote that book everywhere I could find time to write that book. I would go to my partner's house and I'd write it at his counter and I'd go to like a coffee shop and I'd write it at a coffee shop and I'd write on my laptop waiting for my kids to get out of school. I'd, I'd, I'd, and the whole time I was writing this book and this is crazy coming from someone who coaches people through this, but I'm just being transparent. My brain would be like,

Why you like why you like why do you think you know about permission? what do you and I'd constantly talk back to my mind and go because I've given myself permission like because I've listened about permission So when someone said to me your books good, but I think you could You there's a you in there. You're not bringing out I listened You got to be able to listen to the people that come to you to advise you people are led to me and they have a discovery call with me

Samantha Hawley (: 21:28

Mmm.

Kim O'Hara (: 21:37

and they say all the things. It was like a miracle. I was at like a dry cleaner and I ran into my friend Deb from high school and she had worked with you and it was exactly what I needed to hear and now I'm on the phone with you and something inside them goes, it can't be that easy.

It can't be you. That would be too miraculous. You're perfect. I want to work with you. And then they overthink it and then they disappear. And it's sad because they found me. Just like I found those women.

Samantha Hawley (: 21:52

Hmm.

Mm-hmm.

I love the vision of you just typing everywhere. And that was the vision I got earlier of like, once you trust, then when it's the right time and you have the support, then the space opens up and the inspiration and that's when you have the motivation. It's not so curated as we try to make it seem. But as you were talking, you were saying how like you were a baby and how like that book, you were like so young almost.

Kim O'Hara (: 22:18

Mm-hmm.

Samantha Hawley (: 22:33

And it made me think of how if I were writing a book, something that might stop me is knowing, like even I listen to my past podcast episodes and I'm like, my gosh, they're so cringe. Like I know so much more now and I speak so much more authentically whereas before I was like, hello, I am Savannah. Exactly.

Kim O'Hara (: 22:52

Mm-hmm. You were trying to be a podcaster. I am a podcaster.

Now you're just like I am a pod. I just am

Samantha Hawley (: 23:01

Yeah, yeah. And I think what might stop me and potentially others from writing a book is that knowing that in five years it will be better. So I should wait until I'm better. So what would be your advice to just do it now, even though in five years you will likely be better, or knowing that in the future you might have a different perspective? So how do you trust that right now is the right time?

Kim O'Hara (: 23:08

Mm-hmm.

There are women who have written five or six books. I mean, there are just women that are going to write five or six books. So, and every book has meaning to them. And every book, if you track it, has played a part in their development and played a part in where they were in their career. And I believe strongly that the writing of that book advanced them to the next stage where they wrote the next book and advanced them to the stage. If you wait five years, you're keeping all that stuff inside of you that you have to say,

That's not helping you advance yourself. Right? So when I wrote the sexual abuse book, I knew very clearly that that wasn't going to be part of my brand per se. So that was hard for me because I was like, well, there really isn't a lot of justification for writing this book, except that I know it's going to move me forward. And it absolutely a hundred percent unlocked me to be able to develop this delicious life book because I was able to go, okay, I have to tell the story about like,

waking up from sexual abuse at 44, like, and my whole existence changing and me realizing all this stuff about myself. That was not where I was going to stop. I was not going to stop in the darkness, even though the book's very positive. I knew from there I had to write about the light and that's where I am now. And who knows, maybe in five years I'll be back.

to the darkness. don't know, but I'm pretty sure I'm ready to have a life in the light at this point.

Samantha Hawley (: 24:56

Yeah.

That's so insightful because yeah, it's like I can just re-record or not even re-record. I will record another podcast episode. You know, I can write another book and it's like you need that in order to get better so that your next book is that much better so that the next episode and like you learn so much more from it and it's expedited like in five years you'll be even better.

Kim O'Hara (: 25:11

Mm-hmm.

Right.

That's right.

Don't wait, like just keep going, keep developing, keep, you know, is this your first podcast?

Samantha Hawley (: 25:34

second.

Kim O'Hara (: 25:34

This is your second. So you understand, like people would say to me when I stopped my first podcast, which was you could, should write a book about that at like 92 episodes. People were like, why would you do that? You had a hundred thousand downloads. You were like stitcher top pick. Why did you do that? And I'm like, I didn't want to do it anymore. People were like, what? Like that's not enough of an answer. You know, like you, you stopped your trajectory. No, I actually moved on.

Samantha Hawley (: 25:59

Right.

Kim O'Hara (: 26:04

to the next thing, like, and we get to do that. That's just like books. You write a book and you do what you can with it. And if it's, if it takes off and has legs, you give it the attention it needs. And if it doesn't, that's okay too. It's just part of your development.

Samantha Hawley (: 26:24

I love it. So let's wrap up with permission. I would love for you to touch on any permission slips that you would give the woman who's waiting to feel ready or waiting to feel qualified, like you mentioned, before she starts writing or maybe before she publishes, before she takes that next step. So what does she need to, what permission slips should she give herself?

to start that process, complete the process, or even just trust in her own story.

Kim O'Hara (: 26:58

Hmm. Well, what's going to be very different for me than what your other guests who might be in the book business or book coaches are going to say is I'm not going to say any of that stuff like get a journal. It comes from an internal dialogue with yourself. Right. So you already know you want to write the book. So you need permission to teach yourself how to trust yourself and the teaching yourself to trust yourself.

is where you give yourself permission to do all the little things that you want to do one baby step at a time. I am going to go into that coffee shop that has that amazing banana bread. Even though I know I should be doing 17 posts on LinkedIn, I'm going to go get the banana bread instead and I'm going to smell it and I'm going to touch it. I'm going to feel it and I'm going to talk to the shop owner about their bread and I'm going to meet someone new and I'm going to let something unfold.

I'm going to go to that event that I'm scared to go to that has like the belly dancer, because I've always really wanted to belly dance, but I'm scared to say I want to belly dance because that seems weird. Like who belly dances, but I'm going to go all those experiences that seem like they have nothing to do with writing a book. We'll give you the strength, the power and the self-esteem to say, if I can do all those other things for myself, I can do the book.

Samantha Hawley (: 28:06

You

Kim O'Hara (: 28:24

Because the books like all those little moments, they're just strung together into a narrative and into chapters. And then you hire someone like me to steer the ship for you and to keep you in the boat when you feel like it's sinking.

Samantha Hawley (: 28:37

I love it. That's perfect advice. I semi-recently rebranded the podcast to be named Beyond Awareness. And it's all about that. It's like the awareness of, we want to write a book, right? And also the awareness of what quote unquote we should do.

Kim O'Hara (: 28:45

which I love.

Samantha Hawley (: 28:55

if that's right or not right, you know, that's up for debate of like, we should be more disciplined or we should set more time to write. But there's always, we go beyond awareness on this podcast, the underlying beliefs and exactly what you named, but the reason that you're not writing is because you don't trust yourself enough. You don't trust your story. You don't trust that you'll follow through or what so many different angles. And so an action, I always love ending with actions. This is perfect is those tiny micro moments of

Kim O'Hara (: 28:55

Right.

Mm-hmm.

Right.

Samantha Hawley (: 29:23

following through and not just following through on writing, following through in completely different area. And I was always told that like doing things that excite you, that bring you joy, whether it's eating banana bread, even if it's off your meal plan, getting a coffee or trying that new class, it's just like...

Kim O'Hara (: 29:38

Mm-hmm.

I'm gluten free, so I

have to find a gluten free bakery, so it's a lot of work.

Samantha Hawley (: 29:50

Yeah, so just doing all of that is the thing that unlocks the rest for you and like the rest will fall into place. So that is beautiful. I love your energy, your strategy, your vision. If people want to work with you or just find you, where can they do that?

Kim O'Hara (: 29:58

Yeah.

Well, my website is kimohara.com and that is where you can do my overwhelm to organized free resource that kind of gets you ⁓ jazzed up in little doses for writing a book. like downloadable worksheets and it's a video with me and all that. ⁓ And then you can follow me on Instagram, kimoharacoach. And then I write a sub stack. give you permission. That's sub stack.com and then listen to my podcast, this delicious life.

Samantha Hawley (: 30:35

I love that freebie that sounds super helpful.

Kim O'Hara (: 30:38

It is send everyone there. Like I built this thing passionately last January and then we had the fires and then one of my kids had a medical issue and then, ⁓ it just seemed like it never got the notice it needs and it's there and I just want people to enjoy it.

Samantha Hawley (: 30:54

Mm.

Yeah, well I will put that link and then all the other links in the show notes. And thank you again, Kim, for being here. And thank you everyone for tuning in.

Kim O'Hara (: 31:02

Okay, thank you. Thank you.