Last year was a big year for me as a writer. It was the first year that I saw big success with non-fiction. It was the first year I started interviewing on podcasts. (I’ve now done over 10, and I’m not stopping!) It was also the first year I made a full-time income solely from writing books — not from my day job, not from freelance writing, but from being an author alone. This year is going to be another year of huge growth. I didn’t have much of an audience. I didn’t have . I didn’t have a team, which has now expanded to seven (yes seriously, SEVEN) people. It’s crazy to think that just a year ago I was literally a person with a microphone and a few ideas for books. Write Better, Faster I couldn’t have dreamed up this thing I’ve built… which has gone beyond my fiction, or me being an author. I wish I could say I’m special, or I know a secret, or even that I work really hard and get results based on that… but to be honest, so much of what has happened in the last year has happened by happy accident. The only explanation I can give is that I focused on three softer skill sets last year… and everything else happened because of my efforts toward the three. I believe that any author or aspiring author can build their own dreams (or even something better than their dreams like I have — pinch me!) by focusing energy in these three areas: 1. Unblocking Fear, Self-Doubt, and Your Path You’ve probably heard about your “blocks,” and you may be skeptical. But something that clicked for me big-time last year was the idea that in order to walk a path, you have to first clear the path. So many of us try to walk this path of publishing, but we don’t clear the obstacles that are standing in our way. We don’t get over that fear of hitting publish, we don’t work on our self-confidence and thick skin, and we don’t take that risk that we know we don’t want to take (like jumping on a live podcast — scary!) even though it could help us tremendously. There are so many blocks I cleared last year. I got over my confidence issues around being visible and sharing my ideas with other authors. I got over my beliefs that I was a fraud. I got past my fear of spending money or investing in covers, team members, advertising. I got out of my comfort zone with traveling to meet other smart authors who have genuinely become some of my closest friends and support group. ALL of these things were huge contributors to my success. … and the path to doing big things with your writing is ready for you to clear and pave. It genuinely takes a village to make a successful author If you want to succeed in 2016, pay attention to those fears, those moments where you have the knot in your stomach, and say yes to the growth — the growth of your business, or of you as a person, or of your opportunities. This will help you move much faster on your journey! 2. Make Iterative Upgrades Everywhere If I were to hand a new author my team of seven, he would completely fail to make proper use of them. Why? Because it’s too big of a jump in mindset! They think this is the fastest route… but they end up completely stuck at point A a year later. A lot of authors want to go from point A to point F and skip the steps in-between. How? Through a process that I call iterative upgrading. The trick is not to skip points B, C, D, or E at all — but rather to get through each point faster. The idea behind iterative upgrading is that you gradually level up your mindset with small steps. So, for example, let’s say you are dead set on making your own covers. If you were then to “upgrade” to paying someone $750 to make a cover for you, your insides would totally freak! Instead, you think of the very slightest upgrade you can make… the very next level. This might be that you get a cover made on Fiverr for $40. $40 is handle-able, not a huge risk, and you’ll learn a lot about working with designers along the way. Goodbye, freak out! Another example is one from my personal life — paying five figures for a 9-month, multi-event business and leadership mastermind. A year ago, I could have never imagined! But in 2012 I started buying books… in 2013 I bought courses, and in 2014 I bought a ticket to a live, in-person event. I worked my way up to this mastermind slowly, gradually. And now, though it’s a stretch, it’s not an impossible leap that I’m not ready for! Maybe you are at this point too, where you think a mastermind like this would be helpful but you’re not ready to buy a package or dive into advanced ideas. Maybe the next step for you is an online mastermind that you can do from your own home, that doesn’t cost you flights and hotels and doesn’t cost the organizers conference room space—that instead is only a fraction (2–3%) of the price and covers beginner and intermediate level topics. Iterative upgrade for the win! If you want to succeed in 2016, look at every aspect of your writing career and ask yourself, how could I upgrade just slightly? This small upgrade will be easy enough to wrap your mind around. You need to become the person who does this all the time… you need to allow that upgrade to become a part of you and what you do. Recently, I’ve become a Person Who Works Out Every Day. Perhaps you would like to become a Person Who Writes Every Day or a Person Who Owns a Business this year. You can make it happen, using iterative upgrading! The second part of this is once you make the upgrade, integrate it to your regular life! If you want to learn the art of the iterative upgrade, start in your bathroom. You probably have old toothbrushes, rusty razors, empty-ish bottles of shampoo, crappy toilet paper brand that scratches your tush. It costs you as little as a few bucks to do an upgrade on any of these — but you feel so much better once it’s done! When I did the bathroom exercise, I realized that I literally had a new toothbrush in its packaging sitting in my closet — so my “upgrade” cost me zero. And it made me so much happier! After a year of upgrading various parts of my life, I know firsthand that the iterative upgrade is one of the most powerful techniques you may EVER learn in life. It can be applied to anything, and (in my experience) it always works as long as you make your upgrade the New Norm. I change my toothbrush every 3 months now! 3. Mentors, Peers, Fans, and Support I’ve been beating the “mentor” drum for awhile now, so I’ll just quickly say that you 100% need mentors to succeed at this business. Mentors are able to tell you when your plan sucks and what you should do instead because they know from personal experience. it’s only last year, however, that I learned the joys of having relationships with peers, fans, and a team of my own. Each of these roles have played a critical part in my success through 2015. I’ve had mentors turn to peers, peers turn to mentors, and fans turn to peers and/or join my team! It’s been a crazy ride, but I would not be anywhere without all the wonderful people around me. We support and send love to each other and it has really given me the drive and energy to press forward in what is generally a demanding career with (often) little reward or gain. Networking is not easy, and it feels icky to most of us. Most of us would rather stay in our little hermit holes and just write. — because I have a larger writing business, and more resources, and more potential collaborators on projects. Funny how that works! But nurturing these relationships in 2015 is what really helped me to write more These are the three things that drove my progress in 2015 and that I intend to carry on in 2016 (plus a few others — stay tuned). If you want to take action on this post right now, think about one area of your life where you could make a tiny, iterative upgrade — and what that upgrade would be. Then make it! Looking forward to hearing about your success :) is how hackers start their afternoons. We’re a part of the family. We are now and happy to opportunities. Hacker Noon @AMI accepting submissions discuss advertising &sponsorship To learn more, , , or simply, read our about page like/message us on Facebook tweet/DM @HackerNoon. If you enjoyed this story, we recommend reading our and . 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