You've F*Ing Got This

By Racheline Maltese

Finally, a self-help book about getting things done and liking yourself for people who hate self-help books and love profanity! 

Is the cult of positivity trying to kill you? Do you have too much to do, but feel too stressed out to do it? Are you sick of thinking you're a failure because you're prone to panic and procrastination?

Yeah, me too. Been there, done that. Like you, I'm a certified disaster human, but just because we're disaster humans, doesn't mean our lives can't be awesome. The trick is figuring out how to work with the brains we have and the  circumstances we've got. I've figured it out for me, and now I'm here to help figure it out for you.

You don't have to change who you are to use your "worst" qualities to get sh*t done, tell your perfectionism to f*ck off, and go after your wildest damn dreams.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Avian30
• Release date: Dec 17, 2019
• ISBN: 9781393592457

Racheline Maltese

Racheline is a writer and performer. She's not a self-help expert and has absolutely no qualifications other than being a disaster human who is good at getting shit done, persevering, and swearing. You can find her on Twitter @racheline_m. With Erin McRae, she writes romance novels about difficult people with complicated lives finding their happily ever afters.

Book preview

Introduction

Greetings, fellow disaster humans! If you're reading this, you, like me, probably sometimes feel overwhelmed, chaotic, and unable to apply yourself to the crappy adult tasks that fill your life. And, because of that, you may feel like you don't have time to do the things you want to do. Or, even worse, like you aren't entitled to take time to do the things you want to do.

The fact is life is hard, but we're often lied to about the ways in which life is hard. Many of the tasks we’re supposed to instinctively know how to do are weird and difficult. Especially if no one's ever shown us how to do them or our brains don't work the way every single self-help book says that our brains should work.

Not all of us are cheery. Not all of us can just recite some affirmations and feel great. Not all of us want to have a positive attitude all the time. And most importantly, no, thinking bad thoughts doesn't make bad things happen. And if thinking positive thoughts made great things happen, I'd be really rich and this entire book would be about movie stars I've had affairs with.

It is not.

Instead this book is about managing your life and pursuing your ambitions if you have a brain that you've been told is uncooperative, if you have tasks you don't know how to do, and if you’re really fucking sick of people offering you unsolicited advice that begins with the words, it’s easy.

It is not easy. And you don't have to pretend it is.

In fact, it's really fucking hard. Fucktacularly hard.

If you don't already curse all the time, consider starting.

Why? Because accepting that stuff is hard and acknowledging that you're not a bad person because it's hard is one of the steps that will help you get unblocked and allow you to tackle the bullshit that plagues your existence.

This is a really good time to choose three things that you want to make progress on and acknowledge how hard they are.

Examples:

-  Cleaning my house is really fucking hard.

-  Finishing this novel is really fucking hard

-  Going to the gym any day—not even every day—is really fucking hard

Got your three things in mind? Have you acknowledged that they’re really fucking hard?

Great.

Now, how do you feel about that?

And that's the other secret of this book. It's not about perfection. It's not about completion. It's about process. It's about doing 5% more tomorrow than you did today and doing 5% more the day after that and the day after that and the day after that. And it's also about acknowledging that some days we do 10% less or 100% less. Because life happens. And just because life happens and the things we want to achieve don't get achieved doesn't mean we're bad people, doesn't mean we should give up, and doesn't mean we're not capable of getting closer to the goal line the next time.

(Example: In the first draft of this introduction, I was using speech to text dictation because I’d broken my wrist, and every time I tried to write about achievement my software decided I was writing about with cheese. Three days before publication, I’ve just noticed the errant cheese mentions. Is this how we want the writing process to go? Is this what influencers on the internet tell us their lives are like? No and no, but that’s reality).

So, hopefully you're also a little amused—by my problems and yours. Sometimes it's really just fun to say that stuff is fucking hard.

But here's the next step you need to take. And this is about your self-image. What are people who do things that are really fucking hard? They're fuck-yeah amazing and they are goddamn superheroes. And that’s as true in the middle of the task (when they're doing the hard work) as it is at the end of the task, when they can show off their accomplishments.

But here's the really tricky part. Those descriptors are also true at the beginning of the task. Or even before it starts. When someone says they want to climb a mountain, when someone says they want to be in the Olympics, when someone says they want to be a CEO, when someone says they want to dedicate their life to pursuing justice for others, when someone decides they're going to change something about their life that has bothered them for years—those people in those moments are fuck-yeah awesome goddamn superheroes.

Because admitting what you want is terrifying. So is setting a goal. But you need to be able to do both of those things—and be willing to fail at them—to change your life.

So, if you are frustrated with a task you are trying to accomplish (which, again, I presume you are, fellow disaster humans, because you are reading this book) you are already awesome. You're just trying to get closer to the finish line and, very justifiably, want some help.

Now, before we get started—just a few ground rules.

I am not an expert. Don’t treat me like one. This may not be the book that’s the right fit for you either. If you don’t like something I suggest and you don’t want to try it? Don’t. If I say something that makes you mad? Yell at this book! (I mean, you could yell at me on the internet too, but I’m not sure either of us will enjoy that—but hey, your life your choices).

Most importantly, while remembering that I am not an expert (I’m just a novelist with some intense hobbies and a talent for persevering), use that to remember that other people aren’t experts. Accepting the authority of strangers who don’t know anything about our lives is often how we wind up miserable because we don’t know how to succeed at things we don’t care about in ways we don’t understand.

If the only thing you get out of this book is an improved ability to reject other people’s bullshit advice—including mine—I’ll consider my job well done.

Now, are you ready to get started? Yes? Cool. Because guess what? You already have.

What the Fuck is Motivation and Do You Really Not Have Any?

We all talk about motivation a lot. But what anyone means by it seems to involve constantly shifting goalposts, stuff no one is actually excited about doing, and a sense that you can never, ever have enough.

I’m not saying you might not have problems being motivated (and we’ll talk