JK Rowling is a model for a successful person

The creator of the Harry Potter series, JK Rowling is known as one of the most successful authors. She was always a writer but she wasn’t always a successful author. It took her acting on a spark of creative inspiration and being focused on seeing it through to get her to the success she ultimately experienced.

Although she’d been writing since she was a child, JK never actively pursued it in any meaningful way. So it wasn’t odd that she conceived the initial idea of Harry Potter while on a train one day in 1990. As a writer at heart, she’d been creating stories ever since she was a child but none of them were as vivid as the story of Harry Potter.

She was struck with the idea of a kid that went to wizard school and during a four hour train delay she mapped the story out in her head. She didn’t have a pen on her in the moment but that didn’t stop her imagination from wandering. When she finally made it home, she wrote the first version of the story of Harry Potter. She also mapped out the plots for all of the other books in the series during the seven years it took to complete the first book. 

She didn’t have a publishing deal when she started writing and planning the Harry Potter series. All she had was an idea and a goal. Being published was a long term goal that was fairly far off. But before she could pursue a publishing deal she had to write the first book. During those seven years, she experienced the loss of her mother, birth of her daughter, end of her marriage and living in poverty. 

She persevered through all of those life challenges and went on to finish the first Harry Potter book which was then rejected by many different publishers. It was finally picked up by a publisher and released. Once it was published she had to use the name JK Rowling because the publisher didn’t think her book would appeal to young boys under a woman’s name.

JK Rowling had to put a lot of work and effort into her book before it was even published. She had no way of knowing that it would become the huge success that it did. She just knew that she had a book idea that she wanted to write and have published. 

Not only did she have to set a series of goals, she also had to be flexible in what that goal ultimately looked like. I’m sure she didn’t visualize having to publish her work under a male sounding moniker but she made the adjustment to realize her dream.

Since that day in 1990 when she first got the idea for Harry Potter, JK Rowling has gone on to author 12 books and is currently working on her first screen play which is sure to be made into a film based on her previous success. So not only is she a multi-millionaire, she’s also a filmmaker and an overall business woman.

Some goals, while attainable, may take several years to reach. It can feel overwhelming if you focus on the long range goal. But it’s important that you create the path to get to that long range goal. By mapping it out, you can focus on the smaller goals you need to accomplish along the way. It can make the process much less overwhelming.

Plus those smaller goals can give you a much needed sense of accomplishment and boost to keep you pushing towards the larger goal. Imagine how much harder it would have been for JK Rowling if she’d only focused on getting her book series published? She may not have been able to keep writing through all of her life changes and challenges. 

By focusing on writing the first book then getting it published and so on, she allowed herself to enjoy many smaller successes along the way. But it was very helpful that she had a clear idea of her long term goal. Not only did she want the first book published, she had an idea for a complete series.

Her clear definition of success made it possible for her to take full advantage of the publishing deal once she got one. If she hadn’t taken the initiative to create the outlines for the other books in the series, she wouldn’t have been prepared to build on the success of the first book. Her long term definition of success was integral in her actually reaching it.