Author of:  How to Get Off Your Backside and Live Your Life!

Tell Us A Bit About Yourself... I've always been fascinated by what makes people tick, what makes them do the things they do. Originally I studied psychology at University, but I have to say that I learned more about rats than people! I trained as a nurse, and worked as a health visitor in some extremely deprived areas for a number of years. I was passionate about maternal and child health, and had a special interest in supporting women who had suffered violence and abuse.

I eventually moved into a health promotion role at a national level, and after I stumbled across NLP I really felt I had found what I was looking for. I have a range of top qualifications n NLP, Hypnotherapy, Time Code interventions, Coaching and Reiki, and now run an organisation that trains NLP practitioners, hypnotherapists and coaches.

I love what I do, and I feel very fortunate that I am really living my own dream now. My goal is to help people fulfil their potential and live their own dreams.

What Is Your Book About? It is an upbeat and motivational book. It's packed full of real life stories, ideas, and tried and tested techniques that will give people the skills and tools they need to get their lives on track. People have said that it's the next best thing to having your own life coach on tap 24/7! In 7 simple steps it shows how to:

• Become 100% committed to making the changes you want
• Build the perfect support team around you
• Learn from the past and then let it fo once and for all
• Appreciate the joys of living authentically in the present
• Create the fabulous future you've been dreaming about
• Keep moving forward by taking action again and again
• Stay on track for the rest of your life

I hope it helps people to change their lives in the best possible way for them.

Who Is It Aimed At? It's a self-help book, so it is aimed at anyone who is feeling stuck in a rut; or who is asking themselves the question: 'Is this IT?'; or for people who are seeing life whizzing past, and who want to make changes.

What Inspired You To Write It? I know I am always searching for ways to learn more, and to develop myself. I'm also a great believer that good coaching is priceless, and is a great way of helping you achieve that. Nevertheless, coaching is out of the reach of many people's budgets, so I wanted to find a way that I could put the tools and techniques that I've used on myself, and used with great success with my clients, directly into people's hands.

What Would You Like Your Readers To Get From Your Book? Inspiration and motivation! A belief that they really do have the resources and the power to make changes in their lives. People often feel stuck and don't know how to change - I think How to Get Off Your Backside and Live Your Life! is much more about education than therapy. I want people to read it and realise that they do have choices, and that even if they feel limited, there are simple things they can do that will quickly make a difference.

When Did You First Realise That You Wanted To Write This Book? I've been dreaming about it for a long time - I run coaching circles as a way of making coaching more accessible, and I wanted to give participants something to take away that would remind them of what they had learned.

What Gave You The Push To Get Published? In the book, I talk about making things a priority if you want to achieve them. Until you do that, and then take action, there s always some reason to put things off. When I reviewed my goals for the first decade of the new milllennium, I realised that 'write a book' had appeared every single year, and I had never committed to following it through. So in January 2010 I decided that this year it became the number 1 priority after my family, As so happens, once you commit, everything else falls into place. By March I had found a publisher, and by the middle of that month, the first draft was written. It actually took longer to edit than it did to write! And I enjoyed it so much, I'm already half-way through writing book number 2!

Did You Have Any Difficulty In Getting Published?  No. Once I committed to writing it, I immediately started to look for a publisher, I didn't really know how to do this, but one of the key presuppositions of NLP is that if someone else has done something, you can learn to do it as well. So one of the things I started to do was to leave reviews on Amazon for books I liked, in the hope I could strike up a conversation with the authors. Several did get in touch and one of them was a woman I had met on a course previously. She had recently set up a small publishing house, and I liked both the package she offered, and her values around her business. We had a couple of phone conversations, I sent her a chapter, and we decided we could work together. It's been much easier than I expected, and I've had a lot of support and advice from my publisher.

What Hurdles Did You Face Whilst Writing & How Did You Overcome Them? The actual writing of the 50,000 words took 19 days from first word on paper to first complete draft. however, I had spent 10 weeks before that thinking about the structure. I do my initial thinking long-hand into special notebooks, and basically I created a contents page and then a mind map for the content and structure of each chapter. It was much easier than expected.

My biggets hurdle came when it was time to hand the final draft over. I seriously considered not publishing at this stage. I had a massive crisis of confidence, and thought, 'Who am I to be doing this?' I was really frightened of anyone else reading it, and was convinced everyone would hate it. I was especially worried about what other professionals would say (and they weren't even the target audience). My publisher was very supportive at that point, and assured me this was a normal response, and reminded me that what I was offering was my experience of using these tools with real people, and writing about how to do that - it was my experience, no one else's - I wasn't telling anyone what they should do, I was recounting what had worked for my clients.

How Did It Feel Seeing Your Book In Real Life For The 1st Time? I cried! I was incredibly happy and proud. My daughter took photos of me with the book as I unwrapped it, and I looked as dazed and pleased as I did just after I'd given birth! It was an amazing feeling.

Do You Have Any Tips For Our Budding Authors? I'd say go for it! If it's what you want to do, make it a priority in your life, and start writing! I found it helpful to keep a composite picture of my reader in my mind all the time _ I made a collage cut out from pictures in a magazine, and it was taped to the wall behind my computer screen until the day I sent the final draft off. Have an end in mind - what do you want your reader to fee, say and do as a result of reading your book? Carve out some space and time to do it. And just write!

What's Next For You? Well, my second and third books are both in development. My second is about women who launch their own businesses, and my third is about women at transition stages in their lives. At the same time I'm seeing coaching clients and running courses. I'm writing a lot of e-courses for my website www.joycecampbell.co.uk. I'm home educating our daughter and I hope to have a belated gap year soon and tour the world a bit more.