by Jenna | Apr 3, 2013 | Writing Articles
Seems like every time I turn around, someone I know is going through something big:
… Friends with cancer.
… My father facing health challenges.
… A neighbor’s house catching on fire.
… My cousin’s husband dying.
… Even my own roll-over car accident a few years back now.
The circle of those affected feels like it’s getting closer to me, like a tightening loop.
And it’s got me to thinking…
…Is there anything I’m not paying attention to that I want to be?
Am I going to wait for my next wake-up call, or what if I just paid attention now?
Change the rules that keep you in the dark.
Last night, we saw The Croods. I loved the message at the end: “We changed the rules that kept us in the dark.” (I love that they really spelled it out; it’s a kid’s movie after all.)
And that got me to thinking even more.
How am I keeping myself in the dark, operating out of fear rather than reaching out for tomorrow? Or living for today for that matter?
As writers and creatives, one of the biggest challenges we face every day is our fear. No wonder we act like we’re confronting our own mortality. On some level we are.
But I don’t like this question.
I’ve never liked how people say, “If you knew were going to die tomorrow, what would you do today?”
Maybe there’s something too cynical about me to fully appreciate that question, but there are things I commit to doing on a regular basis that I’m darn sure I wouldn’t do if I knew I’d be dying tomorrow, but I can’t live like that on an ongoing basis. Things like exercising and flossing and making sure my kid’s lunch is made, that yeah, I don’t think I’d pay attention to if the world was going to end.
On the other hand, I’m okay with it in the big picture.
But what about the big picture of our lives? I’m down with looking at that and making sure that what we’re doing matches with where we want to be now and where we want to end up.
Writing.
It wasn’t too long ago that I got the message, “Write like your life depends on it.”
And I’m writing every day now, which is a heck of a lot more than I was doing at the time. Which was rarely, if at all.
But am I writing like my life depends on it?
Not yet.
So am I going to wait for the next cosmic two-by-four, or am I going to do something about it?
Well, you already know the answer, right?
Do something.
Saturday I got out a pad of paper and started redesigning my schedule to put the focus on more writing. It’s not quite where I want it to be, so I’m going to do some more work on it today. And then I’m going to begin the process of shifting my schedule more and more in that direction. It’s okay with me if it takes a little while to shift; it’s a kind of gradual herding things into the right corrals. But it works.
Having fun.
The other persistent message that I simply have to do something about is FUN.
I’m good at working hard, you probably know that about me by now.
And I’m fairly good at really luxuriating when I give myself the chance. (I just love taking days off and putting my feet up and watching movies and eating great food and treats.)
But I just don’t give myself the chance very often.
I come from a long line of self-sacrificers and workaholics and the buck is going to have to stop here, now.
The funny thing is, I’m still not sure what I truly want it to look like, this fun thing. Writing is fun, but it’s also work.
I think it’s more about lightness of spirit and regular adventures. I hesitate to schedule time for fun. But I also used to hesitate to schedule time for writing, and look where that got me!
What if fun was worth making time for?
That sounds like a ridiculous question even as I write it.
But sometimes my brain needs an excuse to think of things in a new way.
Being appreciative and being present.
And last, I think my perhaps my biggest one, is about appreciation and presence. I’m so good at appreciating things in other people, but not so good at appreciating them in my own life. This is huge, and hard to admit. I’ve got more work to do here.
My recent tech shabbats have shown me about the power of being present and not checked out into my own little world. So I’m getting there. And there’s more. There always is.
What about you?
If this was your wake-up call, what would it be?
What is the voice of your spirit asking you to pay attention to right now?
What have you been neglecting but you know, deep down, you want to attend to?
If the Universe was going to give you a whack upside the head with a cosmic two-by-four, what would it be trying to tell you?
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by Jenna | Mar 6, 2013 | Writing Articles
I spoke with a sister writer yesterday and we talked about the many, many challenges we face when it comes to completing projects, let alone getting them out there into the world.
As moms and working women, we said, there’s always so much that has to be done, so many dishes to wash, noses to wipe, and deadlines to meet. Then if you start factoring in other people’s needs and wants (especially when you put them first) it’s all too easy to let your precious soul’s work slip to the bottom of the pile.
I’ll get to it later
If you’re like most people, you’re probably going through the day thinking that you’ll get to it later — whatever your “it” is, that creative work you’re endlessly postponing for another day, whether it’s writing or painting or drawing or finally getting the word out about your work — but that later never comes.
Or maybe you’ve promised yourself that you’ll work at the end of the day, but quite frankly, you’re exhausted.
The trap
The trap is that you’re aiming to clear the decks first, thinking your brain will finally have the space it needs for the creative work.
You figure you’ve got to get to Inbox Zero or handle all those administrative tasks or answer so-and-so’s Very Important Message first. Then you’ll be able to focus.
But.
Those things are like tribbles from Star Trek. They multiply at an exponential rate of growth, and if you persist in putting them first? They will literally devour your time.
And right now, you are letting them do that.
It’s time to stop.
How?
Let’s face it. Life happens. Life can be busy. It doesn’t have to be, but it often is, in this culture, in this era.
There will always be more email.
There will always be more to do. More information. “Opportunities.”
And we get to choose how we respond to that stuff, or not.
Do you want to organize your life around it?
Or do you want to organize your life around what is most sacred to you?
Your deepest, soul-level priorities.
What does that even look like?
For me, that is my writing and my family, period.
So guess how I spend my mornings?
I wake up, and I snuggle with my son. When we feel ready, he goes to play with his dad and have breakfast while I write for 30 minutes. It’s not a huge amount of time, true, but I do it 6 days a week.
I’ve also corralled my business, for the most part, into regular, day time hours. Rarely does it spill over into the night or onto the weekends. Why? So I can be with my family in the evenings and focus on my son.
Doesn’t mean my life isn’t hectic. Doesn’t mean there aren’t still things I want to change. But I’m working on them incrementally, moving them to the place I want them to be. Just like a writing project, bit by bit.
The key
The key to all this comes from a few simple notions.
1. Your creative work is what you were put here to do and is therefore of the utmost importance to you, your life, and your soul’s fulfillment (and even as a role model for your kids).
2. In order to fulfill that work, you must design your life around it and make sure its priority level is reflected in the day-to-day choices you are making. (I can help you with this in 1:1 coaching.)
3. Then you must protect that sacred work time — I call mine my sacred writing time — like your life depends on it. It does.
Warmly,
by Jenna | Jan 30, 2013 | Writing Articles
As creatives, one of the skills we have to master is finding our way to the finish line, even when it feels like muddling our way through the dark.
Sometimes we know where we want to go, but we don’t know how to get there.
And when this happens, many people end up doing nothing. They don’t take action because they don’t have all the information yet, or they aren’t clear on the whole picture.
And yet from my perspective, this is one of the biggest mistakes we can make.
So often creative wait for inspiration, not realizing that if they put pen or paintbrush to page, pick up the guitar, or open their mouths to speak or sing, just trusting the act of creation is enough to get things going.
Because strange though it may seem, inching just one part of a project or idea forward can be enough to catalyze the entire system into action.
For instance, let’s say you have a beginning to a story, and you have an idea of the ending, but you aren’t quite sure how to get there yet — what happens in the middle? Well, you can start brainstorming structural ideas and plot devices. But what do you already know, and how you can nudge that forward?
Maybe you have a pretty good idea of your characters, so what if you spent some time fleshing them out? Or maybe you can visualize the ending clearly — what if you started writing there?
Yes, it’s true that some of that work might be for “nothing.” But really, truly, is any work ever lost? Isn’t it the process and the learning that comes through that work independently valuable, regardless of its lifespan?
In another example, let’s say you want to redecorate your living room, but you don’t know where to start. And yet you DO have your eye on a particular couch you just love. Rather than waiting to solve the entire design problem, what if you got the couch you love and build the rest of the redecoration project around it?
I suppose the risk is there that you’ll have purchased a couch you love but you can’t find a single thing that will look good with it, but I doubt it.
The paralysis of inaction can become painful procrastination in short order. What do you already know about where you are that you can take action on?
Do it.
Remember the quote from Goethe, “Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, magic, and power in it. Begin it now.”
Warmly,
by Jenna | Jan 23, 2013 | Writing Articles
The other day I commented about how “It’s so tricky to be your own deadline-maker,” in my writing community. One of our writers wrote back and said, “If you have some tips on how to be more motivated by self-set deadlines, I would love to try them.”
So like last week, I’m continuing my theme of answering questions that have come up in my community that I felt would be useful for everyone to think about. (And before your eyes glaze over if you’re not a writer, don’t worry, you can use these techniques too.)
And here they are:
7 tips for staying motivated by self-created deadlines
As you read through these, see if you notice how I use external forces to keep the internal deadlines moving ahead.
1. Use Jedi mind tricks.
Find a reason to believe in the significance, importance, and the power of the deadline. If you create a deadline, but you internally decide that it’s flexible or not important, you won’t stay motivated by it. So find a reason that makes your deadline compelling.
For instance, my current compelling deadline for the ebook project I’m working on is the result of mapping out my launch calendar for 2013 with my business consultant, and it’s pretty clear that unless I stay more or less on track with it, there will be a rather significant snowball effect of Other Things Not Working, which will have a negative ripple effect throughout the entire year.
Of course, we built some wiggle room and flexibility into the schedule, but knowing that if I don’t meet my “ship date” for my ebook project, I’m only going to create stress and discomfort for myself. It’s highly motivating to keep me on track. (See also #2, taking care of your tomorrow self, below.)
Similarly, even if you don’t have an editor, agent, producer, audience, or manager (yet) clamoring for your latest project, you can find deadlines for it to help you stay inspired all the way to completion, like signing up for a contest and aiming to get your project submitted by their deadline.
In my case, I know I’m attending a series of meetings with producers in Hollywood this summer, so I have a deadline for finishing my script naturally built into my 2013 plan.
We can call these “self-created” deadlines, because we choose them ourselves — we make them extrinsic deadlines to help us stay motivated internally.
2. Take care of your tomorrow self too.
I have learned — finally, it’s been hard — to take care of my “tomorrow self” as well as my “today self.” When you’re tempted to slack off on your deadline, take the long view, and have compassion for the future self who’s about to bear the brunt of today’s workload.
When I’m only looking at things from the vantage point of my today self, even though I’d love to THINK that since there’s no big deadline looming on the immediate horizon, I can take the day to get caught up on small tasks and admin, when I remember to think of my tomorrow self, I know SHE’LL be the one to pay the price for that kind of thinking.
Pacing myself is good for all the versions of me — it keeps me happy now, today, tomorrow, and beyond.
3. If you can’t find a reason for the deadline, invent one.
Alternatively, if you can’t find any more natural means of making a deadline motivating, create one. My favorite tool here is something we call “social accountability,” and it has to do with promising at least one other human being that you’ll be delivering said project on a specific date, ideally at a specific time.
For instance, you can exchange projects for feedback or notes with a fellow writer on a certain date, or invest in a coaching relationship where your mentor is waiting to review your work with you. I like to schedule appointments with my mentor in advance of having my next 15 pages written — it’s terrifically motivating to get me to complete them.
An accountability party is another powerful way to create a motivating deadline. I picked up this idea from Barbara Sher’s books. The idea is to host a party — you pick the deadline — where you’ll be celebrating the completion of your project with your friends and family.
4. If you don’t have a deadline, focus on taking consistent action.
One of the interesting aspects of my community is that it can help you stay motivated and taking action even when you don’t have a deadline. Writing projects are long-term commitments, and staying motivated by them can be tricky. But if you focus on taking small, consistent, daily action, as we recommend to our members, you WILL eventually reach the end of your project. You actually DON’T HAVE TO HAVE a deadline to get yourself into action.
Personally, I like to use all the methods I’ve described here in combination. I set myself up for the regular daily action, combined with self-selected externally motivated deadlines and invented interim deadlines. The way I figure it is this: The more the better. I use every trick in the book to keep myself going. And it works.
5. Reverse engineer your project and get super specific about the details.
Once you’ve gotten clear on your deadline, start dividing up your project into manageable chunks, whether it’s chapters, word counts, or time periods. You will likely be able to identify a natural increment you can work with. Then map that out over the time period you have allotted for your project.
For instance, with my ebook project, I have three ebooks that I’m aiming to write approximately 15,000 words for each, for a total of 45,000 words. This means that I can look at the time frame I have, divide it up into reasonable increments, let’s say 1125 words per day, 5 days per week, for 8 weeks. (And also, by telling you about it, I’m creating social accountability for myself. See what I did there?)
What’s motivating about this is seeing exactly what it will take to make my goal. That’s a fair bit of work, right? And if I don’t pace myself, I’ll end up paying for it in a big binge and burnout. Not fun, not pretty. And certainly motivating to avoid, albeit in a somewhat “I don’t want that” kind of way.
6. Set up time to actually fulfill the project.
Once you’ve reverse-engineered your project, then create time in your calendar for fulfillment. You can’t “ship” the thing until you’ve created it, right? So get out your calendar and carve out time, ideally first BEFORE you do all other stuff that normally eats up your day — I know you know what I’m talking about, but just in case: email, Facebook, Twitter, games, futzing around, etc — and be realistic about what you can actually accomplish.
I can write 1000 to 2000 words in an hour, depending on the topic, so I know I’ll want to have at least 5 hours per week carved out to meet my 1125 word deadline, working at a fairly brisk pace. Keeping in mind the big picture helps me get serious about keeping my head down and getting to work when that window of time rolls around on my calendar.
7. Do the work.
Once you’ve got the time on your calendar, be prepared for the resistance to show up. It’ll come in all forms — your mom calling just when you’re supposed to start writing, or an “urgent” email popping into your inbox, or the dirty dishes in the sink suddenly becoming alluring. Recognize that long-term projects, even with highly motivating deadlines, are darn difficult beasts to face. There’s always something more we’d rather be doing.
Something that helps me tremendously with this is my writing community. We write in group writing sprints, where we come online and write collectively for an hour together. I’ve learned to schedule my project writing time with the group sprints, so not only do I have it on my calendar, I also have accountability to actually show up and do the work.
It’s so motivating and helps keep me focused when I would otherwise be tempted to postpone my writing sessions.
Yep, even me.
So be ready, with every trick at your disposal, to fend off the voices that tell you that other things are more important. They’re not. Remind yourself of your big picture deadline, why you’ve designed it that way, and do the work.
Warmly,
by Jenna | Dec 12, 2012 | Writing Articles
If you have a dream to write or create, you probably have your sights set on the new year as a good time to recommit to your goal.
You probably also believe that once we've passed through the holiday ring of fire, you'll have cleared a lot of new space, time, and energy that has otherwise been occupied with shopping, events, and clearing your desk for the holidays.
Glorious guilt and procrastination
And, surprise, surprise, there do tend to be a few glorious days in January of peace and quiet... but usually with the essence of guilt and procrastination swirling around the edges.
Because even though you've promised yourself you'll get started right away on your writing or art or dream, you don't.
It's not what you think it is
But don't feel guilty. It's completely normal. You see, once you actually have that big block of time you've been longing for, the raw, naked fear comes bounding in and masquerades as wanting to sleep in or take some time off after all the hubbub. What's wrong with that? "Yeah, I know I said I would write today but it's new year's day and I just want to get a little more sleep. I just want to spend the day relaxing for a change."
It looks like needing time off (and you probably do actually need it) but it's really fear.
Here's the thing
(And, yes, we've talked about this before.)
Resistance comes up around anything worth doing.
We tend to recommit -- at least mentally -- to the concept of doing those things in the form of new year's resolutions.
Guess what?
Those resolutions trigger even more resistance.
Which leads to more distractions, and smokescreens, and procrastination. And stress. And self-doubt.
No more stories
There's ALWAYS something.
Always.
So.
How about instead of making resolutions, we decide to make new life decisions about setting ourselves up for a long-term, sustainable, regular practice of our art? No more grand sweeping gestures and big talk but instead an actual realistic, attainable plan to take small, daily actions to move you toward your goal?
For instance:
- If you want to write, commit to writing for 15 minutes a day.
- If you want to move your business forward, commit to doing the hardest tasks first (usually marketing, right?), for 15 minutes a day, every day.
- If you want to paint, set yourself up so that you can paint a little bit every day. Use the two-second rule to make sure your watercolors and sketchbook are close to hand.
Find the smallest increment of absolutely do-able, sustainable, accomplishment you know you can meet, and commit only to that, nothing more. If you find yourself not doing it, make it smaller. And let me know how it goes.
Warmly,
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