Two conversations about taking a day off from writing

June 26, 2013 By 2 Comments

Two inner conversations about taking the day off from writing, in which we explore the inner workings of the procrastinator and the recovered procrastinator. :)

Observe.

Conversation 1. The Procrastinator

Daybreak.

“Oh god. It’s too early. I don’t want to write. Besides, I need a day off. I mean, I’ve been pushing myself so hard and everything going on right now is just so stressful. Plus I couldn’t sleep well last night. I really just need some down time to regroup and get in the mood to write. There’s no point otherwise, right? I’ll just take the morning off and write in the afternoon.”

Later that morning.

“This is great! See, I really just needed some time to goof off. I can write later, it’ll be fine.”

Mid-day.

“Okay, wow, that was great. Maybe I should start writing now. But I better check my email first. And I’ve got to call Kathy too. Plus my desk is disorganized, I’ll never be able to concentrate on my writing, I better clear it off. THEN I’ll really be able to focus.”

Later.

“Where did the day go? I’m exhausted. There’s no way I can write now. I better just start over tomorrow. I can write early, when I wake up. That’ll get me back on track.”

And, repeat.

Conversation 2. The Recovered Procrastinator

Daybreak.

“I get to take today off! I hit that major milestone with my draft yesterday. I’m going to celebrate today by putting my feet up and savoring a full, glorious day of guilt-free indulgence and enjoyment. Then back to the writing tomorrow, until I hit the next milestone.”

And, repeat.

What a difference, right?

And the best part is how it FEELS inside. So. Much. Better.

Your turn

What do you think? How does procrastination FEEL to you? How does truly rewarding yourself feel when you’ve made a major accomplishment? What’s that worth to you?

Share your comments on the blog.

Warmly,

 Jenna

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The awkwardness of building a new writing habit

June 12, 2013 By Leave a Comment

When you first start a new habit, it’s awkward.

I’ve made the mistake more than a few times in my life of throwing in the towel if I “blow it” early in the process of building a habit.

Over time, I’ve come to see a misstep like that as a little “Oops!” and either go for a do-over or a promise myself to start again tomorrow.

This is part of why we make sure to hold our Writer’s Circle as a guilt-free zone. Yes, we’re encouraging people to write every day (and when I say we, I mean me and the other coaches for the Circle). And we also keep in mind that we are doing deep, hard work, and there will be missteps and challenges along the way. We’ve ALL struggled to create habits, and it’s no good punishing ourselves when we get off course.

I’ve seen some terrific examples of people who started out just focusing on writing 5 to 15 minutes a day and now have completed novels and scripts they can call their own. It’s very exciting!

As you embark on a new habit, here are a few things to keep in mind.

1. Remember that building a new habit can be awkward — be gentle with yourself about it.

Give yourself lots of space to make mistakes and get back on track. Don’t throw in the towel too early like I did. Instead, see anything that doesn’t work as information about what you might want to adjust as you go forward.

Recently I’ve been experimenting with increasing my daily writing time and shifting my schedule so that my writing takes an even more central role in my life. As I’ve been doing so, I’ve found myself fumbling my pretty-well established gym habit and getting caught in some awkward procrastination moments. Instead of deciding, “This isn’t working,” I’m tweaking my approach and studying my results every day to see what I can learn about what might work better for me tomorrow.

2. Approach habit building with an experimental mindset.

Along these same lines, if you approach your writing — or ANY habit — with the spirit of experimentation, you can give yourself some freedom to keep exploring until you find something that DOES work, instead of feeling like a failure for what doesn’t.

For instance, let’s say you’re trying to build a habit of writing daily and you start by committing to 5 minutes a day. But every day you find yourself not getting around to it at the end of the day and feeling too exhausted to do it. That’s good information, right? Waiting until the end of the day isn’t working. What else could you try? Morning writing? Lunchtime writing? Committing to write for 5 minutes at a specific time of day with a friend who will also write for 5 minutes at the same time?

3. If you have a rebellious nature, factor that into your plan.

If you tend to rebel against schedules and structures, try to factor that in as you plan for your new habit.

I find myself “getting all tragic” if I try to force myself to write seven days a week. (My Writer’s Circle members got a real laugh out of me saying that on one of our live coaching calls once.) Instead, I’ve committed to writing six days per week, always giving myself one day off from writing. It feeds my inner rebel and helps me feel refreshed for jumping back into writing the next day.

4. Know your procrastination tipping point and adjust accordingly.

On the other hand, you’ll also want to pay attention to when it starts to get hard to restart if and when you take days off. I’ve found that if I don’t write for a stretch of time, it’s HARD getting back on track. Up until now I’ve found that taking two days off is the point at which it gets hard for me to restart the next day, but I’m going to experiment with it further now that I’m increasing my weekday writing time.

So notice the point at which it becomes hard to restart and consider not exceeding that point whenever possible.

5. Know that it’s better to start small and start now — something is more than nothing.

Most of us who work with building regular writing habits are here for a reason — we struggle with procrastination and perfectionism more often than not (they feed each other in an endless cycle of perfectionism, procrastination, and paralysis).

An important mindset shift you’ll want to make is recognizing the value of SOME progress versus NO progress. If I had written for 15 minutes every day for the last 10 years, I’d have at least 8 to 10 scripts under my belt at the same rate I’ve been developing my current one. No guilt or blame though, just a fact.

Also, know that when you’re habit building, you’ll want to go for doing ANYTHING first, then work up to more. We like to have our writers in the Circle write even for just five minutes a day or just focus on logging in to our online site every day for the first week — simply to put the focus and attention on the writing on a daily, regular basis. After that, it gets easier to bump it up to more over time.

So remember, frequency and consistency, not quantity, at least to start. Later you can go for consistency AND quantity. :)

Join the Writer’s Circle

Join the Writer's CircleThe next session of the Writer’s Circle starts soon. Yep, we DO keep writing during the summer and year-round. If you’re struggling to write consistently or feeling alone with your writing, you’ll want to join us for inspiration, support, accountability, and camaraderie. Register and find out more here: http://JustDoTheWriting.com.

Your turn

I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments on the blog.

Warmly,

 Jenna

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Fighting writing resistance

March 20, 2013 By Leave a Comment

One of the greatest bugaboos of writers (and creatives of all sorts) is resistance.

Ah, resistance.

Resistance is that unseen force that repels us from writing (or eating our vegetables or doing other good things we know will move us forward in our lives). We’ve talked about resistance here before, including why we procrastinate, especially about the stuff that really matters.

In my Writer’s Circle group we often talk about the ways to face and battle resistance — it’s something that must be overcome pretty much every day, in order to sit down to write. (Or floss. Or exercise. Or take your vitamins. Or keep your resolutions.)

One of the very best antidotes to resistance is creating a solid writing habit. (Just like a habit of going to the gym makes is so much easier to keep going.) Once you’ve got the habit in place, you stop thinking about it, and you just do the work.

But resistance is tricky!

One of our Writer’s Circle writers mentioned the insidious nature of resistance, and how sneaky it is. I was instantly reminded of a story that illustrates resistance all too well and posted it on our forums for our participants. I thought you might like to see it too.

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In one of my favorite fantasy books, Seventh Son by Orson Scott Card (part of his excellent series, The Tales of Alvin Maker), there’s a scene that I think describes how resistance operates very well. Keep in mind that it operates in a positive way in this story, at least from the protagonist’s point of view, but from the antagonist’s point of view, it thwarts him to no end.

Here’s the scene:

Alvin is a young boy with innate magic abilities, a force for good in the world, and a natural “Maker” — someone with a knack or talent for making things. Reverend Thrower, the local preacher deeply opposed to the folk magic Alvin practices in his community, has been instructed to kill Alvin by the “Unmaker.” When Alvin is injured, Thrower is asked to perform a surgery on Alvin’s leg, and Thrower sees his chance. He goes into the room where Alvin is resting to do the surgery with a knife and bone saw, with the intent to kill Alvin with the tools.

But when he gets into the room, he realizes that he’s left the tools outside the room. So he goes to get them. And then goes back into the room. And realizes that he’s left the knife and saw outside. Again. And then it happens again, even with other people trying to go and bring the tools into the room. Somehow this force of resistance simply will not allow Thrower, the knife, and the saw to be simultaneously in the room in Alvin’s presence. And it keeps happening, endlessly, until somehow Reverend Thrower finds himself a half-mile away from the house, walking away from it.

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Now again, I realize, this is a positive kind of resistance, because it’s a benevolent force protecting Alvin’s life from Thrower.

But at the same time, I have always been mesmerized by the notion of this man who is so determined to do something, but an unseen force acts against him repeatedly, despite the strength of his intention and will.

This is how I see resistance to writing. An unseen force that will do whatever it can, trick us however it may, into “staying out of the room” or not sitting down to write, as if somehow butts in seats and fingers on keyboards are mutually repellant forces.

Vigilance is required.

The force of resistance must be met anew every single day.

This is why I keep writing every day, pretty much, and doing it early, because it’s SO MUCH EASIER than having to think about it and wrestle my way through the mountain of resistance and procrastination and guilt and shame that comes up when I wait to do it later in the day.

Everyone I talk to about how I get up to write early thinks I’m so disciplined and determined, and it’s true in some ways, I am.

But — think what you will — to me it feels like I am taking the easy way out. I know that sounds crazy. But I feel it inside me, that writing early, having that regular habit, actually makes it easier to keep doing it than it is to stop, and so much of the daily struggle over when I will write or will I write or how long am I waiting to write, etc., it’s just gone.

Gone.

Your turn

I’d love to hear from you. How does resistance show up for you? What are your best tricks to sneak past it?

Build the habit to overcome your own resistance

Join the Writer's CircleIf you’re a writer struggling to overcome your writing resistance, join the next session of our Writer’s Circle. We’ll help you build a regular, consistent habit of writing so the battle to overcome resistance each day gets easier. Plus, you’ll have a great community of support, working alongside other writers committed to showing up and doing the work. Find out more and register here: http://JustDoTheWriting.com

Warmly,

 Jenna

 

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Write first thing in the morning? Are you crazy?

February 20, 2013 By 11 Comments

Back in November 2011, I wrote a post about why I’ve been getting up at 6 a.m. to write. It’s something I often encourage writers to try, especially those that are struggling with resistance and / or struggling to find time to write.

In my Called to Write community, one of our writers found a study showing that your optimal creative time may actually be the opposite of your peak cognitive time. It’s sparked quite the discussion and has inspired some of our members to give morning writing a try. I have it in my mind to write a guide to morning writing, and I thought I’d start off with an article about it first.

The basic principle

The basic principle of writing first thing in the morning is that it’s about doing the hardest work first.

And by “hardest,” we don’t necessarily mean the most difficult, though it may match up.

We’re talking about doing the work that triggers the most resistance at your first available opportunity.

What does “first available opportunity” mean?

When I first started writing daily with Called to Write, my routine was that I would take my son to preschool, get back to my desk around 9 a.m. — my theoretically first available opportunity — and then write. Except not. Because I kept getting sucked into email and work. It was during work hours, and I felt hard pressed not to be focused on income-generating activities.

At least that was the story I told myself.

The deeper truth is that once I was awake for that many hours, my fear — as represented by my inner critic — was a heck of a lot louder by that point in the day when I was fully awake.

So I decide to try the morning writing gig and see how it felt. As an experiment.

Why it’s advantageous to write first thing in the morning

I first came to the notion of morning writing after reading about several writers that swore by it. Since they were pros, I figured they must know something that I didn’t. So I thought I’d give it a whirl and see how it went.

Here’s what I found:

  • The longer I’m awake, the more opportunities I have to procrastinate. Writing first thing helps me circumvent my natural tendency to avoid the very work I’m called to do.
  • My inner critic is much, much more quiet first thing in the morning. I don’t have to work so hard to keep those gremlins at bay when I’m still sleepy.
  • Because I’m writing regularly, it doesn’t take more than a minute to find my place in my work from the previous day and start writing again.
  • I spend the rest of the day in a greater state of calm because I’ve met my goal for the day. It doesn’t hang over my head, nag at me, or make me feel guilty if I haven’t done it yet.
  • I’m wasting a lot less time doing meaningless things at night because I’ve adjusted my sleep schedule to get up earlier.

Common objections to writing in the morning

Whenever I mention this idea to writers — usually the ones struggling most with resistance and procrastination or time management — the most common objection I hear from people is that they are “not morning people.” And it seems like people have natural rhythms they’re naturally drawn to.

The funny thing is that I can tell you truly, I am not a morning person. When I first started my coaching practice, I was delighted to realize I could start my days whenever I wanted to — which was late. I loved the fact that I didn’t have to set an alarm clock and that I could schedule my first clients at noon. I loved sleeping in late and staying up late. It fitted with my natural rhythm.

Now, however, I love being up earlier in the day.

I love the fact that I can get so much done before 10 a.m. and feel like I have the whole day ahead of me.

I also love going to bed earlier (lights out by 9:30 is the target), because I use my awake hours much more wisely. (And by the way, I suspect there wouldn’t be so many night owls if we weren’t “biased” by electric lights.)

Things to keep in mind as you shift your schedule

If you decide to give morning writing a go, here are a few things to keep in mind.

  • Start by setting an alarm clock for 30 minutes earlier than your standard wake up time, then push it 20 to 30 minutes earlier each day until you hit your target.
  • Also give some thought to how much writing you want to do each day. You’ll be able to gauge how early you want to get up depending on your writing goals for the day (and remember, as we teach in my Writer’s Circle, it’s perfectly okay to work in small increments — even 5 to 15 minutes a day is great, especially as you’re building the habit.)
  • I’ve found that it’s easier just to be tired for the first few days and to go to bed early those nights to help myself make the shift. At least for me, it just prolongs the discomfort if I decide to sleep in a few days, take naps, or otherwise try to make the change gradual.
  • Be clear that you will need to go to bed earlier to make this work. I’ve seen other writers still trying to burn the midnight oil AND get up at dawn. That’s ultimately a drain on your creative well, and you won’t be able to run on empty for long. So determine how many hours of sleep you need, and do the math so you know what time you need to go to bed.
  • Give yourself about one to two weeks to get used to the change. It doesn’t happen overnight.

It’s a grand experiment

As you embark on this, think of it as an experiment. See what you notice about how you feel about your work and what you notice about your stress levels during the day after you’ve done your writing. You won’t really know if it works for you or not until you try it.

Join us for the ongoing journey

Called to Write is an ongoing monthly membership community where you can experiment with your writing habit, see what works, see what doesn’t, and end your isolation as a writer by writing alongside other writers committed to showing up and doing the work. Find out more and register here: https://calledtowrite.mn.co

Your turn

I always love to hear from you. Have you ever tried writing (or working) first thing in the morning like this? What did you discover? Share with us in the comments area below. 

Warmly,

 Jenna

 

 

 

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7 tips for staying motivated by self-created deadlines

January 23, 2013 By 9 Comments

The other day I commented about how “It’s so tricky to be your own deadline-maker” on my progress page on my Writer’s Circle site.  One of my lovely group members wrote back and said, “If you have some tips for 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 Writer’s Circle 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.

If at all possible, 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 the next ProSeries Producer’s Meeting is coming up 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.” In other words, 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 agree to exchange projects for feedback or notes with a fellow writer on a certain date, or invest in a mentoring 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.

I also like to let my audience know when they can expect things. For instance, when you sign up for my mailing list, you’ll receive a welcome message letting you know that you can expect to receive my weekly blog post in an ezine format every Wednesday. To strengthen that deadline for myself, I’ve even set up my mailing list system (Aweber*) to automatically broadcast my blog post at 6 p.m. Eastern Time, which means that unless I have it done before then, it won’t go out on time, which means extra work for me.

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.

Now, all this said, one of the interesting aspects of the Writer’s Circle 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 with them can be tricky. But if you focus on taking small, consistent, daily action, as we recommend to our Writer’s Circle participants, 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 of 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 the Writer’s Circle. As we’re growing, we’re adding more and more 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.

Your turn

What works for you? You know I love to hear from you.

Experiment for yourself

Join the Writer's CircleIf you’re a writer looking for community and support on your writing journey, join our next session of the Writer’s Circle. It’s like a giant sandbox where you get to experiment with your writing habit, see what works, see what doesn’t, and have fun playing alongside other writers committed to showing up and doing the work. Find out more and register here: http://JustDoTheWriting.com

Warmly,

 Jenna

 

 

 

 

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You Can Change Your Life in a Split Second

January 9, 2013 By 17 Comments

When it comes to making lasting powerful change in your life, the make-it-or-break-it moments come down to the split second decisions you make.

I read something from an organizer who pointed out that so much of clutter we create comes down to making a decision right in the moment to either leave something out or put it away. Since I read that, I’ve found myself debating internally about my standard practice of “just getting it in the ballpark” when it comes to putting things away and I’ve started to change it.

Do we care? Are we caring about that?

(1000 sci fi points if you know where that line came from.)

Why do we care about this?

We care about this because this idea translates to EVERYTHING.

What happens when you’re about to say something snarky to your kid or your spouse because you’ve had a bad day? Do you stop yourself? Do you make a new choice in that split second? Did you know that you can?

What about if you’ve already said it? Did you know you can make a new choice and apologize?

Or what if you want to be more on time?

I noticed yesterday that the reason I didn’t get my son to school on time (there’s no official time, but the time I want to be there by) was that I made a series of small choices that led to that outcome. I puttered a little extra. I looked online. I did some work that could have waited until I got back from the gym. Why?

I wanted to be on time. I wanted to get to the gym. But the natural resistance to doing those things was coming up, and I was making split second choices to support the resistance rather than the action.

Today I chose differently.

Today I told myself, “That can wait until I get back.”

Today I choose to add things to my to do list on my phone, rather than taking action on them immediately and getting sucked into the work vortex.

Today we drove away from the house exactly on time.

And again I ask, are we caring about that?

We are.

We care about this because it applies to EVERYTHING. Even your creative work, like when you’re finding yourself about to “take a break” before you start writing or painting.

Yeah, that.

In that split second you can make a choice not to procrastinate, but to take action instead.

Strengthening Your Willpower Will Change Your Life

Brian Johnson says that willpower is “known by research scientists as the queen of all virtues — the greatest predictor of health, happiness, wealth and all other good things.”

What happens when you start making better split second choices?

You strengthen your willpower.

In turn that strengthens your self-confidence, self-control, and happiness.

And isn’t happiness what we’re ultimately all looking for?

Surprise! You Can Build Happiness in Small Steps

The beauty of this split second idea is that it doesn’t have to be complicated.

  • What if I just put this in the drawer instead of setting it down on the counter?
  • What if I leave on time today?
  • What if I choose not to drink this time?
  • What if I just got up right now and went to the gym?
  • What if I just sat down and did 15 minutes of writing?

It probably sounds a little crazy, but making these little choices will lead to being happier and more fulfilled. It’s about the choice to be in integrity with yourself. And that always feels good.

Accumulate Your Small Choices

The way this gets really fun is when all those little small choices start adding up. I call it “making a critical mass of subtle adjustments.”

It’s funny how it comes down to the littlest details, like where your creative tools are kept, what time you get up, the small routines you have around your work (or not), etc. It all makes a difference.

That’s why in our Circle, we’re always so thrilled when our writers start paying close attention to those small choices they’re making and how they can change them to better support their writing habits.

An example? Sure!

Here are a couple of my tricks when it comes to writing:

  • I use a Mac program called “Isolator” to cover up all the other programs on my screen so I’m not distracted by them (and I turn off all the beeps and pop-ups or hide them so I can’t see them).
  • I always write with a timer, so I stay focused on my project. I use an online timer or my phone timer so I don’t have to hunt around for one.
  • I keep a big jug of water in my office, so I can easily refill my water glass if I get thirsty.
  • I keep lotion at my desk, so that I don’t have to get up if my hands get dry, which can distract me.
  • When I’m writing upstairs in bed (which I often do first thing in the mornings), I put the laptop on the charger at my bedside so it’s ready to go in the morning. (And I have water and lotion there too!)

These little things make it easy for me to say “Yes” to the writing in those split-second moments that make the difference between doing the work, or not.

Your turn

What do you think? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Warmly,

 Jenna

 

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Filed Under: Productivity Tagged With: , , ,

When you have nothing left

November 7, 2012 By 9 Comments

In my Called to Write community we periodically talk about creative burnout.

In our Western culture we work hard, driven by puritanical work ethics, cultural programming, keeping up with the Joneses, guilt, etc. It’s no wonder we’re exhausted.

We push and push ourselves, expecting our wells of creativity, resourcefulness, and inspiration never to run dry.

And then one day, we turn to the well and find it empty. No ideas. Maybe even a sense of dread and apathy.

The only way out is through

In a recent blog post, Mark Sanderson talks about his experience with this kind of creative depletion and how he recovered from it. Interestingly, his solution had to do with carrying on and doing the work no matter what.

He said:

“Some call it ‘writer’s block.’ I call it sheer terror. When this happens you need to relax and continue to work at your process. I know this too well from experience, but it still proves true every time – the only way to solve specific problems is to sit down and focus on the work.”

It seems the only way out is through.

It takes courage

Writing — for that matter doing anything that calls us to step out of our comfort zone — requires a great deal of courage. A willingness to be uncomfortable often. To sit in it, do the work, and get to the other side.

No wonder we tend to procrastinate rather than facing that terror and doing it anyway.

Procrastination and burnout are close cousins

I’ve observed that procrastination plays a key role in creative burnout — part of a vicious, intertwined cycle:

 

The reason we work past the point of endurance and exhaust ourselves is that we have procrastinated for so long that we are forced to push ourselves. And the reason we procrastinate that we are afraid.

I love what Steven Pressfield says about fear in his book Turning Pro:

“The professional, by the way, is just as terrified as the amateur. In fact the professional may be more terrified because she is more acutely conscious of herself and her interior universe. The difference lies in the way the professional acts in the face of fear.”

Coming up in future posts: Recovering from creative burnout and creating a cycle of creative renewal.

Tell me what you think

I love to read your comments on the blog.

Warmly,

Jenna

 

 

 

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Why we procrastinate, especially about the stuff that really matters

October 24, 2012 By 7 Comments

I had a lovely chat with a friend recently about applying to a school program she’s interested in. She confessed that even though she very much wanted to attend the school, she hadn’t yet completed the application.

Ah!

That familiar friend: Procrastination.

Why do we procrastinate about things that are important to us?

Why is that when it comes time to do the hard work, whether it’s taking action on our businesses, filing important paperwork, writing that longed for novel or script, or making time for our art, we stall?

I mean, sure, it’s hard, but we’ve also said how important it is to us. We’ve spent money on classes, books, training, and support. We’ve written it into our schedules. It’s clearly a priority for us, right?

So why so much talk and not so much action?

It’s the size of the dream that matters.

I’ll say that again: It’s the size of the dream that matters.

The more important something is to you, the more fear, procrastination, and resistance you experience. In fact, the level of fear you feel seems to be directly proportional to the size of the dream.

Perhaps even a little bigger, just for good measure.

“The more we care about something, the more we dream, the more fear shows up.”

 

~ Robert Maurer, author of One Small Step Can Change Your Life: The Kaizen Way

 

The problem: We’re wired to shut down in the face of fear.

The fact that our brains are wired to shut down in the face of fear is what creates the entire conundrum in the first place.

As Robert Maurer describes in One Small Step Can Change Your Life: The Kaizen Way, when our brains go into fight-or-flight mode, our frontal cortex — our thinking, rational brain — is automatically shut off so that we can respond appropriately and quickly to the threat at hand. This is a natural response to fear. Unfortunately, our mid-brains, home to the amygdala that governs the fight-or-flight response, can’t differentiate between the fear that comes up when we’re confronted with a tiger or when we’re contemplating completing the next great opus.

And so suddenly your thinking, rational and creative brain is completely turned off . . . which when you’re attempting to create and design new business ideas or a screenplay, isn’t so helpful.

The good news

The good news is that when you can learn to expect the fear to show up, you can normalize it and make it okay. Then it’s easier to be compassionate with yourself and coax yourself through the tasks at hand.

I’ve learned to recognize my own resistance routine and treat it like a familiar visitor I know how to handle.

I tell myself, “It’s okay, I know you’re scared, you can do this anyway.” And I do (as my Called to Write members can attest).

It helps that I make a point to tackle things in small pieces, just the way Maurer recommends: “Small, easily achievable goals — such as picking up and storing just one paper clip on a chronically messy desk — let you tiptoe right past the amygdala, keeping it asleep and unable to set off alarm bells.”

This is why, even on really tough days, you’ll still find me writing at least 15 minutes a day on my screenplay, six days a week, no matter what.

The really good news?

The more work you do in small steps, the more your brain gets rewired with new neural pathways and new habits, making resistance so much easier to overcome.

Your turn

What’s your experience with procrastination? How do you deal with it? Have you experimented with small steps at all? You know I love to hear from you in the comments.

Warmly,

Jenna

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Don’t wait for the right time to write — get started fulfilling your calling now

April 4, 2012 By 2 Comments

I waited for a long time before I began writing seriously.

I thought I need to make more money first, get caught up on my other commitments, have more childcare, or somehow find big blocks of time in my busy schedule.

I had a few other “stories” too, like thinking I needed to have a genius idea hit me like a stroke of lightning before I could get started.

With a few nudges from some good friends reinforcing what my soul had been pestering me about for many, many years, I decided the time to start writing was right away, not later.

I took a class to get myself going, which was lovely, but it wasn’t enough to help me make the shift to being a serious writer.

So I did some major life design work to reorganize my business and my life around my writing.

It required some choices that were uncomfortable, like changing my sleeping pattern, developing new disciplines, and making new commitments.

I also started my online Writer’s Circle.

Getting from point A to point B

From the outside looking in, it can feel overwhelming (especially for sensitive types) to contemplate making a major life change like this, which is why we put it off.

It’s not that hard when you break it down into steps.

  • I made the internal decision to write and to think of myself as a writer (I also did some NLP work to ease that transition).
  • I implemented the external changes: Adjusting my schedule, my sleeping pattern, my habits, and my commitments to myself and to others.
  • I started taking classes and immersing myself in the writing world.
  • I shifted my attention in terms of my reading and my community as part of that immersion.

At the outset it felt impossible to get here.

Now there is no question is my mind about being a writer and having writing as an integral part of my life.

Start small, but start now

Barbara Sher says, “Start small and start now.”

The lesson here is that if you have a dream — whether it is to write, dance, sing, act, share your wisdom, start a business, or whatever you feel called to — begin it now.

As W. H. Murray loosely paraphrased from Goethe, “Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it!”

The Writer‘s Circle has taught me the power of regular, consistent, small action.

In the first session of the Circle, I added 21 pages to my screenplay in 23 days, averaging only 25 minutes of writing per day.

I’m happy to say, that by continuing with that pattern of consistent, regular action (though I did gradually increase the amount of time I put into it), I completed my first feature-length screenplay Monday.

It was truly amazing to see what one can accomplish with small steps.

No matter where you go, there you are

What fascinates me most are the internal shifts we make as we go through a journey like this — from thinking of ourselves one way (“I’m a coach.”) to a new way (“I’m a writer and a coach.”).

I’ve been through this before, as I made my shift from urban design work to life coaching (apparently I’m one of those serial careerists — check back with me in 10 years and we’ll see where I am!).

I still feel like me, the fundamental essence of who I am hasn’t changed, but the way I think about who I am has changed.

Ah, life!

A tip to go

My favorite trick for getting things into motion is this: Decide what you’re going to work on — something you’ve been dreaming about but putting off — then set a timer for 15 minutes and do it.

Then stop and celebrate.

If you’re feeling really reluctant, set that timer for an even shorter length of time, like 5 minutes. (I’m not kidding about this.)

Then do it again tomorrow.

Your turn

I’d love to hear what you think! Your comments are always welcome.

Warmly,

 Jenna

As sensitives, how can we be more comfortable being seen, heard, and read in the spotlight?

NEW DATE: I’m teaching a teleclass on April 10th at 3 p.m. Pacific Time (4 Mountain, 5 Central, 6 Eastern, Midnight GMT), called “Sensitives in the Spotlight: How Artists, Writers, Hermits & Introverts Can Navigate a Call to the Public Eye.”

The fee for the class is $39. When you register, you’ll have an opportunity to submit your questions for the live session, so I’ll be sure to answer them for you. Register here, or find out more here.

Coming Attractions

~> NEW DATE: April 10th, 2012. My teleclass, “Sensitives in the Spotlight: How Artists, Writers, Hermits & Introverts can Navigate a Call to the Public Eye,” will be held on April 10th at 3 p.m Pacific Time (4 Mountain, 5 Central, 6 Eastern, Midnight GMT). Find out more and register here.

~> April 12th, 2012. Last day to register for the next session of my Writer’s Circle session starting on April 16th. Get my Free Writing Tips series too, and receive a coupon for a savings on your first 4 week session. Sign up here.

~> April 19th, 2012. Last day to register for my next Life Purpose Breakthrough Group on May 17th. Only 4 spots. These groups consistently sell out, so if you’d like to join me, reserve your spot ASAP. Register here.

~> April 19th, 2012. Teaching a live webinar for Writer’s Digest, “10 Practical Tips for More Consistent, Productive Writing.” Details soon!

 

What I'm Up To

~> Ongoing. Writing in the ProSeries class at ScreenwritingU. We’ll be starting our marketing module soon.

~> Sacred writing time. Early mornings and most Fridays. (This week I’m easing off a bit after a big push to finish my draft!)

~> Still reading Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban with my boy. We’ve already checked out the next one from the library so we’re ready.

 

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How to spot the smokescreens that stop you from writing

February 15, 2012 By Leave a Comment

To celebrate the start of the next session of my Writer’s Circle this coming Monday, I’m sharing a free four-part series on “How to Find the Courage to Share the Stories You Are Longing To Tell.”

Our series continues with Part 2: “How to Spot the Stealthy Smokescreens that Stop You From Writing.”

To read yesterday’s post, “Why It Requires Courage to Write”, click here.

How to spot the stealthy smokescreens that stop you from writing

If you’re longing to write, but not doing it, you’re probably doing a number of other things instead. I think of these as “smokescreens”, because very often we don’t realize that we are fooling ourselves about why we are not writing — our fear. Our smokescreens mask that raw, naked fear and keep us busy thinking something else is going on.

Most people who say they want to write but aren’t doing it are usually instead:

  1. Retreating into fantasy.

    When you’re retreating into fantasy instead of writing, you’ll notice yourself dreaming about the day when you finally have enough time to write.

    You’ll usually have a story about needing to deal with something else first, like: Making more money, getting enough childcare, getting the house clean, finishing that other big project, just getting through this one rough patch in life, etc., but the truth is that there is nothing stopping you from writing right now.

  2. Procrastinating.

    If you’re graduated from fantasy land about writing someday, but still not writing, you’ve probably moved on to procrastination or one of the other tricky smokescreens below.

    Procrastination turns up when you’ve made the time to write, but when it comes time to do it, your bathroom suddenly looks really dirty or you realize you are massively behind on [your email, your laundry, your sex life, your book keeping, your fill-in-an-excuse-here].

    I’ve seen some writers say that procrastination is a good thing — that we’re allowing our creative ideas to build up before they come bursting out of us — but I read procrastination as fear, often wrapped up with perfectionism.

  3. Feeling apathetic.

    Apathy rears it’s ugly head and tells us that we don’t care. It sounds like, “I mean, what’s the point? I don’t even FEEL like writing today. I’d much rather watch Castle or catch up on polishing my silver. Writing isn’t that important.”

    ANNNH. Wrong answer.

    What’s really going on here is again, you guessed it, fear. This is fear masquerading as apathy, only it’s so tricky it’s got you believing you aren’t even interested. Think again.

  4. Wandering in a fog of creative confusion.

    Creative confusion is the stealthy partner creative apathy. Creative confusion keeps us spinning in circles, telling us that we don’t know what to write. It keeps you vacillating between having too many ideas and not knowing where to start.

    The antidote for creative confusion is often brainstorming, putting ANY words on the page, asking yourself a great question (“What do I really want to say here?”) or simply picking a project to start with. Sometimes we just make it too complicated, again because we’re letting our fear get the better of us.

Takeaways

Here’s what I want you to take away from this: When you are fantasizing about writing, procrastinating about writing, or feeling apathetic or creatively confused about writing, you are operating out of fear. It might not LOOK like far, but the odds are high that it’s fear running the show.

But because you know this now, you have the chance to bust that fear wide open and move past it.

“Ah ha! You can’t fool me,” you will say to your fear and self-doubt. “I see you, and I know you are trying to stop me… but it won’t work.”

Then coax yourself to the page, and start writing. ANYTHING. Seriously. Because the antidote to any of these creative smokescreens is ACTION.

Your turn

What does this illuminate for you? Share your responses in the comments.

And stay tuned for the next post in this series coming your way tomorrow, “How to Find Your True Stories.” Watch for it on the blog or subscribe here.

About the Writer’s Circle

I inspire writers to find the courage to share the stories they are secretly longing to tell but are afraid won’t be heard or accepted. If you’d like company on your writer’s journey, I want to invite you to join the next session of my “Just Do The Writing” Accountability Circle, which starts this coming Monday, February 20th. In the Writer’s Circle, you’ll find the peer support and accountability you need to bust yourself on the smokescreens and obstacles you’re creating around your writing and get your words on the page. Registration closes THIS THURSDAY, February 16th.

Find out more and register here: http://JustDoTheWriting.com.

“Good if you want to write more and make fewer excuses not to write.”

“I loved leaving and getting comments on the daily progress. It made me write almost every day! Now, I’m writing more consistently and I’m feeling good about all of it. I like getting to know the other participants. I’m feeling consistently creative. This Writer’s Circle is good if you want to write more and make fewer excuses not to write. It’s so easy to talk oneself into not doing something creative and instead doing something mundane.”
~ Giulietta Nardone, Inspirational rebel, Writer and Karaoke singer, www.giuliettathemuse.com

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