We usually can’t recognize the tipping point of exactly when a pleasurable pursuit suddenly becomes a dreaded job, a.k.a. work. Yet, we clearly know when that line has been crossed.
It’s like the difference between running at a steady pace striving to reach a particular goal versus running to catch or keep up with something just out of our reach. There’s a distinct difference in the feel of the activity. The added pressure or stress just takes away any chance to enjoy the freedom of possibility.
I remind myself of this as I build up new muscles, in my body and in my writing. If it’s not fun, then why do it. We have enough pressures in life, why put more on ourselves.
But instead of quitting the activity that might feel like work at the moment, I find I can also choose to change the activity so that it feels like fun again, too.
I’m not going to let stress and invisible pressures take the creativity out of me, instead I’m going to use my creativity to banish the stressors. There are points of no return, but this isn’t one of them.
How do you handle your pressures? Are you winning the battle?
“Showing up is half the battle.” That is how I started my routine of going to the gym regularly. I found it was easier to go every day rather than scheduling or remembering to go on some sort of every other day basis.
Driving directly to the gym after work is simply part of my autopilot routine now, as is packing my gym bag in the morning. I never have to rationalize whether or not I’m going to go to the gym any more, but instead I put my focus on deciding what to do once I’m there.
I’m writing of my gym-going routine now as I sit here with one hour left on Day 2 of my new commitment to blog daily. Can I really be at risk of failing to start my new daily writing habit already? Read more »
As you may have noticed, it’s been a few months since I’ve last updated this blog.
As you may not know, this wasn’t exactly a planned hiatus. Probably not unlike other writers out there, somehow I got myself into this rut where I didn’t believe I had anything worthwhile to say that wasn’t already probably being said by someone else. So, I stopped writing. Though, that is not to say that I didn’t miss the satisfaction of getting my thoughts down in black and white, which I truly did miss.
Anyway, a number of different inspirations have come together for me lately to inspire me to recommit to some new goals for this blog and I wanted to start by sharing these insights with you here. I’m hoping these will guide me on a new course, one that we’ll both consider worthy of sticking around for. Read more »
What makes my thoughts or ideas any more or less prophetic, important, or meaningful than anyone else’s?
I’m sure I could say some things that some people in search of such wisdom haven’t heard before. They’d probably be rather impressed with what I’d communicate. Who knows though…if I were referencing commonly held beliefs or affirmations often heard in circles that others just haven’t encountered yet, perhaps they would hear the same thing somewhere else along their journey anyway. Isn’t there a phrase about: “When the student is ready, the teacher will be there”? Read more »
The ubiquity and accessibility of the Internet has long since given flight to the belief that: “Everyone has a book in them.” Some of us will write that book. Some of us won’t.
Motivational gurus will work to encourage us to get our book(s) written. Additionally, The Long Tail theory will insure that a broad range of books (of varying content and quality) will get written and read.
Clearly writing a book that gets published and read by others makes most authors feel worthy and satisfied at putting forth their best effort to leave a, hopefully lasting, legacy of some sort behind.
Yet, just because a book gets written doesn’t mean it’s a good book. Of course, “good” is a broad and relative term. Clearly not every book idea is worth writing or reading, regardless of whether or not that indubitably will take place.
Of all the good books that do get written by good writers, the reality about books is as follows: Read more »
I must admit that when I first saw the agenda for the Writer’s Digest Conference, taking place in NYC this year, I didn’t quite understand why there was such a big social media focus at the event. I wondered if the event organizers weren’t just jumping on the bandwagon of the latest online trends.
Gladly, my skepticism turned out to be quite short-lived. Right from the very first session I attended, I immediately understood that this apparent merging of topics wasn’t any kind of a forced fit, but instead was a natural union that made perfect sense. The book publishing environment is clearly changing — it’s not just about getting an agent and finding a publisher anymore.
I decided that since my learnings might be of interest to some of my fellow creative friends, I put together this list of 8 things I learned about “21st Century publishing” and how social media can be used to legitimately bypass the bombarded Gatekeepers and make you a successful Gatejumper. Read more »
There is a lot of advice out there. Ask different coaches for advice on how to be successful and you’ll probably get a lot of different answers, sometimes conflicting, but certainly a core set of common beliefs, too.
Clearly one common ingredient to the success equation is: “having passion”.
A nice clarification I recently heard goes something like this: Passion alone won’t make you successful, but without passion, success isn’t likely or sustainable either – or, more technically speaking, passion is a “necessary, but not sufficient” condition.
So, what gets me speaking about passion now? Well, a recent post on this topic on Problogger: “How Passion Can Transform Your Blog”, along with the “Trust Agents” theme of “humanizing the Web”, has spurred me to share my passions as an experiment to see what, if anything, comes of it.
So, What Am I Passionate About?
Some passions are not so simple to rein in, but here goes…. Read more »
What if we all had a story in us that needed to be told, but we couldn’t find the words to tell it? What if we never tried?
What if we wanted to do or say something that didn’t exist yet, how could we even begin to describe what it might be?
What if it’s a feeling that we didn’t know how to describe? Does that really mean that such a feeling doesn’t exist or that others might not also be experiencing the same thing?
What if that word or topic we are searching for existed somewhere, but we just didn’t know where to find it? Or perhaps it’s a “Buzzword of the Year”, for the year 2012? Read more »
Okay, time is about up! The “100 Articles in a 100 Days” contest which I wrote about in my last post is as good as over.
While I started off with high hopes of accomplishing what I now realize was an overly-ambitious goal of completing this contest in about 1/3 of the allotted time, not surprisingly, that didn’t happen. But that’s okay. I’m still glad I gave it a go.
Surprisingly, I didn’t realize that I would learn as much as I did in such a short period of time. If you are curious, here’s what I got out of my brief participation in this challenge: Read more »
This month I’ve belatedly and ambitiously undertaken the “100 Articles in 100 Days” challenge via Ezinearticles.com. And, since I only found out about it with less than 30 days left, this is an extra big challenge for me. Apparently it is still do-able, so I’ve decided to give it a go.
I don’t know why this challenge excites me. I’ve never succeeded at anything like it before. As it is, I already seem to have a hard enough time trying to write more than two blog posts a month anyway. But, for some reason (maybe it’s the bragging rights) this challenge has caught my attention. If I succeed at it, it will be the hardest I’ve ever worked for a coffee mug (so you can see, the “prize” isn’t the big draw either.) But, I particularly like that I can write about anything I want. Read more »
We usually can’t recognize the tipping point of exactly when a pleasurable pursuit suddenly becomes a dreaded job, a.k.a. work. Yet, we clearly know when that line has been crossed. 
