The Creativity Project: Falling Behind
Trying to not get discouraged.
January’s almost over and I’m already falling behind on my goals. Not the easy ones, of course, but the harder, have to put the work in goals. And it’s hard to not be discouraged by my progress in them.
Mostly, I’m having difficulty in staying caught up in my writing. I set a goal this year to average typing up one thousand words and handwriting two notebook pages a day. This is just about being consistent and showing up for my writing.
The problem is: I’m in the part of the typing process on my book where it’s just 20 words here or 100 words there. I spend more time reading the book to find where something’s missing than I do actually writing. And by the time I realize how much time I’ve spent on the book, the day is over and I haven’t handwritten anything.
And it feels like I’m now on an uphill battle to meet my goals. I know that once this book is over and to my alpha reader, the words will flow for the next book, but this is not how I wanted the year to start. I wanted to bank a ton of words early so I wouldn’t feel like I’m constantly behind the eight ball.
As much as I want to implement very strict guidelines to catch up, I know that, more than likely, that way leads to burnout and writer’s block. And I don’t need another round of writer’s block. Been there, done that.
So what’s the plan? That’s the million dollar question. On days that the words are flowing, I am going to do everything in my power to cut my distractions so I can capitalize on the good days. On the bad days (or the super busy days), I’m going to give myself grace because I know I can do this. I basically did it last year without thinking about it.
I just have to remember why I’m doing this and not let the set backs knock me down for good.
