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WritersNotes.Net: Helping Writers Follow Their Dreams Through Information, Inspiration, and Encouragement!
This post is a reprint of a piece I originally wrote as a guest post for Michele Tune at Writing the Cyber Highway. Some of you may remember that it first appeared there on June 2, 2008. Hope you'll enjoy it--and hope it will give you some helpful tools you can use to find--or generate--the motivation to write.
Motivation to Write: Is There a Magic Formula?
When You Don’t Feel Like Writing
How do you motivate yourself to write when you don’t feel like writing? How do you convince yourself to get down to business when you’d rather do anything but?
Have you ever had those days when you just can’t seem to face the prospect of writing that article that’s coming due, that query letter you know you should write, or that blog post that will remind your readers that you haven’t fallen off the face of the earth…that you’re not only still around but that you’re actually still interested in sharing your wit and wisdom with them? (I thought so!) You want to write, but you just can’t seem to make yourself do it.
Lack of Motivation: A Common Problem
Every writer struggles with these feelings from time to time—many of us quite often. And for bloggers and other online writers who work from home, life can be particularly distracting, as we’re continually bombarded not only with the household responsibilities that continually beckon, but also with the many available—and attractive—alternatives to working.
Such tempting activities as commenting on other blogs, visiting social media sites, checking our site stats, looking for nifty high-tech tools for our web pages, reading unrelated but interesting content during our online research, and any number of other enjoyable and otherwise productive activities often only serve to intensify our motivation problem and derail us from our efforts to fulfill our writing responsibilities.
What’s a Writer to Do?
The most important thing is to realize that motivation is a state of mind. It can come from many sources. Some of them follow.
The Writer’s Most Common Motivation Sources
Enthusiasm
When we’re feeling really enthusiastic about a project, don’t we find it so much easier to throw ourselves into completing it—even when the project itself is difficult or involved? If you can work up the enthusiasm to actually relish the prospect of writing about your topic, you will have won a great victory.
To do that, try taking your focus off the negative aspects of the project and focusing, instead, on something positive about the piece—something you can actually enjoy about it. If the subject matter itself doesn’t interest you, try focusing on a specific writing technique that you’ve mastered which you’re particularly proud of and which you plan to use for the piece.
If need be, you can even focus on a favorite writing tool, some physical part of the writing process that you enjoy, or the satisfaction you receive from your excellent spelling ability, extensive vocabulary, fantastic research skills, or even the way your well-formatted work looks on the page. A little enthusiasm will go a long way toward helping you thrive on the journey ahead, making it so much easier to reach your destination.
Interest
When we’re interested in our topic, writing about it grips our attention, draws us into our content, and keeps us going. It causes time to fly by, making us wonder where it could have gone. Interest can fuel the energy that helps us build momentum, spurring us on toward the realization of our writing goals.
If you’re able to pick and choose your projects so you’re only required to write about topics that interest you, great! You’ll have a much easier time motivating yourself to complete your writing assignments. But, if not, try finding something about the project that captures your interest—even if it takes a stretch of the imagination to discover it. It will be well worth the effort!
If the project itself doesn’t hold any fascination for you, try asking yourself a few questions. Will publishing this piece open your work up to a wider audience, giving you greater exposure? Will it place you before a new demographic or offer you a coveted spot in a brand new niche? Will it add to your credibility as a writer and/or as an expert in your current niche or genre? Will it allow you to showcase your work to prospective new clients? Will it open new doors of opportunity for you in other areas either related or unrelated to writing? These are all great reasons for feeling motivated about your writing project!
Inspiration
Inspiration sweeps us high above the mediocrity of our surroundings, activating our imaginations and infusing us with a power that makes expressing our thoughts via the written word practically effortless. Don’t we just adore the times when we’re fortunate enough to function under the tutelage of this most welcome influence? When it strikes, we see everything in a brand new light, and that helps us rise to bold new heights of creativity. Yet, when inspiration tarries, we often become discouraged.
At times like these, we need to generate a little inspiration of our own. One way we can do this is through the vehicle of high and noble thoughts. Focusing on our ideals and on the meaningful messages we hope to convey to our readers through our writing can jump-start the inspiration process. We can also inspire ourselves through the purposeful recall of vividly meaningful memories, of people we’ve known and loved or joys we’ve experienced. Or we can generate inspiration through the intentional act of surrounding ourselves with beauty. Stirring music, beautiful art, a lovely garden, a distinctively decorated writing nook—all these can help us create an atmosphere that’s conducive to inspiration. And all these can help us motivate ourselves to write.
Reward
The expectation of reward can be another excellent motivator. The reward might be a tangible one like money or an intangible one like recognition. It can even be something as simple—yet sensational—as the sense of satisfaction or feeling of fulfillment we derive from our writing. Just knowing that our work will help someone or that someone will enjoy it can bring its own reward, strengthening our motivation to complete a project.
And though money can often be a great motivator, we sometimes feel we aren’t receiving sufficient compensation for our work—particularly in the web-writing arena, where the going rates tend to be lower—and this can have a demotivating effect on us. That’s why it’s so important not to overlook the intangible rewards—to allow them to provide the impetus to keep us moving forward.
The Role of Attitude in Motivation
We need to realize that we are responsible for our own attitudes. We choose our own thoughts, as well as the lens through which we view the world. We can choose to see our project as a problem—a burden that’s been thrust upon us and one that we must grit our teeth and struggle through, hating every minute of it. Or we can decide to think differently about it—to remain positive and proactively seek ways to make it more than just another piece of writing.
Sometimes it takes sheer willpower to motivate ourselves to write, but I’m convinced that we can make a conscious decision to throw ourselves into our project. (In fact, I know we can, because I’ve proven it to myself again and again in my own writing.) We can make our writing a real extension of who we are, infusing it with that spark of personality, talent, expertise, imagination, and careful craftsmanship that only we can provide, making it a piece we can be proud to write—even if it’s a project that wouldn’t otherwise move us.
The Writer’s Last Resort
When all else fails, we may need to put a popular anti-procrastination technique to work and just do it, trusting that the motivation will follow as we gradually enter into our project. At times like these, it helps to remember that the ability to write when we don’t feel like it—when the intrinsic motivation, interest, enthusiasm, and inspiration escape us—is what separates the professional from the amateur.
And that knowledge alone can serve as our last-ditch motivator—because it’s a truth that carries its own reward.
Happy writing!
Jeanne
Note: I will resume my Guide to Polished Writing shortly.
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What Our Writing Is Made Of
Writing is a discipline that calls upon so many experiences, influences, facts, ideas, and emotions that it can be difficult to measure the effect of each of these on the literary whole. Because each of our lives, personalities, relationships, and outlooks differ so drastically, our own particular writing style, our tone, content, and insights tend quite naturally to reflect these personal values and combine to create the unique voice that is “us.”
Life Lessons Enrich Our Writing
Everyone and everything we encounter in life has a lesson in it—if we will only look for it. Sometimes that lesson will be glaringly obvious and sometimes buried a bit farther beneath the surface of our experience or our consciousness. Yet, it’s always there patiently waiting for us to discover its wisdom and apply it to our lives, increasing their richness. Only after we’ve done that can we apply that hard-won wisdom to our writing, one lesson at a time, and in that way pass it on to those for whom we write.
Some of My Own Lessons
Here are some lessons I’ve learned* during the course of my life:
School can be a place of real growth—yet not all learning happens there. Or perhaps it might be better said that “school” is everywhere.
Writing gives us the incredible privilege of speaking into the lives of other people. When our readers invite us in and attend to our words, it is we who receive the greater reward.
Children playing outside my window as I work remind me that laughter, simplicity, and chalk-pictures drawn all over the sidewalks of our lives bring a fresh, new perspective to an often inflexible grown-up world.
Television can be an insufferable distraction or a relaxing respite from overwork. At the same time, it can spark new ideas and increase knowledge. It’s up to each of us how we use it.
Recreation is an absolute necessity for a balanced life and an uninterrupted flow of inspiration. It rejuvenates us, recharges our batteries, replenishes our zeal, and renews our zest for life. Like the law of gravity, we ignore this truth to our own detriment.
Relatives shape our lives in so many ways; yet what we become is ultimately up to us. And the manner in which we use the lessons learned from our family ties determines who we will become and what we’ll have to offer those who later enter our lives.
Movies can affect us in powerful ways when artfully produced, touching our core, stirring noble emotions, and spurring us on to greater creativity. Classic movies often do this for me.
Friends help us feel better about ourselves than we think we should, building our confidence and helping us believe that we can accomplish our hearts’ desires—no matter what anyone else may think. They’re always in our corner, helping us fight the next round in the battle of life.
Heroes come in all shapes and sizes, colors, ages, and abilities—or disabilities. And the majority never receive the recognition they deserve. Yet, we are watching, and they profoundly affect our lives, giving us greater courage to face our own challenges and showing us that doing so is always well worth the effort.
Planes prove to us that we can do the impossible, that mankind—born without wings—can still soar high into the skies on wings powered by the science of aerodynamics, defying the laws of gravity, or by the magic of inspiration, defying the limits of mere logic.
Food of the physical, mental, and spiritual variety is necessary for health of body, mind, and spirit. Yet the single area where we seem to indulge most is the physical, though copious amounts of this type of food contribute the least of any of the three to our creativity.
Pets bring us pleasure and companionship and so often teach us the meaning of unconditional love, loyalty, and trust. Life with our pets is straightforward and uncomplicated, without the emotional complexity that so often plagues human relationships. When we bond with a beloved pet, we receive more than we give.
Trains are virtually unstoppable—as long as they remain on track. They teach us that we, too, will be unstoppable if we maintain our focus, build momentum, stay on track, and keep our eyes on the destination ahead.
Time marches incessantly forward, waiting for nothing, relentlessly passing, and quietly but powerfully leaving its mark on everything within its massive sphere of influence. It reminds us that nothing ever remains as it was, that life is dynamic, that we either grow or decay, improve or regress, move forward or backward with every passing day.
Space symbolizes freedom, the ability to move about without restraint—within as well as without. It represents our ability to break the self-imposed emotional bonds that constrain us and keep us imprisoned within their invisible yet powerful walls—and almost irresistibly beckons us to do so.
Automobiles represent convenience, mobility, “shorter” distances between people and between people and places. They narrow the gap that nature has placed in our path and help us to use the freedom of space to our greatest advantage. Our psychological “automobiles” are any of the things that minimize the relational “gaps” between people—things like understanding, respect, courtesy, love, and forgiveness.
Technology teaches us the vastness of human potential, promising not only future discoveries by the geniuses of the world for the improvement of our lives but also the virtually limitless nature of our own personal discoveries, our own as yet unrealized possibilities. It also connects us to people, products, information, and services in ways we’ve never connected before, enriching us in the process.
Mountains remind us that, though life isn’t always easy, it’s beautiful, glorious, majestic, and wholly worthwhile; and as long as we keep on climbing, we always have a chance of reaching the top.
Keep learning...climbing...and writing!
Jeanne
This post is my entry to the Middle Zone Musings What I Learned From…Mashing It Up! group writing project.
* Just to clarify: The 18 areas in which I've discussed my lessons learned were not chosen by me, but were the 18 fascinating topics Robert Hruzek dreamed up especially for this WILF mashup.
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Reprinted with permission by Brad Shorr, Word Sell, Inc.
Expectations, Expectations!
When you take on a writing assignment for a new client or begin a new contract-writing job for a company you haven't worked with before, do you sometimes feel the way the new hire in this cartoon must feel? Do you feel as if you're under pressure to perform, to shine, to live up to the client's (no doubt considerable) expectations for the piece or project you've signed on to? Though this feeling is very common, it does, thankfully, tend to decrease somewhat with time and experience. Yet, when it does strike, it can be very debilitating and not at all helpful to a writer's creativity.
From Triumph to Trepidation in 30 Seconds
When we're offered a writing assignment that we've taken the time, energy, and effort to pursue, the feeling can be exhilarating. Yet, often as not, that wonderful feeling of excitement and triumph over the accomplishment of successfully marketing ourselves and our writing skills immediately gives way to panic, as we suddenly realize that getting the assignment is only the beginning--that now we actually have to deliver the goods. That can be a frightening thought!
The Vulnerability of the Writer's Psyche
As writers, our work is tied in to our egos in a way that many other lines of work are not, because our writing represents us and it comes from within. To a great extent, we often feel that our personal value is tied up in our ability to write things that others will read, accept, enjoy, and gladly pay us for, which can place us in a very vulnerable position emotionally. It doesn't really matter what kind of writing we do--from short stories or novels, to article-writing, copywriting, SEO writing, or blogging--the effect is still the same. (Ghostwriting is one type in which this vulnerability may be slightly less potent, since no one but the client will know who wrote the piece. Yet, even then we can feel that twinge of fear that reminds us that perhaps the client won't think our creation worthy.)
What's a Writer to Do?
What can we do to overcome these debilitating emotions and help ourselves do the best job we can on every piece of writing we do--without turning into nervous wrecks?
Here are a few tips that might just help you the next time you're faced with these feelings:
1. Give yourself a pat on the back.
You got the assignment, contract, or project. That means the client believes in your ability to deliver a suitable and well-written finished product. It also says something about you: You were able to present yourself and your writing talents well enough--and likely in writing--to give the client confidence in you. This does represent a victory, so savor it. You have every right to. Don't spoil it by second-guessing your own ability to follow through on the promises made in your sales pitch. It's true that you have a great deal of work ahead of you, but that's only because you got the assignment!
2. Maintain confidence in your own ability.
You believed you could do the job when you applied for the assignment or contract. Don't let your faith in your writing ability waver now that the client agrees with you. Though you admittedly have a great responsibility ahead of you, you are a writer...this is what you do! Don't give in to doubt and fear. It's OK if a little fear is there; it can help motivate you for action. Just don't let it get out of hand, and determine to move forward and through it. A touch of doubt is acceptable, too, because it can help keep you humble, reminding you that, though you may be a good writer, you aren't the only good writer, and you were fortunate to receive this assignment. Again, don't let doubt get the better of you, though; instead, move beyond it.
3. Cheer yourself on.
Give yourself a pep talk. Remind yourself of all that you've accomplished in the past. Even if this is your first paid writing gig, you'll have some past (albeit unpaid) writing successes to remember--particularly if you're a blogger. Think about your natural skill set, and mentally list the traits that make you particularly suited for this job. Are you analytical, creative, research-oriented, prolific, expressive, engaging? This list will help prepare you for the project by reminding you of all that you have to offer, fueling your imagination, and motivating you for the task ahead. It will help get your mind off your doubts and fears and on the project, allowing you to focus your energies on developing a creative method for completing it.
4. Use your prep work to enter fully into your project.
Brainstorm, research, outline, visualize--in short, do whatever it takes to prepare yourself for the actual writing. Ponder your possible topic, angle, mood, tone, style, approach--all the things that will determine the form and direction of your piece. Seek inspiration anywhere you can find it. Search Google for ideas on what others have done with this topic. Visit blogs, article directories, or other websites with similar content. Look in books, magazines, or newspapers--either on- or off-line--and see what clicks. But remember that the important thing is that you fully enter into your project, that it engrosses all your mental faculties, including your imagination. You'll then have a firm foundation on which to create a real work of art--in whatever field, genre, or writing niche you may be targeting.
5. Jump right in...begin to write...and get in "the Zone."
If possible, tackle the project while motivation is high--in other words, soon after your pep talk. (There will, of course, be times when you'll be required, as a freelancer, to write whether you feel motivated or not; though even during those times, a positive attitude will go a long way toward building motivation for your required writing task.) The key here is to just get started. Once you've done your research, planning, organizing, outlining, brainstorming, or visualizing, it's time to get to work turning those raw materials into the beautiful piece of writing you know you can create. Often simply starting to write will begin creating a magic we couldn't have anticipated before we began. It helps to get us in "the Zone"--that creative place where nearly anything becomes possible.
6. Trust your instincts, and then craft the best piece you can.
Always do your best work--no matter how big or small the project or the client. Even when ghostwriting, always keep the quality of your work high. After all, though your ghost-written piece may not represent you to the world, it represents you to your client--and even more importantly, it represents your client to the world. If you're interested in a return engagement with this client, always make him or her look fantastic!
Instinct will tell you when you may be straying off the mark--and these instincts will grow and develop with time, practice, and experience. Always listen to the little inner voice that tells you something isn't right in your approach, because first instincts often turn out to be correct. (This doesn't mean you should listen to the voice that tries to tell you that you aren't good enough. That voice is counter-productive. It will never help you reach your writing goals and should always be ignored.) Create the best piece of writing you can, and then submit it to your client with confidence--and before deadline! (If asked for revisions, remember to always do them cheerfully.)
By following the above advice, you should have little trouble with the kind of feelings our friend in the above cartoon faces--because, for the writer, such feelings generally arise from insecurity, rather than reality.
Happy writing!
Jeanne
Acknowledgment: Many thanks to Brad Shorr, of Word Sell, Inc., for permission to use the above cartoon.
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A Thoughtful Post That Strikes a Chord
Successful Blog's Advice for a Successful Life
Liz Strauss has a new post on her blog today called Positively Me, and it positively struck a chord with...me. In fact, it got me thinking about the amazingly potent effect that mindset exerts on all of us and how daring to break the mold of our past self-limiting thought patterns can be incredibly freeing.
This post describes a journey from limiting thought to freeing thought—a journey that every one of us is free to take once we've made up our minds that the place where we are today is not the place we want to be—or rather not the place we're willing to stay—but we're ready to move on. As Liz asks, "Do I have to keep listening to those ideas? Do I have to keep believing them?" The answer, I think, is "No." Here's my journey:
My Journey to Becoming Positively Me
Choosing Hurtful Emotions
I used to believe that other people—through their attitudes, actions, emotions, and words—had the inalienable right to dictate my own. Where that belief came from, I can’t really say. But, thankfully, I’ve learned a lot since then. Yet, I needed to walk that road just long enough to begin to see, with gradually increasing clarity, that my own attitudes, actions, and words—as well as my very emotions—were largely mine to choose, and that I myself had chosen the hurtful, destructive, and limiting ones over the healthy, nurturing, life-affirming, and freeing ones.
Absorbing Negative Energy
Prior to my “awakening,” my emotions were at the beck and call of anyone who saw fit to wreak psychological havoc on the closest vulnerable individual—who usually happened to be me. In those days, my entire day could be ruined by an unkind word, an angry glance, an “intentional” slight, or a sullen silence. My calling in life seemed to be to absorb and internalize the negative energy that others sent my way. (As I think back on it now, I realize that much of that negative energy wasn’t even intended to wound, but was simply the other person’s reaction to his or her own internal struggles or problems.) Yet, it rarely occurred to me to question the reason for it; I was far too busy embracing and reacting to it—far too involved in making it my very own.
A Turning Point: Refusing Negativity
When it finally came, the wonderful realization that I could choose my own response, that I wasn’t required to become upset, depressed, or angry when a hurtful word—or even a whole barrage of them—was aimed my way, felt like a cool breeze on a stifling hot desert. It freed me to focus on growth instead of nurturing resentment, depression, and anger—those incredibly destructive forces that suck the life from our souls and cause our spirits to shrivel. It allowed me to refuse that bundle of negativity that had been so unceremoniously thrust upon me—granting me permission to return it unopened to the individual to whom it rightfully belonged, thereby maintaining my own equilibrium amid the threatening storm.
I learned that it was indeed possible to rise above the negativity—to stop allowing it to become my negativity. By stepping back and looking at the situation as it actually was—recognizing it as someone else’s problem fast threatening to become my own—I was able to refuse it, retain my dignity, and restore my self-respect.
Learning to Forgive
Another amazing result of my new perspective was my growing ability to empathize with the troubled souls who, in their own weakness and inability to properly handle their personal problems, try desperately to give them away. In time, it even helped me to forgive and eventually reach out to those who, as a result of their own emotional ineptitude, had lashed out in different ways. Forgiveness is life-changing, and in human relations, at least, can be far more beneficial to the forgiver than to the forgiven—though both often benefit.
A Shift of Focus
I now realize that, back then, my focus was turned totally inward on myself—on my own very vulnerable emotions. I walked around in a state of hyper-sensitivity, effectively daring everyone to probe for the chinks in my emotional armor—my all-too-numerous points of insecurity—and amply rewarding them whenever they did.
But I have since learned that, by shifting my focus to the other person and attempting to understand the real cause of his or her negative attitude, I can effectively take control of—and thereby protect—my own emotions. I've discovered that, by not aggressively defending my emotions, I have quite ironically become far better at protecting them. In this way, I've learned to take charge of a situation that previously had always threatened to spin wildly out of control. I now experience far fewer feelings of defensiveness, insecurity, and low self-esteem. And while I’ve by no means eliminated these feelings entirely, I’ve come a very long way…and I fully intend to continue improving…just a little bit more…every…single…day…
How about you?
Positively happy to be me,
Jeanne
P.S. Why not use Liz's post as your starting point for a writing exercise of your own in which you explore one way your thoughts have changed for the better over time, bringing you positive growth.
This is not a sponsored post.
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Writing and Business: A Common Goal
As writers, we all share one ultimate goal: Whether we freelance, provide copy for our employers, donate our writing services to churches or other non-profits, share our hearts and/or insights through our blogs, or simply write for our own enjoyment, our dream is to be successful in our chosen area of endeavor. And, though each of us defines success in our own personal way, there's little question that our ultimate destination--at least our psychological one--is the same: to experience the sense of accomplishment that comes from knowing that we have succeeded in meeting our life goals. In this sense, our personal and/or business-related objectives are not very different from those of any business organization, and therefore, our means of achieving them will also be very much the same.
In the world of business, there are a number of very basic principles which, when correctly understood and applied, can arm employers and managers with the tools they need to create an environment that is conducive to employee success. At least one of these principles applies every bit as much to the individual entrepreneur—including the freelance writer—who seeks to succeed in making his or her dreams a reality.
Failure-Tolerant Leadership: The Principle
This principle is called Failure-Tolerant Leadership, and while generally applied (as mentioned above) only to those individuals who are in positions of authority within an organization, this valuable concept can be easily adapted to the endeavors of each of us as individuals.
Failure Is Only a Temporary Setback
Failure-Tolerant Leadership is the ability of an employer or manager to accept failure as nothing more than a temporary setback on the journey to eventual success. In the viewpoint of such a leader, present failure not only can, but when properly handled and used as a guide to future strategy, likely will become the very catalyst that will fuel future success.
Failure Should Be Viewed as an Opportunity
Failure-Tolerant Leaders not only have a knack for seeing the potential good that can come of failure, but they also possess the uncanny ability to convey their own optimistic, success-oriented vision to others. Rather than seeing and projecting the negative side of failure, as most people tend to do, they recognize that with every failure comes a corresponding opportunity—-an opportunity to take the insights gleaned through failure and use them to forge an entirely new strategy for successfully reaching either the original or a newly modified goal.
Every Attempt at Success Involves Risk
Failure-Tolerant Leaders recognize that whenever a momentous task is undertaken, there will always be a tremendous risk for failure. This potential for coming up short of the mark simply goes hand-in-hand with any attempt to reach it, and the Failure-Tolerant Leader knows this. This is one reason why the Failure-Tolerant Leader does not engage in personal criticism when an employee fails to meet a goal, but rather utilizes both objective review of the strategy used and balanced evaluation of where the plan may have gone off track and why.
Personal Criticism Is Counterproductive
Failure-Tolerant Leaders realize that personal attacks on employees for their errors, shortcomings, inexperience, lapses in judgment, or unwise decisions are counterproductive and only tend to guarantee that the pattern of failure will repeat itself in the future, as the employee becomes even more wary of taking risks. The Failure-Tolerant Leader, instead, projects to the employee the sense that they are both working together to find a solution to a shared problem—-one which both of them have an equal stake in.
Positive, Proactive Collaboration Creates Confidence
In this way, the Failure-Tolerant Leader invigorates his or her staff, infusing them with the confidence they need to go out and give it one more try, to be bold enough to think the situation through, explore new avenues, develop a superior strategy, and take another carefully calculated risk.
Failure Tolerance Equals Permission to Try Again
In short, Failure-Tolerant Leaders encourage their employees to adopt an attitude of daring—to dare to dream, to plan, to hope, to work toward a goal, and perhaps most importantly, to believe in their own ability to achieve it—if not this time, then maybe the next.
Failure-Tolerant Leadership and Freelance Writing: The Application
How does this translate into helpful advice for us as writers? Freelance writers—and any number of other individuals who are working toward a goal of any kind—can adopt the foregoing concepts, applying them to their own situation with incredibly positive results. How? Read on.
1. Determine to Become a Failure-Tolerant Self-Leader/Manager
Convince yourself, to your own satisfaction, that this principle is a valuable weapon in your self-improvement and writing success arsenal. Then, once convinced, determine to use it as a catalyst to positive change in your own situation.
2. Recognize that Failing at Something Doesn’t Make You a Failure
We are all human, we all make mistakes, and no matter how much we may hate to admit it, none of us is right 100% of the time! If failing at something at any given time made us failures, guess what every single one of us would be?
3. View Every Failure as an Opportunity
Failure gives us the chance to pause, take stock of ourselves and our situation, learn from our mistakes, gain wisdom, insight, and valuable experience, and grow in ways we never could have otherwise.
4. Give Yourself a Break
Don’t beat yourself up over your shortcomings. The best leaders in any field recognize their very human weaknesses and past failures, accept them, and move on. (This does not mean they are complacent or that they do not seek self-improvement, however.) The cream of the crop among leaders actually admit their past—and present—mistakes to others, as well as to themselves, providing others with a valuable opportunity to learn from their example.
5. Be Objective
Analyze the causes of the temporary setbacks you encounter in reaching your goals. Figure out exactly where things went off track and why, and incorporate that knowledge into building a new, superior strategy for future success. But recognize that, just as a house is built one brick at a time, so it is with your success. And, unless you are among the greatest of artisans and working under absolutely ideal conditions, your project will likely require regular doses of trial and error.
6. Never Give Up!
If you do, you’ll never know how close you may have come to phenomenal success!
Good luck!
Jeanne
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Writers, as a rule, tend to have a great deal to say about many subjects--and writing is no exception. Here are a few pearls of wisdom on the writing craft from some of history's most prolific authors:
There's nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and open a vein. ~Red Smith~
Read over your compositions, and when you meet a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it out. ~Samuel Johnson~
A good many young writers make the mistake of enclosing a stamped, self-addressed envelope, big enough for the manuscript to come back in. That is too much of a temptation to the editor. ~Ring Lardner~
Writing is a wholetime job: no professional writer can afford only to write when he feels like it. ~W. Somerset Maugham~
The secret of popular writing is never to put more on a given page than the common reader can lap off it with no strain WHATSOEVER on his habitually slack attention. ~Ezra Pound~
Better to write for yourself and have no public than write for the public and have no self. ~Cyril Connolly~
If you want to get rich from writing, write the sort of thing that's read by people who move their lips when they're reading to themselves. ~Don Marquis~
In composing, as a general rule, run your pen through every other word you have written; you have no idea what vigor it will give to your style. ~Sydney Smith~
Not that the story need be long, but it will take a long while to make it short. ~Henry David Thoreau~
There are no dull subjects. There are only dull writers. ~H.L. Mencken~
You can write about anything, and if you write well enough, even the reader with no intrinsic interest in the subject will become involved. ~Tracy Kidder~
The wastepaper basket is the writer's best friend. ~Isaac Bashevis Singer~
When I sit at my table to write, I never know what it's going to be till I'm under way. I trust inspiration, which sometimes comes and sometimes doesn't. But I don't sit back waiting for it. I work every day. ~Alberto Moravia~
It's not wise to violate the rules until you know how to observe them. ~T. S. Eliot~
The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and the lightning bug. ~Mark Twain~
The secret of good writing is to say an old thing a new way or to say a new thing an old way. ~Richard Harding Davis~
Well, dear Aspiring Writer, now that you've read all this practical advice, all these clever witticisms, and all these words of inspiration penned by wordsmiths who have actually accomplished what you may only dream of, there's only one thing left for you to do if you'd like to join their ranks: WRITE!
Literarily Yours,
Jeanne
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