Whatever your long-term goal, meeting short-term milestones is the key to success. As is enduring between them. The troughs between the high points is where it’s easiest to quit. Our souls are most vulnerable there. Our love for competing with ourselves is most at risk. It’s these between places where we’re more likely to hit a wall we feel we can’t possible scale…
I’ve achieved several of work/book milestones the first half of 2012: getting back under contract; finishing novels; building up the editing side of my business; rediscovering what feeds me as an artists and committing myself to that journey above all else.
Personally, there have been even more highs: 21st wedding anniversary; my teenager’s success in his 3rd semester of high school, his kick-ass internship, his (waaaaaaa!) obtaining his driver’s license and next step toward freedom; my getting a handle on the health issues that have ground most everything else into the dust for 3 years and owning, along with my artistic inspiration, what will be required likely for the rest of my life to keep me thriving.
Startling progress for six months of living, particularly after the slow down that became my 2010 and 2011… Then I hit a wall in July that narrowed my focus to quite honestly getting through the next minute, next hour, next day, next deadline. So help me God, I was going to get through! And I did. Where, exactly, did July and the first part of August go?
No wonder all I want to do right now is sit in a corner and quietly, passively, watch the world go by.
Like with the distance runners and swimmers we cheered on in the Olympics, just before and just after a peak in performance we’re exhausted as our bodies and minds are wanting to let down. We’re inspired, yes, but often least able to believe that pushing through MUST be done before all else. Our focus is skewed toward a short-term goal, and we begin to wander, to wonder, to miss the point0–that the journey is key, not the result. The nearest result is the most important in our eyes, and it can begin to seem not as valuable as resting and relaxing and breathing and sleeping. We’re either reaching toward or recovering from something amazing, and so we begin to say to ourselves, “That’s enough. No more. Why put yourself through the next push you’re going to have to make, when you’ve achieved so much already?”
We’re drained, the creativity is literally dripping out of our pores and we’re running on empty…The very best of our creativity fading away with our need to recharge…
So why not make the rest we need a permanent vacation? Why fight through the last milestone and start all over again, reaching for the next?
Because we’re fighters, that’s why. We want the next goal, too, as much as we wanted the last one. We crave creating and sharing and starting over and, yes, finishing the next fight, the next struggle, the next beautiful thing that begins and ends with our efforts and determination and inspiration.
Here’s to the next push, my friends. I’m back to blogging and social media and daily writing. I have two more major writing projects to finish before the end of the year, along with lots of smaller tasks to complete. Ambitious stuff, particularly with a Christmas release coming out in October. But my family’s behind me and I’ve taken a few weeks to rest, and my friends are lining up to cheer and encourage and keep the creative fuel I need flowing through my veins.
Here’s to the last five months of 2012, the next two major goals, and all the smaller triumphs and challenges in between… It’s time to push onward. It’s time to refocus on the long-term, not stay stuck in merely the bliss of a static now. In this between place, it would be so easy to say I’m done. But my soul needs more. It needs to see the next challenge achieved as well.
Join me (and hopefully feel just as inspired yourself), won’t you?
Tags: anna’s world, creativity & inspiration, writer, writer resource, writing, writing articles, writing coach, writing craft, writing resources
Anna, congrats on getting back on track!
I hear ya, and thanks for putting it into words.
Next time someone asks why I’m putting myself through it, I’ll direct them to your blog.
Fight on.
K.
Agree wholeheartedly with the smaller milestone achievements. We have to celebrate them and know that each one is building something bigger. We have to keep moving forward. Here’s to wonderful creative fuel.
Anna, pretty much any motivational blog you post is exactly what I need to read. Thank you for sharing this post. I totally got everything you related. Prayers for your health, best wishes in all your endeavors and may God watch over your son as he takes his independence one step further. Mine is due to get his permit come November. That–and him snowboarding–are two of the three things that give me the heebie-jeebies when it comes to him. Take care!