habits

Stage 3: Taking Action

Published on by Kristi Holl

Ready for Stage 3? It’s about taking action.

(First read The Dynamics of Change, Stage 1: Making Up Your Mind, and Stage 2: Committing to Change.)

If you’ve done your homework in Stages 1 and 2, you’re probably more excited about this action phase than you would normally be.

Why? You’re prepared. You’re motivated. You’ve taken obstacles into account already.

You’re primed for success.

Action Steps

As mentioned before, this stage includes several big steps:

  • You must decide when, where and how to start.
  • You must show up to start despite fears and self-doubts.
  • You must focus on each (present) step, rather than focusing on the end (future) goal.

This is the exciting stage because you’re past making excuses and procrastinating and giving in to the fear of change. You’re done rehearsing and experimenting. It’s now time to take action. You take steps on the path that leads to your goal. Note that shift in focus. The daily path is now more important than the end goal. So find ways to make each successful step enjoyable.

Create Action Plans

An action plan is exactly what it sounds like–a written plan to take concrete action steps to perform a behavior that leads to accomplishing your end goal. An action plan involves when you will do something, where you will do it, and how you will do it.

Run this when-where-how scenario through your mind for each step of your action plan. Be detailed. It doesn’t have to take a long time, but this mental rehearsal is immensely helpful. The more detailed the mental rehearsal, the higher the probability that you will actually initiate the behavior.

To help you create action plans, ask yourself these questions:

  • When do you want to start working on your goal? (day and time)
  • Where will you start? (time and place)
  • What specific action step will you take at this time?
  • How will you keep this commitment?

Time to Show Up

Fear and self-doubt can raise their ugly heads when you least expect it. Even when you’re primed and eager to start, fear and anxiety can give you pause. There are many ways to deal with fears and self-doubts. How you choose to deal with them is probably an individual thing. (I start with prayer.)

I keep several books on my shelf such as Ralph Keyes’ two books on fear (The Courage to Write and The Writer’s Book of Hope) and The Now Habit by Neil Fiore on conquering procrastination.

Focus on the Present Step

Focusing on your end goal as motivation to get started causes two problems. First, the end goal (e.g. finish a novel) can just look overwhelming. You want to quit before you start!

The solution? “Focus on what you can do rather than what is out of your control,” says Neil Fiore of Awaken Your Strongest Self. “Switch from thoughts about the goal, which is in the future and is usually overwhelming, to thoughts about what you can do in the present.”

Second, the reward is so far in the future that we feel tired just thinking about waiting that long. A reward many months in the future isn’t much motivation to stick with the writing today.

One solution is making sure you have rewards lined up for every 15- or 30-minute block of time you work on your goal. Publishing a book a year from now won’t get me writing today, but a reward of watching a favorite movie today if I write ten new pages is much more likely to get my fingers to the keyboard.

Small Steps

Take small steps. Reward yourself (with something healthy) for every step you take in direction of your goal. Be your own cheerleader. Each small step will get you warmed up and moving, then help you build momentum.

For more about the importance and brilliance of “mini habits” to beat procrastination, see “Not Enough Willpower?”

NOTE: Don’t stop here. Next time we’ll discuss the final stage–learning to recover from setbacks and maintain momentum.

Writers Starting Right

Published on by Kristi Holl

Happy New Year!

I don’t know what it is about having a CLEAN calendar, but it gives most people the urge to begin something new.

Proof is well documented, though, that new year’s goals and resolutions rarely last through January. I’m convinced that much of the cause is lack of careful thought beforehand.

Doing Something Different

If your December was nuts and you had little time for quiet reflection before New Year’s Day, then I highly recommend that you take a whole week (or longer) to ponder some questions. Even better, journal answers to the questions below. Pour out everything that comes to mind.

And be honest. No one else needs to see your answers. Write down how you truly feel, not what you think “real writers” should feel.

After you’ve thoroughly answered the questions (maybe after several writing stints), go back through your entries. Underline or highlight your Aha! moments of insight. These insights are what will help you set goals that you can actually meet. (Example: in your journaling, you might discover that you wrote very little for months because it hurts to sit. One of your writing-supportive goals, therefore, might be exercising to eliminate the hip pain or building a treadmill desk, like I did.)

Not all writing goals focus on writing, I’ve found. There are many writing-related and non-writing goals you will find helpful to your writing success this year. For example, your most important writing goal might be setting boundaries with a family member who manages to control most of your time and energy–and keep you from writing.

Ready? Set? Write!

Take plenty of time to journal answers to these questions:

  • How did I do on my 2014 goals (if you had any)?
  • What habits contributed to successfully completing any of the goals?
  • What situations/events/habits got me off track this year?
  • What worked for me in the past to get back on track?
  • What non-writing goals (in the areas of health, relationships, day job) would support the success of my writing goals?
  • What can I do to make the writing more fun (which motivates you to work on your goals)? What makes me eager to get writing on a project?

When you have the answers to these questions, you are well on your way to setting goals that you’ll actually meet this year. If you’re willing, please share a goal (either writing or writing-related) you hope to achieve in 2015.

When Deadlines Meet the Holidays

Published on by Kristi Holl

I love having deadlines. I really do. It means money will be coming in for my daily writing, as long as I meet those deadlines. But when overlapping deadlines meet Thanksgiving and Christmas (and all the dinners, shopping, cards and company that go with it), I feel my internal panic button set to go off.

Missing the holiday fun isn’t an option to me. I love the family get-togethers, the grandkids’ Christmas concerts, and the church events. I’ve already streamlined cards and shopping over the years.

Even so, I look at my calendar on the one hand, and how much revision still needs to be done on the other hand–and GULP.

What To Do?

It’s been a few years since I had multiple contracts to juggle, but I’m no stranger to the panic that can hit a writer at ANY time. If this applies to you–or just being able to write at all during the holidays–I’ll direct you to some easy solutions. [Yes, it’s true. When I’m stuck these days, I read my own blog or writing books to help myself “remember” what I already know will work.]

Deadlines, Holidays, Writing and Fun!

Just re-reading my posts defused my inner panic button. I remember! Mini habits…easy starting…daily success… Bring on the holidays!

Dismount to Find Writing Time

Published on by Kristi Holl

Several years ago, when I took on a two-year writing project, I knew that something had to give. I already was spending my life constantly trying to squeeze out five more spare minutes. To make the deadline, something (or several somethings) in my schedule would have to be weeded out.

“Where’s the dead wood in your life?” a writing friend asked me. “What can be cut?”

Take a Closer Look

Nothing, I thought. It’s all important stuff. I had a couple of weekly writing jobs, I held offices in a couple organizations, and I led a couple small church groups. Some of the responsibilities had been mine for years, and they all seemed important.

I was clueless about what to cut–until I heard a pastor talking about this very dilemma. And this was the bottom line: if the activity has run its course and you no longer enjoy or even want to be doing it, you may want to weed it out. In other words, he said,

“If the horse has been dead ten years, dismount.”

Put It Out to Pasture

I started over. I looked at my commitments again and made a list of my paid and unpaid jobs.  Which job or position that once was fun and satisfying and productive was now just an unproductive time drain? Which things had run their course? Which lifeless “horse” was I still trying to make gallop? Where should I “dismount”?

This wasn’t as difficult to spot as I expected. Some of our time drains are just habits we’ve had for years. Or they’re community or school obligations we took on for a year or two, and somehow they turned into life-time commitments. Some things we used to be so enthusiastic about, but now we resent the time it takes.

What’s Essential?

Take a close look at your stable of horses. If you have trouble finding time to write–if your schedule is truly too full–I hope you will dismount a couple of dead horses so that you have time to ride a new one!

And if you have difficulty deciding what needs to go, I highly recommend a book I read this year. It’s Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown. It will help you get rid of the dead wood now, plus develop a lifestyle where you don’t add in commitments or activities until you take something out first to make room.

Many of us are too busy to enjoy the very full lives we have. Chances are, if you want a writing life too, something will have to go. Don’t wait. If you’re trying to ride a dead horse (or several!), DISMOUNT!

Building Writing Muscle

Published on by Kristi Holl

Some years ago the doctor was considering surgery on my elbow. Why? Because I had damaged the joint with a weights routine that was too heavy…way too heavy.

I thought I’d make up for a late start and build up my skinny arms overnight. Instead, for a while I couldn’t lift anything as heavy as a coffee cup without pain, and there was no weight lifting for many months.

Why do we do this to ourselves? I do this in my writing too–and I’ll bet you do as well. We get behind, and then set huge goals. We’ll write five hours a day or send out a query a day. And we burn out so that we don’t want to write at all.

A Solution

Building writing muscle isn’t much different than trying to build body muscle. Rather than going gung-ho at a massive goal, start small. Give yourself doable short goals where you can succeed. Success breeds success. Trying to do too much too soon breeds failure.

In Karen Scalf Linamen’s book Only Nuns Change Habits Overnight, she suggested “making up small, attainable goals just so we could practice the art of turning a goal into reality. What if we made the decision to give up coffee for three days? Or stick with a vegetarian diet for twenty-four hours? Or walk around the block every morning for a week?…Pretty soon, all these smaller victories will give us greater confidence, stamina, and experience. Then when we attempt the bigger decisions–we’ve got muscle. We’ve been practicing. We can do it.”

Apply It to Writing

Instead of promising yourself you’ll write two hours every day, blog five times a week, and send out ten queries each month, start small. Set a goal that virtually insures success. That’s how we build momentum–with a series of successful goals.

How about:

  • write for ten minutes every morning for a week
  • read one chapter per day of a current children’s book
  • read email one hour later, three days in a row
  • check out three writing conferences online

Whatever goals you have–or habits you would like to build–give yourself permission to start smaller. Stretch yourself a tiny bit today. Then set a goal to stretch yourself that little bit three days in a row–then reward yourself for that success.

Like the title of the book says, only nuns change their habits overnight. So take things in smaller bites. Build momentum with smaller successes. Develop the writing habits, slowly but surely. You’ll be flexing those muscles in no time!

Undo-It-Yourself Projects

Published on by Kristi Holl

(Due to illness, I am re-posting a popular article from a few years ago.)

“A bad habit never disappears miraculously; it’s an undo-it-yourself project.”~~Abigail Van Buren

We all have some self-defeating behaviors, and sometimes these behaviors can cause our writing dreams to be grounded. Through my years of writing, I certainly developed some bad habits that are counter-productive to my writing. I’m still working to break a few, but most of them are a thing of the past. We all have those habits, but no matter how or why we acquired them, breaking them is an undo-it-yourself project.

Reasons or Excuses?

Quite often I hear a list of reasons why a writer isn’t writing much–or doesn’t plan to get serious about her writing until a future time. (You know, that fantasy we all harbor somewhere deep inside about endless uninterrupted hours of quiet, someone else fixing the meals, and words flowing like water.)

There will always be reasons not to write–college classes keep you too busy, babies keep you awake, day jobs take your time, teen-agers take your energy, or elderly parents require attention. There will always be reasons to feel depressed about writing: rejections, lack of family support, or poor economic predictions.

It can be good to analyze why you’re not writing. Obviously, if you can’t pinpoint the problem, you will have trouble fixing it. While it’s good to know the reasons, though, don’t let them become an excuse to stay in your miserable non-writing rut.

Plow Past the Problem

Find a way to get past it. Talk to friends. Learn more about your craft. Set goals and deadlines. I pray first, but I don’t stop there. I also take action. (Like yesterday–I finally realized that my restless ants-in-the-pants feeling in my office was nothing more serious than the fact that I had piles of books and magazines everywhere. I don’t create well in chaos, but I’d run out of room. Solution? A new book case and instant organization. The restless block magically disappeared.)

Last month I blogged about Margie Lawson‘s online course called “Defeating Self-Defeating Behaviors.” I was dragging and had been for nearly a year, thinking my writing life was about over. The only self-defeating habits I uncovered were severe sleep debt/deprivation, a need for more stretching-type exercise, and a need to give up chocolate and sugar. I kept careful records, promising myself at the end of thirty days that I would go back to the chocolate. I just needed to know if it was contributing to my lethargy and headaches. (Oh, how I secretly hoped it wasn’t so!!!) Well, it was…

I had a bad habit of eating sweets for rewards and pick-me-ups and times I needed soothing. I stayed up too late reading (while eating chocolate), and I always thought stretching exercises (like gentle yoga) were a waste of time. Wrong on all counts! Each one was a big factor in the daily headaches, which I’ve almost licked!

No More Excuses

Breaking those three bad habits became my “undo-it-yourself” projects. Was it fun? No–especially going without chocolate. But I sure don’t miss it like I thought I would. The habits (dare I say excuses?) that interfere with your writing dreams probably aren’t the same as mine, but I can guarantee you one thing. Breaking those habits is going to ultimately be your own “undo-it-yourself” project.

It’s your life. It’s your writing life. No one will create the writing life of your dreams for you. It will require effort of your own–and lots of it. So what are you going to do with your bad writing habits?

My advice is a paraphrased Nike slogan: Just Undo It! [NOTE: Make it easier on yourself. Remember the power of mini habits when  making those changes! See Not Enough Willpower to Reach Your Goals? Make Mini Habits!]

No Motivation or Willpower? A Simple Solution

Published on by Kristi Holl

Motivation is a great thing to have, but note this: it’s unreliable. And because it’s unreliable, motivation is NOT a good strategy for making change in your writing life.

Motivation to write comes and goes. I love when it’s there. I love that “can’t wait to get to the keyboard” feeling about telling a story. I had it yesterday, as a matter of fact. Today a headache and list of unexpected “to do” items have derailed my motivation to get into the writing zone.

Willpower? Won’t Power!

The only alternative seems to be using willpower, but that’s a limited resource. You might start the day with a full tank of willpower. If nothing siphons off any of it, by the time you get to your writing, you can look at your goal and be determined. You can use that willpower to write those 2,000 words or whatever your big goal for the day includes.

But many things can use up willpower. Maybe before your writing time–which for many writers is later in the day–you have wrestled with a big decision. Or you went to the gym when you really didn’t want to. And you forced yourself to be pleasant to the clerk who wouldn’t get off her smartphone to wait on you. (Or you dealt with an obstinate toddler all morning.) We use bits and pieces–or big chunks–of willpower throughout the day. If you have little left when your writing time rolls around, you will look at your goals list (“write tomorrow’s blog post,” “outline chapter three,” “write 1,000 words”) and go to the fridge instead.

What’s the Answer?

Counting on motivation to help build good writing habits will give you mixed (and often disappointing) results. Feeling motivated is wonderful, but it is more of a bonus that you can’t count on. Motivation, based on your feelings, comes and goes. It can be affected by anything: low energy, headaches, rejection of any kind, you name it. If you base your writing success on being motivated, it will be very on-again-off-again. It won’t be the daily habit you want that will make you the most productive, help you grow the most, and let you truly enjoy your writing.

So, is it hopeless? No! You can count on writing habits.

As Stephen Guise, author of Mini Habits: Smaller Habits, Bigger Results, said,

when you’re not motivated to do something, the “willpower cost” skyrockets. And when willpower cost is high, it makes it difficult for you to sustain a behavior over time (and build it into a habit).

Remember: willpower is limited. And I know from many years’ experience that if you grit your teeth with the Nike slogan on your lips (“Just do it!”), you’ll be productive and get sick. Not the happy solution you’re looking for.

For years, I believed those were my only options. I’d work hard to pump myself up with motivation. And when the motivation sagged, I’d invoke the willpower. And when I was low on willpower, I’d push harder and “just do it.” And then I’d get sick (sometimes from gorging on too much sugar, a dead-end in itself.)

Mini-Habits Trump Motivation and Willpower

As I mentioned in Tuesday’s blog, Not Enough Willpower to Reach Your Goals? Make Mini Habits!, creating mini-habits takes care of both problems (no motivation and low willpower). It is almost bizarre how our minds play tricks on ourselves. For days my goal was “write at least 2,000 words.” I just couldn’t get started. Each day had a different reason, but I didn’t feel motivated, I didn’t want to do the work to get motivated, and my willpower was low.

But when I switched to mini habits with mini goals, it all changed. My mini habit of “write 50 words” has consistently gone over the goal (and often over the 2,000 mark). It takes me so little willpower to get started if I only have to do 50 words and can quit. (That’s maybe 5-10 minutes of writing.) I still kept the goal at 50 words. [NOTE: My goal this morning was just to write 50 words for the blog–I’m up to 829 so far and not tired. But when I feel resistance kick in, I quit.]

Most important, I am building in my writer’s brain the idea that I write daily. I am also building the idea that getting started is easy. That might not sound like much, but it’s an area that has perplexed and depressed me much of my writing career.

A Simple Solution

Even if this sounds too simple, I urge you to try “mini habits” if a consistent writing life is a problem. Use tiny bits of willpower for mini goals. Realize that you can write every day, and often more than you intended. That will make you feel motivated from the inside fairly often. But even when you don’t feel motivated to write, you will know it doesn’t matter. Motivation is a bonus, but not necessary, because by then you will be in the writing habit.

And as we all know, writers write. That just means that writers have the habit of writing, plain and simple.

Five Stages of Procrastination

Published on by Kristi Holl

How is procrastination like a bridge you set on fire yourself? According to Neil Fiore in The Now Habit, it’s similar to a situation where we scare ourselves into being frozen.

Fiore says to imagine a very long flat board on the ground in front of you, and then imagine walking on it to the other end of the board. Piece of cake, right?

Then he says imagine raising that board 100 feet off the ground, reaching from one tall building to another. Imagine walking across it again. You don’t skip light-heartedly across now, do you? You worry about falling to your death–and you don’t even take one step.

Then, in the third scenario, he says to imagine you smell smoke and feel heat on your back. You turn, and the building you stand on is in flames. You’ll die if you don’t get moving. What do you do now? Without even thinking, you get across that board. You might crawl, you might sit down and scooch across, but you get across to avoid being burned to a crisp.

That’s procrastination in a nutshell. Here’s how:

Five Predictable Stages

  1. You let a task determine your self-worth. You think being successful at this writing task or goal will make you happy. You think your self-worth as a writer is wrapped up in this project.
  2. You use perfectionism to raise the task 100 feet above the ground–like the imaginary board above. “You demand that you do it perfectly–without anxiety, with complete acceptance from your audience, with no criticism,” says Fiore.
  3. You find yourself frozen with anxiety. Your imaginary difficulties with the project raise your stress level. Adrenaline kicks in. You seek temporary relief.
  4. You use procrastination to escape your self-created dilemma. This brings the deadline closer and creates more pressure. You delay starting so long that you can’t really be tested on your actual writing ability (what you are capable of if you’d started sooner).
  5. You use a real threat to jar you loose from the perfectionism and motivate yourself to begin. The deadline, fast approaching, acts as the fire in the building in the opening example. It forces you to get moving and actually begin the writing.

 Breaking the Cycle

The author of this terrific book then takes you back to the top of that building and asks you to imagine still being frozen as you face walking across that board. Then he says to imagine NO fire, but instead a strong, supportive net just three feet beneath the board. It stretches all the way to the other building. There is no danger.

How do you create such a writing safety net? His suggestions in the remainder of the book show you how. Stay tuned for some ideas that work!

Writers: Practice What You Preach

Published on by Kristi Holl

I got home late last night from the Highlights Foundation’s “Sharing Our Hope” workshop, where I did a lot of preaching about the importance of self-care for writers and how absolutely critical it is to our writing lives.

We had a marvelous time together and forged new friendships. Even so, after “giving out” for several days, I’m exhausted this morning and slightly under the weather.

Stop! Stop! Stop!

I started right in on my to-do list, which managed to grow considerably even when I was gone. But I felt over-whelmed. Then my own voice came back to me from a talk on Saturday on self-care for writers. The voice was clear: “Practice what you preach!”

So I read some of my own blog posts and reminded myself of a few things I already knew. Thanks to “Mood-Dependent Writing Stages,” I have decided to tackle some rote-writing and prewriting tasks that need to be done. They won’t require nearly so much psychic energy as what I had planned to do.

And after re-reading “Writer Diagnosis: Failure to Thrive,” I saw how I could get from “languishing” to “flourishing” today. I needed that middle step–nourishing–in a couple of different areas. I plan to actually DO them!

Do What You Already Know

I think today’s writers are some of the most educated writers ever seen. But we’re not especially good at doing what we know is the wisest thing to do.

I am guilty of that too frequently. At least for today, I’m going to change that! 

By any chance, is there some area of your writing life where you “know better,” but you also need to follow through? Be brave and leave a comment!

Writing Habits: Getting Back on Track

Published on by Kristi Holl

There is a famous quote: “If you take one day off writing, your muse will take off the next three.”

In other words, it will take you three days (after skipping writing) for you to get back into the flow of your writing project. Even taking one full day off will cost you in focus.

De-Railed Once Again

Because of some unexpected events in January (including a contracted nonfiction project that was taking hours and hours more research than I had figured on), I laid aside my novel about mid-way. After five weeks, I was at a place to pick it up again. But I couldn’t get moving.

So I did what I am always telling other writers to do. I found an online challenge that lasted a week. (Beth Barany ran the challenge through a special Facebook page. For my challenge, I chose “writing 500 words per day” for a week on my novel.) I got behind early in the week, and on Friday had to write 2,000 words to meet the challenge for the week, but I did it, and I got unstuck. I’ve been able to write 30-60 minutes every day since–and I plan to keep it up.

The other thing I did was buy an ebook (free on a daily free ebook notice I signed up for) and read Master Your Time in 10 Minutes a Day by Michal Stawicki. I had also let go of several smaller projects in January that I wanted to restart (reading, studying) that had overwhelmed me. But by using his “10 minutes a day” approach, I got back into all five projects again. I set my timer, worked hard on each thing for ten minutes, then moved on to the next thing. I learned (again!) how much I could get done in ten minutes. More importantly, though, I got unstuck and moving again.

Time of Re-Entry

I don’t know why this is, but when you finally get back to writing, you can expect some uncomfortable, not-fun writing days, producing stuff that stinks. Several writers I’ve read lately say that if you’ve been away from your writing for a week or more, you can expect about ten days of writing that is no more fun than getting teeth pulled when you start again.

When I say “away from your writing,” that’s what I mean too. Sometimes–and I am sooo guilty of this–we fool ourselves that we’re writing when we’re:

  • Reading a writing magazine or blog
  • Marketing a story (looking for publishers and agents)
  • Blogging
  • Journaling
  • Answering email to writers, editors and family members
  • Speaking at writer’s conferences
  • Going to book signings or book store readings
  • Posting to Facebook or Twitter

That’s not the kind of writing I mean. Those are writing-related tasks, and writers today have more and more of them, it seems. They have to be done. But they don’t take the place of writing.

In the Flow

To stay in the groove, so to speak, you don’t have to write for hours and hours every day (although hours are lovely and the more, the better.) I have found that if I work on my novel for even twenty minutes a day, I can avoid that horrible getting started angst the next day. And I don’t have to waste time trying to remember where I was, what the characters were feeling, what the plot problem was, or that new insight I realized about the theme. Our brains seem to be able to hold onto those things for about 24 hours.

As Heather Sellers said in Page by Page, “I try to avoid missing days. The not-writing days aren’t worth it! It’s too hard to get back into it. This is why athletes cross-train off season. This is why people who are successful with weight management stay below a certain weight. It just isn’t worth it. Getting back into shape is just too hard. It is easier to keep doing it, tiny little writing periods, day after day. Without missing a day.”

Too Late?

What if you’ve already missed a few days, or weeks, or months of writing? Then start again. But you can also take this to the bank: your writing will stink, you will hate it or question your story or your talent or your motives, you will feel self-indulgent, and writing for twenty minutes will feel like hours. But this really uncomfortable period is usually necessary. That’s the bad news.

The good news is that–if you stick it out for about ten days straight–it will pass. The muse will return, the writing will be fun again, you’ll realize how much you missed it, you’ll love your writing rituals and routine, and you’ll wake up eager to write as you did in the past.

Once you regain that wonderful writing state, do everything you can to maintain it. If you know you have a super busy day tomorrow, set your alarm twenty minutes earlier and write before the day takes over. It doesn’t take much writing to stay in the flow–not nearly as much as it takes later if the writing stalls.

Write daily, if at all possible. As the note stuck to my computer says, “You don’t need more time…you just need to decide.”