As a writer, you have goals and aspirations. Making excuses and listening to your negative critics will not help you accomplish your creative goals.
If you want to write your next book or paint or sculpt, you can’t do it without being present. It demands that you put in the work to get the results you desire.
For writers, writing is the only way to produce a book. Without a draft, your desire to publish a story won’t come true. Achieving your dreams requires discipline, commitment, and hard work.
You can push through. You only have to believe your goals are worth the commitment.
Let me tell you this:
Something will always trigger you to make excuses. Triggers like believing in your shame stories, feeling uncertain, considering your journey an arduous one, or feeling a misalignment between yourself and your art will keep you from fervently pursuing your goals.
Excuses triggered by your shame stories, doubts, and fears are unproductive. It’ll yield no result, but will graciously keep you from moving forward with your goals.
It’ll feed your mind with every negative notion it can throw at you about why you aren’t good enough to show up.
What Are These Negative Notions?
They often follow this pattern.
- Your art sucks.
- You are not good enough.
- Nobody will read your work.
- Critics will eat your book and spit it out.
- You’re not of the caliber of people the world will raise their hats for.
- You’re trying too hard to impress people who don’t care if you write a bestseller or not.
Sounds familiar? Does it ring a bell? I bet it does.
But do you want to hear the truth?
These negative notions didn’t spring up on their own. It’s manifesting from thoughts you unconsciously harbor about yourself and your art.
It’s twisted. It’s dark, but it’s true. Believing these negative notions pushes you to make excuses, lying to yourself when you know the truth.
How To Stop Making Excuses, Show Up For Your Art and Accomplish Your Creative Goals
Build Confidence In Yourself.
Confidence is self-trust. It’s believing in yourself and trusting your journey every step of the way.
Self-confidence is not a personality type, but it’s a trait you can build and embrace as a creative writer. Confidence cuts across everything you do in both your personal and creative lives.
It takes confidence to talk to yourself positively, encourage yourself, show up, fight for what you desire, push through the heartaches, and accomplish your creative goals.
When you build confidence in yourself, you’ve automatically unlocked your conviction and willpower to keep swinging for your goalpost until you hit it.
Want to unlock your confidence and dominate your writing goals? I created this self-confidence handbook for you.
Identify Your Limiting Beliefs.
Identifying the negative notions that have their claws around your jugular will expose you to your triggers.
Knowing what makes you so terrified of showing up will help you make the transformational changes you need to move forward with pursuing and accomplishing your creative goals.
Note:
Identifying your limiting beliefs doesn’t guarantee you can overcome them alone. Sometimes it may cause you to panic more and retreat even further into your shell.
If you’re dealing with triggers that make you procrastinate or manage your time poorly, building a disciplined resolve to stay intentional is a positive step to pursue.
But, if you’re dealing with triggers around clarity, unearthing your creative confidence, or unraveling your shame stories, don’t handle it alone. Seek creative therapy or talk to a mentor.
I hold 1:1 creative sessions with writers struggling with intrinsic creative triggers.
Practice Intentionality and Discipline.
It takes little drops of water to make a mighty ocean.
Believe it or not, if you begin now to put your little efforts toward achieving your goals, showing up confidently and consistently with intentionality and drive, your results in six months will shock you.
To show up intentionally, you need to stay disciplined and committed. Without both, once the dopamine and the cheap thrills of starting afresh wear off, you’ll find yourself back in the hole you just crawled out from.
Work With An Accountability Partner.
It’s not a secret that showing up intentionally is sometimes tough and motivation fades with time, but you still desire to fulfill your goals.
The only problem is you are drowning in an unproductive cycle, torn between giving in to the critics in your head and feeling overwhelmed.
That’s where an accountability partner steps in to help you up and give you direction.
Your accountability partner will stand between your critics and everything else that overwhelms you, breaking down goals into bite-sized action plans while cheering you on till you zoom past the finish line.
I can be your accountability partner. Let me be your beacon of light in the dark, holding your hand until you push through.
Seek Creative Therapy With A Coach/Mentor.
Often, the negative notions you have about yourself and your art are born from the scars you keep hidden.
Sometimes these notions are born from your shame stories, relationship with others, environment, experience, upbringing, values, beliefs, culture, or societal views which bleed into your art, hurting your efforts to push forward because you’re held back by an intrinsic demoralizing force.
I want you to know that you can seek help to unravel your shame stories and overcome your triggers.
Seek creative therapy with a professional or talk to a mentor. Scream if you must, but don’t give in and accept defeat by surrendering to stories that don’t define your reality.
Embrace Your Growth Process, Flaws, and All.
You are not flawless. Don’t expect perfection every time you show up.
Teach yourself to love your art and embrace your process, choosing to grow each day despite your fears and failures, doubts and disappointments.
The minute you accept yourself and your art as the imperfectly perfect journey that it is, you’ll fall in love with it.
To stop making excuses, show up for your art, and accomplish your creative goals, you must first fall deeply in love with every part of your journey so that it becomes difficult not to seek it every day.
You don’t pursue what you hate, but you go through fire for the things you love. Harness that emotion and relentlessly pursue your goals.
Dear Confident Writer:
Your goals are valid. Your pursuit of creative success is a fulfilling endeavor and you can achieve it.
But you have to show up, stay intentional, build confidence and self-trust, and positively counter your negative notions when they breach your head space.
Don’t be shy. Seek help, talk to a creative therapist, or work with an accountability partner to help you stay focused on your goals.
I’m rooting for you!