Here we are, already at ROUND 2 for the year! Now’s the time for you to write up your goals post (on your own blog, remember) and link to it in the linky below.
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As you’re working on defining those goals, I want you to do something for me.
Remember to be kind to yourself.
I am a Type A, overachieving slavedriver. I’m incredibly goal oriented and driven, and I get more done in a day than some people do in a week. Which is all fine and good to a point, but I so often forget about taking some downtime, about resting, about recovery from Doing All The Things. Because there’s an inherent danger in this constant go go go go go.
Burnout. Depression.
These are realities of being a writer. Particularly a professional writer. We’ve got deadlines and fan expectations and all the business side of what we’re doing. It becomes so easy to stop thinking about the creative side of the process and start focusing on the numbers. To start thinking of ourselves as some kind of machine that can just crank stuff out at a certain pace, consistently.
This is folly.
There have been a number of blog posts written lately from some extraordinarily talented writers who are caught in the grip of depression. Libba Bray. Myra McEntire. Our own Dawn Montgomery wrote a post last round about suffering from burnout (which is, I think, a precursor to depression in a lot of writers). And I know half a dozen others who’ve skirted this state or slid into it over the last couple of years.
It’s something I suffered myself while on submission a few years ago and it paralyzed me. What I wrote was flat, emotionless, and unusable. I didn’t get anything publishable put together for TWO YEARS, and when I did come back to it, it took three drafts to come anywhere close to the quality of what I’d produced before. I spent a lot of time beating myself up about it. I was falling behind schedule. The writing income was falling off. And I felt the fetid breath of the hounds of desperation nipping at my heels.
Ultimately, I made some changes and decided to be kinder to myself. I revised my long term goals, my expectations and allowed for something I have never willingly accepted. A time to rest and a time to fail. Failure, as it happens, is a necessary component of mastery. I could write a whole other post on that, but I’ll save it for another time. My point is, I made the decision to be kinder to myself. To realize that for all that I’ve accomplished in the last ten years, I am not a machine. I’m not Super Woman. And that’s okay. It’s taken me most of the last year to heal from that, and I feel like I’m finally back on track, where I need to be. Now, if I need a day off, I take it. If I need to refill the well, I go read or watch something awesome. And then I come back to it. If I don’t reach the number of words I shoot for in a day, I don’t beat myself up over it. If I got ANY words down, that’s still further than I was before. And THAT is why I’m so much NOT a fan of one size fits all goals.
So as you’re pondering those goals and sorting out what you’d like to accomplish, remember to be kind to yourself and remember–you’re only human.
Brava, Kait!
When we’re kinder to ourselves, we’re happier.
When we’re happier, we’re kinder to others.
Being kinder to ourselves therefore makes a better world! =)
Hi,Kait,
Just a heads up that the linky is taking us to a closed list. Thought you would want to know.
Well said, Kait!
Kait, thank you for including this message. I am really needing to hear it right now. Juggling All The Things has become kind of a nightmare, and I’m coming to grips with needed changes (day job changes) so I can feel successful and happy. THANK YOU for sharing.
Wow… and I was all set to beat myself up today for behind. Now I don’t have any excuses. Guess i’m gonna go put on some sweatpants and take a walk. Then I’m gonna take a super-hot shower. And then I’m gonna see if that changes my outlook on getting these here words out of my head and onto the paper. Thank you. For realz.
Having “been there” all too recently (and too often), I am grateful for this, Kait. For the post itself, for this links… and for you and all of the ROW80, for the place it gives me to live and write.
Eden has said everything I planned to say. Thank you, Kait!