Tuesday, January 03, 2012

Obstacles? Or challenges?

Things just seem to get in the way of progress, making the way foggy, unclear. When I fall into that rut, it's just easier to walk away, look at it again tomorrow...maybe. THAT is procrastination!

"Resistance," writes Victoria Lyn Schmidt in her Book in a Month, "is the way your subconscious tries to protect you from taking risks."

Is that what I'm doing?

Some years ago there were mounting obstacles on the home front. Obstacles have a way of bogging you down, sapping your strength, overwhelming you, and removing all the wind from your sails, casting you into "the doldrums." You land in a stagnant place, confused, crippled, dead in the water, accomplishing nothing.

Yet, when I visited with a particular person (I could start out grumbling, miserable and unhappy, perhaps angry) but when I walked away from him, my energy level was restored, my spirits were boosted, and those obstacles were gone, transformed into challenges. And who isn't up for good challenges?

When I become distracted I start negative self-talk and nothing gets accomplished, except for me to run myself down because I spent an entire afternoon playing at writing instead of getting down to business. And I didn't get down to business because every time I started to do that I was interrupted by something "important" to someone else. (My first priority always has been family.) When nothing gets accomplished the threads of the story are lost, and discouragement leads to some other less mind-demanding activity with a more imminently achievable completion time.

But what about that desire to write your stories? Your brain children? The work you really need to do in order to feel the confidence and worth of your works from your soul's depths? Is there anything more important than that at the moment you are working and interruption tempts you?

(c)2012 Cathy Thomas Brownfield ~ All rights reserved.