The Struggle is Real

Writing is coming along, but overcoming the fear of public speaking is moving slow. It cost me some time and tripped up the revision briefly last week. I blogged about it over on Medium.

Some days my tendency is to nag myself about not doing more or being better while conveniently forgetting that small constant efforts being made. Those will, in time, become benefits. A common struggle everyone seems to go from time to time.

While developing skills, and knowledge, experiencing success and failure have to happen. Good and bad experiences bring wisdom. It was going to be too easy to berate myself over the loss of time and revised pages, and in the same instant it almost started, a possible work around popped up. That shut the negative tape down flat, as thinking through a solution and various versions of it filled my thoughts.

It wasn’t the work I had planned on getting done, but work was done. The pages didn’t sit untouched or unread. They were reviewed and looked over. Despite the standstill in the revision project, the blog posts project were completed. That is the not giving up part, working on the project that was moving. Recognizing a habit that has been built into every work day would become the space to catch up on the very part that was stalled.

It was a really good moment to recognize that all the years, all the studying, learning, researching, and yes, failing, is paying off. I have built some SOP in my work efforts. My own set of Standard Operating Procedures started probably ten plus years ago. They have changed since the first day I started figuring out what they were.

Taking the concepts that big corporations and even school have about rules and procedures, applying them to myself, my writing and being an independent author was probably one of the most helpful things I did. Setting myself up to stay the course. What days, what hours, what to do during those hours. It seemed frivolous in the beginning, but it’s what got me through last week. That and a few other things learned from life experiences.