Creativity is a powerful guide to transformational change. I’ve been writing for publication since way
before the Berlin Wall fell, before Bill Clinton was elected President, even,
and I blush to confess, the thrill never goes away. My latest baby is just as much of a thrill as
the second; 101 Stress-Busters for
Energy, Joy and Healthy Longevity will hit Amazon and everywhere outside of
Ashland, Oregon [we’ve got it already], at the end of January. Nothing is ever
as soul-stirringly wonderful as seeing your name in big letters ON THE COVER OF
A BOOK for the first time. When the
Library of Congress asked for a copy, I drove to D.C. so I could see how many
Representatives and Senators had checked it out. Answer: 12. Oh. My. God.
Lying collapsed in my usual post-creation heap, it occurred
to me that the Best Practices for writing a quality book is strikingly similar
to Best Practices for living your quality life.
1.
Know what
the end goal is: what outcome do you want for your readers; what outcome do you
want for yourself, either on a business or personal level? Keep these answers on a card or a sheet of
paper whenever you sit down to work on your project.
Keeping an eye on the prize, a reminder of the ultimate goal, helps keep you from being swayed by the emotion of the moment, or someone who has “hooked” an unresolved childhood issue that you are not consciously aware of (needing attention; needing to show you’re best; needing to be appreciated; needing to have more income that anyone else in your social orbit, etc.).
Keeping an eye on the prize, a reminder of the ultimate goal, helps keep you from being swayed by the emotion of the moment, or someone who has “hooked” an unresolved childhood issue that you are not consciously aware of (needing attention; needing to show you’re best; needing to be appreciated; needing to have more income that anyone else in your social orbit, etc.).
2.
Have a project
plan with checkpoints. Have a chapter by
chapter plan.
You know in your business life that checkpoints are vital to spurring effective action. They give you a clear idea of where the project is on the road to completion. They give you accountability. Don’t over-plan to avoid having to actually write, but do make sure that you have a step-by-step plan with specific checkpoints.
In books, it’s a chapter or a page. In other aspects of your life, what are the checkpoints? When I bought my fixer-upper, I started with a list of serious problems. I started checking them off and then I made a list of the remodels that I would need to have the floorplan work for a healing center, a family home and a separate pet area. Not everything was clear from the start. The amount of money and renovation I would need to turn the garage into the Hobby House, heated and cooled with moderate amounts of $$, was not clear to me when I started. In fairness, I could have anticipated more of it, but the first two lists were so overwhelming, I very sensibly put the garage into the Much, Much Later category and didn’t give it another thought for two years.
3.
Have a
reward that you really want for completing every checkpoint, with extra rewards
for completing on time.
You know this works. You do it with your customers – reward the behavior you want. Well, darling, your human brain works just like theirs. So get those rewards prepared. Want to lose weight? Virtue ain’t its own reward, not in the first 30 days. Have non-food rewards. I, for example, will do nearly anything for a $100 Amazon gift card that I can use to bankroll my video habit. I also salivate over, and will finish a chapter for or eat kale for, smaller rewards. We all have things we want. Don’t let yourself have them until you hit a checkpoint and see how your foot-dragging around clearing out the garage disappears.
You know this works. You do it with your customers – reward the behavior you want. Well, darling, your human brain works just like theirs. So get those rewards prepared. Want to lose weight? Virtue ain’t its own reward, not in the first 30 days. Have non-food rewards. I, for example, will do nearly anything for a $100 Amazon gift card that I can use to bankroll my video habit. I also salivate over, and will finish a chapter for or eat kale for, smaller rewards. We all have things we want. Don’t let yourself have them until you hit a checkpoint and see how your foot-dragging around clearing out the garage disappears.
4.
You’re
not writing a book; that’s a
terrifying concept. You are writing one
chapter. When you’re really tired and
want to quit, but you’ve made the choice to push on to some checkpoint, then you
are just writing this one page. Just one
page. You can do that.
You’re not losing 35 pounds. You are cataloging all your calories for
today, and doing a 10 minute intensive cardio routine on the DVD from the
library. Do both of those things and you
can have a lavender tub soak (or Grantchester episode) tonight. Do it for a week and you can go to a Sounders
game. Small steps get you to the finish
line; grandiose plans flop in 6 weeks.
5.
If you
get a brainstorm, something that really takes control of your brain and makes
you want to shout “Yes! Yes! Yes!” to the uncaring walls or silent moon, write
your brainstorm down in as much detail as you can, then take a deep breath and
look at item #1. Does this storm make
the end goal or outcome work better? Or
does this storm point to a different outcome?
Take another 5 deep breaths [yes, it’s Tool #2-1 from my book; keep
reading]. Perhaps meditate or do a card
reading or ask Sarasvati or another incarnation of the great I AM for
advice. Do you really want this new
outcome more than the old outcome?
I had an original chapter plan and I had a different title, because I had a different end goal. Then I had a brainstorm that took my breath away and the book is entirely different. When you are tempted away from a life goal, the same procedure keeps you on the best path for you. Instead of following blindly when your limbic system gets hijacked by someone who touches an unhealed childhood wound or an unexamined childhood dream, you stop, get your pre-frontal cortex (your thinking, logical, clear-sighted brain) to give you a 2nd opinion and let the two opinions become reconciled into a clear-headed decision, something that you will be proud to own for the rest of your life. If everyone did this, the marketplace would be a very different place because most sales ploys rely on manipulating and amplifying the “I’m not good enough” beliefs hidden deep inside us. If we had our PFC’s integrated with every limbic system business decision, we sellers couldn’t hid our lack of steak behind a smokescreen of sizzle.
Some of my changed life goals over the years have included dumping losing business ventures instead of “refusing to quit,” an emotional stance that caused several entrepreneurs that I know to lose house as well as business in the dot-com crash and then more in the Great Recession. “I’m Not A Quitter” is a limbic system response, based on “quitter” shaming from childhood or adulthood, and not a clear-headed choice based on receivables, cash flow and the local and national economy.
I had an original chapter plan and I had a different title, because I had a different end goal. Then I had a brainstorm that took my breath away and the book is entirely different. When you are tempted away from a life goal, the same procedure keeps you on the best path for you. Instead of following blindly when your limbic system gets hijacked by someone who touches an unhealed childhood wound or an unexamined childhood dream, you stop, get your pre-frontal cortex (your thinking, logical, clear-sighted brain) to give you a 2nd opinion and let the two opinions become reconciled into a clear-headed decision, something that you will be proud to own for the rest of your life. If everyone did this, the marketplace would be a very different place because most sales ploys rely on manipulating and amplifying the “I’m not good enough” beliefs hidden deep inside us. If we had our PFC’s integrated with every limbic system business decision, we sellers couldn’t hid our lack of steak behind a smokescreen of sizzle.
Some of my changed life goals over the years have included dumping losing business ventures instead of “refusing to quit,” an emotional stance that caused several entrepreneurs that I know to lose house as well as business in the dot-com crash and then more in the Great Recession. “I’m Not A Quitter” is a limbic system response, based on “quitter” shaming from childhood or adulthood, and not a clear-headed choice based on receivables, cash flow and the local and national economy.
Every once in a while, I really, really
want to do something, and no matter how hard I try, with all the skills of a
transformation coach and healer, I cannot fathom why. If it’s not dangerous to me, emotionally,
physically or in any other way I can see, and it isn’t taking my life on a new
and destructive path, I let myself do it.
I let myself say “Yes, I’m a spiritual healer,” when I didn’t consider myself
one, just because someone I really respected asked me to – and stepped into a
completely new income stream, and an additional self-definition. It’s
also why I climbed a mountain and then jumped – with the guy who actually knew
how to fly the dang thing. I knew the
physical laws that allow lift and I had my will updated before the honeymoon
trip, so there I was, for a millisecond, falling straight downward off a
mountain. And then lift kicked in and
away we soared, high above Queenstown, New Zealand, soaring with dragons as I
had always dreamed.
6.
Self-care
every day, no matter the deadlines, is your lifeline. If you don’t eat healthy, exercise and take
time to rest and recuperate, you will NOT create a quality product. I know, Handel wrote the Messiah in six weeks,
but let’s be real: He was a genius, he had been thinking about something like it
for months, and he had a servant to make him healthy meals and remind him to
take his daily constitutional. This is
the Magic Formula for a healthy life, too.
Let me connect you to a world of solutions. While you’re waiting to buy your copy of 101 Stress Busters, take action to make 2017 the year when you knock some of your pain-points out of your life forever! A free Getting Unstuck session (not a sales pitch, a real session) will give you tools that you can use to knock at least one of those “pains” out of the park – forever. Do you like to Do It Yourself? My blog and free classes are the place to start. Are you ready for your major Pain Points to – poof! – be gone? Sign up for a Getting Unstuck session (free, not a sales pitch), and watch one of them disappear. Then sign up for a comprehensive program and ditch the big ones, too. Do you like to learn from classes? Comprehensive beta classes will be launching in January. Sign up to be a beta-tester. At www.soaringdragon.biz, it’s all about solutions, not hype! You deserve more than quick-fixes that won’t last. Link to me and let me connect you to a world where problems get solved - forever!
