Getting Stuff Done (or: Recovering from Life's Detours)

Tough summer.  I had a a full schedule of planned projects -- catch up on some tasks for my publishing business.  Finish polishing two book proposals. Finish finally my own novel.

Life often has other ideas for us, especially when we make plans.  Mix in an unexpected death, news that an old friend is very ill, The Boy (tm) heading off to University, and well, the best laid plans of mice and Deb are often gone awry.

I wrote recently about perfection -- how the pursuit of it can be self defeating.  And I forgot -- even after I gave myself permission to just do the work and find perfection in what I do rather than try and get it to match up to an arbitrary definition -- I forgot to really give myself permission to be imperfect and found myself in a little bit of an emotional tailspin. And mad at myself for it.

Yeah. I kicked myself while I was down.

Sigh.

We so often are our own worst enemies.

I recognized mid-kick what I was doing and I have moved away from that behavior.  Mostly.

And I am a writing fool at the moment trying to meet the self -imposed deadline for finishing the novel EVEN THOUGH it will be hard and require ~2,000 plus words a day to do it.

But I will because it's important to me.

So here are my takeaways from the summer:

~Sometimes shit happens that guts you and you can't do a damn thing about it.

~Sometimes you tailspin. And that's okay, because you are experiencing your own life, which means you are living it.

~Sometimes you kick yourself when you are down.  Stop it.

~Sometimes you are your own worst enemy.  But what would life be like if you cultivated yourself as a friend the same way you cultivate others? How much magic?

~Do the stuff that is important to you.  Encourage yourself the same way you encourage others.

Kind of glad it's a new season.

Good words,

d