What’s Next?

On Saturday, I was riding the wave of an emotional high; filled with energy and motivation to throw myself into pursuing my dream of being a writer. That day, my friend Kiki and I attended the first ever Quitter Conference based on Jon Acuff’s book, Quitter. The conference was everything I expected and more!

It was entertaining, educational, motivational and totally worth the trip to Nashville. If another Quitter Conference is scheduled in the future, go!

So where do I go from here?

Now that the emotional high is gone, how do I stay motivated to complete the tasks I set for myself during the conference? How do I go back to my day job without feeling resentful and bitter? I can feel the Sunday Jerk syndrome creeping in (Read Quitter to find out what a Sunday Jerk is). I can hear the Doubty Voices in my head saying, “You’re not good enough, Erica. There will always be someone who is more talented than you are. Sure, it’s a nice idea to be a writer, but you’ll never follow through, so why start?” Ouch, right?

It would be painful if someone actually said those words to me. Instead of taking that risk and putting myself out there, I hide behind my self-derision. I try to rationalize the statement above as being reasonable. It isn’t!

My first step toward battling my own doubt was to get up 30 minutes earlier this morning and write. Just write. Even though the Doubty Voices tried to convince me to sleep just a few more minutes. Jon Acuff made an excellent point during the conference. He said if your dream isn’t something for which you’re willing to wake up half an hour earlier, then it’s probably not your dream.

While I wasn’t waking up early, I was trying to find time throughout the day to write, but I never seemed to have enough time to focus on writing on a daily basis due to little things like work and surfing the internet. You know, the important stuff.

The second step was to do something Jon calls a ‘time audit’ to figure out how busy I really am. Just going through my daily schedule mentally was an eye-opener. Being a working mom and wife doesn’t allow for much time in the schedule to write, but I can eliminate some things that are not necessary or worth my time, which is precious and should be used wisely.

There are several other steps I’ll be working through during the next few weeks and months to focus on writing. I’m confident I can do it. I just need to keep telling those Doubty Voices to ‘Shut Up!’ and keep going. Keep doing what I love. It’s the only way my dream will happen.

Thanks for supporting me! Please keep me accountable by asking me how it’s going, especially those of you who attended Quitter with me. We need to stick together!

How do you combat the Doubty Voices in your
life?