Baby Steps Count, It's the Direction That Matters

Happy Holidays! This post is coming out Christmas Eve, but my greeting goes out to everyone celebrating the season.

I just read a National Geographic article about the seven principles of Kwanzaa. A holiday created by one person to foster unity among African Americans, it has spread across the globe. It's not a religion, but the principles seem like a good guide to living, even if you're not black or American. They address unity, self-determination, collective work and responsibility, cooperative economics, purpose, creativity, and faith. The idea of Kwanza is to focus on one of the principles for each of seven days in a row, and then try to take that forward into your life through the next year.

I have my most productive years when I take time at year's end to assess what I've done and consider what I want to accomplish in the next year. I think, to help me plan next year, I'm going to spend the next week focusing on one of the principles of Kwanza each day - even though it's not the right dates and I don't fit the original audience, and I may tweak the nature of the principle to be more general.

If you celebrate Christmas or Hanukuh or play Grinch throughout the month, consider trying this with me:

• Today, think about unity - how you can work together in your family, community, our nation. How can you help heal divisions?

• Tomorrow, think about who you are and what you want to be. If there are changes you want to make, decide what needs to be done, make a plan, and get to work. Let others know you appreciate their part in your life.

Each of the next days, consider one principle:

• Collective Work and Responsibility: Plan how you are going to build on commitments and relationships you already have; consider what others you want to begin.

• Cooperative Economics: This originally encourages African Americans to support black-owned businesses. We've all grown accustomed to ordering from big businesses online - discover your local businesses and consider how to support them.

• Purpose: Consider and choose a purpose in your life and focus on that. How will everything else you do serve that purpose?

• Creativity: Be intentional. For me, this means asking some questions: What do I want to accomplish with my creativity? How do I want it to be expressed? How do I want it to fit into my life?

• Faith: Be faithful to yourself, to your family and community and culture. Have faith you can make the world a better place to be through your daily choices.

That brings us to New Year's Eve - time to create a motivation board or write resolutions or draft a plan for the year ahead.

Remember: Baby steps count, it's the direction that matters.

A New Year – 2019

I’ll be back to short stories next week, but a year ago I was blogging primarily for writers, talking about reasonable expectations, looking back, motivational boards, and planning. I was on a roll, getting things done.

On my About page, I’ve just posted an update describing my second half of 2018. Where writing is concerned, I got off track, stopped using my spreadsheet to plan each week, changed direction ineffectively, didn’t achieve my primary goal, didn’t get my new book out . . . lots of negatives. My accountability partner and I both moved this year and fell out of the habit of weekly planning together, but the last two weeks we’ve gotten back into it, using our spreadsheets to plan and track progress. I’m trying to have reasonable expectations for the 168 hours in each week, leaving time for sleep and other basic human stuff.

accomplishments for the year, making a new plan, and creating a new motivational board. I didn’t really want to do it this year, with all those negatives, but I did. My list of accomplishments did not include my writing goal for the year. However, I did make a respectable amount for writing, editing, and formatting work – considering the time put into those activities. I did keep this blog going, even when I was on the road for months. The switch to free fiction feels right, and there are more followers each week. I attended the RWA conference in Denver, which got me off track when I pitched Peg’s Story, but I attended many informative sessions and expanded my network. Seeing what I’d done right perked me up and got me planning for the new year.

Previous years, I just had one page of large print, listing things I wanted to accomplish during the year ahead – something to keep posted on my wall to stay focused. Last year, I got fancier. I had one main writing goal with three objectives that would help me reach it, then steps to reach each objective and actions to reach each objective. In fine print it fit on one page with narrow margins. It was overwhelming. This year, I’ve gone back to larger print on that one page. My goal is a dollar amount for the year. I have five potential avenues for achieving that goal, so I listed all five. Of course I came up with ideas for each area, and I did pop them into the list (so I wouldn’t lose them), but it’s not nearly as rigidly picayune as last year’s. To make it less intimidating, I color coded the print: first, second, third, and later priorities. Anything like this blog that’s done regularly is highlighted. The red items are the priority for the first weeks of January.

My motivating phrase for 2018 was “Keep Paddling”. Well, the board got packed up at the end of June and kept in a storage unit with most of my things – and my motivation, direction, and drive floundered. Having no set work space didn’t help. I just pulled it out from under the tarp where many of my belongings await a place in my new digs. I’ll keep it leaning against the wall wherever I’m working, until I have a spot to hang it up.

I’ll keep paddling.

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Affirmations for Writers

Our inner dialogue has enormous impact on how we see ourselves, which in turn is reflected in what we do with our lives. The power of repeating positive affirmations has been documented and if you search “affirmations” you’ll find all kinds of lists of positive affirmations recommended to improve your life.

I wrote here previously about having balance in our lives and how, several years ago, a group of close friends gathered regularly over several weeks to look at where we had been, discern what we wanted in all areas of our lives, and then plan actions to make those things happen. This included an assessment of our strengths, which we each put into a personal affirmation to be repeated daily.

By making the affirmation personal, it has more power than a generic statement that may or may not be a good fit. At least, that’s how it works for me. I know I’ve done serious introspection and discovered these positive things are true about me – I just need to be reminded of them on a regular basis.

There are several good habits I let slip from time to time and this is one of them. I do keep a copy of my affirmations posted on my motivational board, but I’ve gotten out of the habit of writing them daily. I have to thank Hope Clark’s Funds for Writers for inspiring this blog and a renewal of my affirmation habit.

Hope’s weekly newsletters always have good resources and inspirational messages – I strongly recommend subscribing if you are a serious writer. The one I just read, from 2/16/18, had quotes from Nelson Mandela and Rosa Parks about not letting fear make our choices. After reading it, I added two new lines to my daily affirmation:

I make choices in hope. I plan action with purpose.

These two lines are also personally true, but repeating them daily will help me keep that action moving forward and stifle fear and self-doubt.

Take some time to look at where you’ve been, what you’ve accomplished (small things count), and what skills you’ve developed along the way. It helps to do this with people who know you, for they may see things in you that you’re overlooking. Then decide what you want in all aspects of life as you move forward – a year from now, five years, ten, twenty. Determine what steps you need to take to achieve those goals, look at what skills or attributes you have that will help you get there, and write your personal affirmation.

The time taken for introspection will be balanced out by more effective actions going forward. The few moments daily affirmation takes will focus your energies for the day.

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