Feeling Like a Stuck Puppy?

An author told me yesterday she was “stuck.” She hadn’t made any progress on her book for weeks and she was really in a funk about it.

The longer she talked about all the reasons she wasn't writing, the more I agreed with some advice Heather Havrilesky gave in a column, "Some people get stuck because they're stuck telling a story about why they're stuck."

Many of us have been told to "talk about our feelings."

But enough is enough. Talking, thinking, and telling others how stuck we are perpetuates the problem; it doesn't solve it.

I agree with Pearl Buck who said, “Moods? I don’t believe in moods. At some point, you’ve got to know you've got to get down to work.”

The good news is, we can change our story any time we choose.

How? By switching our attention from doubts to determination.  

Simply choose, right now, to focus on the positive difference your project will make for others.

Give all your attention to how proud you will be you finished this and got it out in the world.

Focus on one thing you can do to make tangible progress on your project TODAY.

Apply what author Bryce Courtenay (The Power of One) called, “BUM GLUE.”

Promise yourself you will sit down today and produce a certain number of pages in a certain amount of time.

Do NOT re-read what you’ve written. 

If you re-read what you’ve written, you will re-work what you’ve written. And at the end of the week or month, you'll have the same ten or twenty or thirty pages. And they won’t necessarily be better, they will just be different.

What's worse is you will have lost confidence in your voice and vision because you’re critiquing, not creating. Judging what you write steals its juice. You'll start second-guessing everything you say and your voice will go into hiding.

In 17 years of Maui Writers Conference, our best selling authors didn't agree on much of anything. One would suggest you HAVE to work with an outline, the next keynoter would say she NEVER works with an outline. One would say you have to write first thing every morning; another would admit he didn't get going until noon. They all had their own style and customized rituals that worked for them.

They really only agreed on two things. One was "Ink it when you think it." The other was that they'd STILL be working on their books if they didn't have a deadline.

The compulsion to get it perfect causes us to quit. It puts too much pressure on us to get it right the first time. And it's rarely right the first time, or the second or the third.

Tell yourself a NEW story today.

Tell yourself, "Being stuck doesn’t serve anyone. Today, I will draft. Later, I can craft. Today I will get it written. Later I can get it right.

My goal today is to produce a certain number of pages. I will do the same the next day and the next so I experience the satisfaction of knowing I'm making PROGRESS.

I will have tangible results, something to show for my efforts. I will be out of inertia and into action. I will get to work and move my project FORWARD. I will ... WRITE ON!"

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Sam Horn, Founder/CEO of the Intrigue Agency, is the author of Tongue Fu!, What's Holding You Back? POP!, IDEApreneur, and Washington Post bestseller Got Your Attention? Her work has been featured in New York Times, Forbes, INC, NPR and MSNBC. Contact [email protected] to arrange for Sam to share her inspiring insights at your conference. Discover for yourself why she was a top-ranked speaker at INC 500/5000 (along with Seth Godin, Jim Collins and Tim Ferris) and why her presentations receive raves from National Geographic, Boeing, Intel, ASAE and Cisco.