Tag Archives: mindset

The Daily Mindset Practice That Will Help You Achieve Your Writing Goals

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JH: Sometimes the things standing in the way of our writing dreams is our own doubts and fears. Jennifer Blanchard visits the lecture hall today to share tips on how to get our of our heads and back into our writing.

Jennifer Blanchard is an author, screenwriter, Developmental Book Editor, and the founder of The Feel-Good Life Center. Grab her FREE Story Secrets audio series here and start writing better stories.

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Take it away Jennifer…

I’ve always been a person who believes anything is possible if you set your mind to it. I proved that to be true over and over again in my life with the things I’ve accomplished and achieved.

But even with my positive attitude and outlook, I used to have a negative side. And I had lots of negative, limiting beliefs that were stopping me from creating success in my writing life.

The thing about success most people get wrong is thinking that it’s all about taking action. Yes, you do have to take action, but it’s only a small part of the bigger picture. About 10 percent.

The other 90 percent is your mindset. It’s how you think, how you believe, how you feel and the action you take because of how you think, feel and believe.

I didn’t start seeing the success I wanted in my writing life until I took control of my thinking.

Here is the daily mindset practice that I used to hit #1 in my category on Amazon three times, sell thousands of books, write and publish nine new books in one year, and more.

1. Clear The Mental Clutter

Your mind receives around 50,000 to 60,000 thoughts every day. That’s a lot of noise going on in your head!

In order to hear the good thoughts and the good ideas, you need to clear the clutter that blocks them.

My favorite way to do this is freestyle journaling. I handwrite at least one page, stream-of-consciousness, immediately upon waking every morning.

Doing this allows me to leave the negative stuff on the page and not take it with me into my day.

Some other clearing options include:

  • Morning Pages--created by Julia Cameron, these are three handwritten, stream-of-consciousness pages that you write immediately upon waking (similar to what I do).
  • Meditation–this allows you to clear your mind and focus on feeling how you want to feel as you go into your day.

 

2. Set Your Writing Intentions

After I clear out the clutter, I do an intention-setting practice where I grab my journal and write at least one page of positive, present-tense statements about what I want in my writing life.

So, for example, when I was focusing on becoming a Best Seller in my category on Amazon, I wrote in my journal every day: I am a bestselling author. I sell thousands of books every month with ease. Selling books is easy and fun. My community loves to buy my books, read my books and leave me five-star reviews.

The power behind the intention-setting and the repetition of doing it daily is what allows you to penetrate your subconscious mind and program these new beliefs into it.

When you believe something is possible for you, then you’re a lot more likely to act on the nudges or inspired actions that come to you every day. And you’re a lot more likely to be consistent with your writing habit and getting your writing out into the world.

By setting intentions and then taking action when I felt inspired to, I was able to achieve the writing goals I desired.

3. Visualize Your Writing Goal As If It’s Already Done

The final part of my daily mindset practice is visualizing my writing goals as if they’re already done. I focus my visualization specifically on the intentions I set in the second part of my practice.

The important part with visualization is that you not only “see” yourself achieving the goal, but that you also feel the emotion of having achieved it. Emotion is a big part of visualizing.

When it comes down to it, if you want to achieve a goal, you have to fully believe, not only that it’s possible to achieve it, but also that it’s possible for you to achieve it.

This is a very important point. It can’t just feel believable. It has to feel believable for you. You have to believe you can do it.

This three-part daily mindset practice will help you start to believe in yourself and create more confidence in who you are as a writer and in the writing you’re doing in the world.

Share in the comments: Do you have a daily mindset practice? What does it involve?

By Jennifer Blanchard

Part of The Writer’s Life Series

Source: http://blog.janicehardy.com

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The Satisfaction of Excellence: The Growth Mindset for Writers

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If someone had asked me in my early days as a book coach what quality was most critical to a writer’s success, I would have said perseverance. It was the thing that most obviously separated the writers who made it from those who didn’t. After all, in order to succeed, you have to finish, and in order to finish, you have to stick with it, day after day, month after month, year after year, whether the writing is going well or not. Perseverance trumps procrastination and doubt – the two things that tend to derail a great many writers.

While I still consider perseverance to be paramount, another quality has risen to the top of my list of qualities critical to a writer’s success: the ability to receive feedback.

In my early interactions with a potential client, I can tell what their general stance is on feedback. They fall somewhere on the spectrum from closed and defensive on the one side and open and willing to learn on the other.

CLOSED/DEFENSIVE OPEN/WILLING TO LEARN

Someone who is closed and defensive thinks they already know it all. They are hyper protective of their idea and their vision and if they seek help at all, it is under the guise of wanting confirmation that what they have written is already great. They don’t really want feedback; they want a quick “win.”

But winning is not a place you arrive; it’s a way you behave. And the most successful writers behave with a growth mindset.

That’s the term coined years ago by Dr. Carol Dweck, a Stanford professor of psychology and author of the book, Mindset. A growth mindset is the opposite from a fixed mindset. It means you are flexible and open, always willing to learn:

“The passion for stretching yourself and sticking to it, even (or especially) when it’s not going well, is the hallmark of the growth mindset. This is the mindset that allows people to thrive during some of the most challenging times in their lives.”

Here’s what a growth mindset tends to look like in writers:

  • The writer is open to improving. They are not afraid to look at their skills and to assess them. They acknowledge the areas where they could be better. They welcome honest feedback.
  • The writer is willing to learn. They read in their genre to see how writers they admire approach a character or a scene or a structural element. They read books and blogs about writing to learn from wise teachers. They go to lectures, partner with other ambitious writers, seek out a coach to help them get strong.
  • The writer wants to know how their work impacts their readers. They want the outcome to be effective and make an impact. They consider the end-goal of the work, not just how it makes them feel as they write.
  • The writer works hard to bring their vision to life, focusing on the work and not on external measures of success. One of my clients recently finished a draft of a novel; it is her second, and her first did not sell. She was starting to feel closed and fearful about the new book, until she recognized that feeling, and made a switch. She began to focus on what she calls “the satisfaction of excellence.” The satisfaction of excellence has nothing to do with landing an agent, getting a big book deal, or making a lot of money. It has to do with mastering the craft.
  • They are grateful for the chance to write, the time to write, the space to write. They are grateful for the people who support them and for their readers, no matter how small or large the number.

Good writing takes a very long time to develop – 10,000 hours spent trying to spin a tale or an argument, trying to find your voice. Having a growth mindset means that you don’t just sit alone during those 10,000 hours, banging away and ignoring the rest of the world. You seek to get better every time you write. You seek the satisfaction of excellence.

By Writing Coach
Source: writershelpingwriters.net

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