The One Thing You're Afraid to Pursue
Dare to be bold by Matt Cheuvront
Our arts, our occupations, our marriages, our religion, we have not chosen, but society has chosen for us. We are parlour soldiers. We shun the rugged battle of fate, where strength is born. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Next to Resistance, rational thought is the artist or entrepreneurs worst enemy. Bad things happen when we employ rational thought, because rational thought comes from the ego. Instead, we want to work from the Self, that is, from instinct and intuition, from the unconscious.
A child has no trouble believing the unbelievable, nor does the genius or the madman. Its only you and I, with our big brains and our tiny hearts, who doubt and overthink and hesitate.” - Steven Pressfield, Do the Work
The idea of “being realistic” holds all of us back. From starting a business or quitting a job to dating someone who may not be our type or moving to a new place – getting “real” often means putting your dreams on hold.
Today, let’s take a step away from rational thought and dare to be bold. What’s one thing you’ve always wanted to accomplish but have been afraid to pursue? Write it down. Also write down the obstacles in your way of reaching your goal. Finally, write down a tangible plan to overcome each obstacle.
The only thing left is to, you know, actually go make it happen. What are you waiting for?
(Author: Matt Cheuvront)
Funny how I keep coming back to writing. I've wanted, thought about, dreamed about (literally), planned on writing a novel for years. Why don't I? I can point to all kinds of excuses - I'm too busy, I can't decide which mental plot line to use, it will take too much away from my work/play/social time, I need to take a creative writing class first. I've used them all.
Even though I said my literary goal for this year (last year's was to read 144 books) was to write a book, I haven't done a damn thing to get to that goal.
Why? Because I'm afraid it will really, really suck and my dream of being a published author will die a horrible death.
I have done things to do more writing, just not of the novel kind. I'm trying to be more consistent/frequent on creating blog posts. Facebook makes it so easy to just post a note. A blog requires more thought and time so I'd been slacking off. I also signed up for this 30 day writing challenge. I also gave myself more time to write by not trying to achieve a huge reading goal and also not re-running for the BOD of the Arizona Parrot Head Club.
So, my goal is to write a book. My obstacle is my own fear of failure. What's the plan?
I'm going to block out one week a night for writing. No TV, no music, no reading, no playing with my cat. Just full on novel work. Now, I just need to decide which plot to use...I'll make a decision on that by next week.
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