Reverb 10: Achieve
Today’s prompt is from Tara Sophia Mohr:
Achieve. What’s the thing you most want to achieve next year? How do you imagine you’ll feel when you get it? Free? Happy? Complete? Blissful? Write that feeling down. Then, brainstorm 10 things you can do, or 10 new thoughts you can think, in order to experience that feeling today.
Next year I will publish my first book. I will open the carton and take my first look at the shiny, perfect cover with no coffee rings or scratches or dog-eared corners, and see my name printed at the bottom, and I imagine I will cry. I imagine it will be like when you dream all your life about having a child and finally you give birth to your first one. I will be filled with a sense of relief and release, of accomplishment, of gratitude and pure joy. And because I know myself well, I imagine that after I spend a day or two glowing and giggling about my new-found achievement, I will tell myself that I deserve some time off work. “Look at what you just did,” I will say to myself. “You just gave birth, and so you deserve to reward yourself by doing nothing for a while.”
So that will feel cool for about a day, but then I might start feeling antsy and probably a bit guilty. Then, somewhere in there I will start to worry. I will say, “Okay, the books are done, printed, and distributed. What if no one likes it? What if it fails? What if I fail?” At that point I might begin to feel like I am exposed. I am vulnerable. I’ve put myself out there and that gives everyone permission to critique me and my work. But, then, the first book is purchased, then another and another, and I am in awe. Someone actually gives a shit! What comes to mind is Sally Field’s famous Academy Award acceptance speech. I have achieved a lot already in my past, but this moment will be the achievement that opens the door to my future.
As far as 10 things I can do or think now so I might experience these feelings today…hmmm, do I really want to go through such a roller coaster? Yes, I believe I do, and so I will:
- Continue to write every day
- Make at least one new connection every week to enlarge my circle of writing friends and acquaintances – surround myself with brilliance
- Begin each day by writing in my Gratitude Journal
- Grit my teeth, suck it up, put myself out there and take more risks
- Think bigger – quit self-limiting beliefs. Confidence!
- Try at least one scary thing a week – something that I really, really don’t want to do
- Wake up earlier in the morning – give myself an extra hour to do something productive, peaceful or creative
- Get started on book #2
- Learn from book #1
- Practice signing my autograph!
* * * * * * * * * * *
I’m participating in a month-long blogging challenge called Reverb10 during which I am posting a response to a writing prompt from 31 different authors. The goal of the exercise is to reflect on 2010 and set goals for 2011.
