In the hard weeks, and when we face the most difficult truths about ourselves or about humanity or about life, we have more needs. Change and loss are painful and complicated, and in the midst of global uncertainty, even more so. My practices have become even more important to me, the last week. My self-care…
I wish it would happen to me vs. I want to do it. There is an active difference in outcomes between those two statements. And as someone who has said both of them before, about different things, let me encourage you: you aren’t “one” or “the other” type of person in this scenario. Everyone will…
When I go to 11 about something, do I know how to get what I need and want? This is not to say we shouldn’t go to 11. This is to say, when we do, how do we take best advantage of that 11-feeling. Many of us want to take action right then, when we’re…
We do a behavioral-continuum activity in our writing workshops where I put up a slide that has two opposite behaviors on it, and ask the writers to go to one side of the room if they are the one extreme, and the other side of the room if they are the other extreme. “Write best…
In fictional stories, characters are always oblivious to what’s really controlling and motivating them. To a point where, when a character has too much self-awareness, we often say, “feels like author intrusion” because we all know that moment of epiphany when the protagonist realizes What’s Really Going On Here ™. If you’re a writer, you’ve…
When you want to have a sustainable author career… Management of resources becomes one of the most important things you can do. That means you have to value your time enough that you are willing to make hard choices when it comes to how you spend your attention. You have to choose the hard thing,…
Ok, some of you will really not vibe with this, so absolutely, nope out if you want. But. Some of you need to question the premise of setting “achievable” goals. Look. Bottom line, some of us are made to need goals that are achievable, and some of us aren’t. Some of us need to set…
I know there are a lot of statistics that float around about how difficult adult behavioral change is, and as someone who’s been teaching this stuff for nearly a decade, let me put in a plug for changing the way you change. Adult behavioral change is difficult because everything in your system is currently set…
I have a book release today and these days are always strange. On one hand, I’m already beyond this moment (so much preparation and blood/sweat/tears go into my books, by the time they’re out I don’t want to talk about them anymore), and on the other hand, this book has been a gauntlet. I doubt…
Tell someone how much you love them and specifically what you love about them. I’ve been editing the Energy book and am re-doing the practice of some of the exercises, and yesterday, I came across the “tell someone what you love about them” card. I had a friend over yesterday who is a #1 Empathy,…