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Hope and Perseverance
 Posted by Michelle Butler May 22 2011, 9:50 pm in confidence, fear, inspiration, Michelle Butler, Michelle Mondays, motivation, positive thinking, process, weight loss, Writing At a fabulous WRW meeting this past Saturday, mystery and romance author Sherry Lewis said that readers read to renew their belief in the human spirit. Another way of saying this is that readers read to keep hope alive. When you are pursuing a long-term goal such as losing a lot of weight or getting a book published, you have to believe that accomplishing your dream is possible. This belief or hope is vital to perseverance. How do you keep that hope alive? Saturday’s WRW meeting, and Sherry Lewis in particular, offered many answers to that question. While Sherry’s talk was focused on the craft of writing a novel, much of what she said strengthened my own hope and belief that I can accomplish my dreams while it also gave me insights into how to strengthen my manuscripts. One of Sherry’s many tips was that readers like characters who have passion, a plan of action and a reason to keep going when challenges arise. These same three things are important when you are on the journey to become and stay a healthy writer. As you may know, I’m a planner. I often talk about planning and preparing for success on this blog and will adjust my plans when they don’t seem to be working. I’ve even done the soul-searching necessary to figure out why I keep going in my weight-loss and healthy living efforts. Whenever I’m tempted to quit, my now firm belief that I don’t deserve the self-destruction rises up and I find another way to keep on fighting. Structure and process also can keep that hope alive and help you persevere. Sherry stressed that there are two reasons why you need to finish a book and learn how to finish a book. First, the best time to learn the discipline to write no matter what is not after you sold your first book and must write a second book to comply with your contract. Learn that discipline before you sell. The second and even more important reason is that when things get hard, and they will as there will come a time when you will think your pages suck more than anything else ever written, the fact that your process has worked before will help pull you out of that funk and make forward progress. Structure got Sherry to finish her first manuscript. She had several manuscripts started but she always stopped around page 100. Then, a local author who had three books published offered a writing night class at a local high school. Sherry borrowed $28 from her daughter and took that course. That author taught Sherry scene and sequel. Once Sherry understood that concept, she was able to finish a complete manuscript. Now, her understanding of the structure of a novel and belief that her process works gets her to the end of every manuscript. Structure and process can help with a weight loss or other healthy living journey as well. I try to build stuff into my life that makes it harder to quit. At lunch Saturday, a writer friend asked me what I was getting out of my Weight Watchers meetings. I have gone every week since the beginning of 2009, but as I had acknowledged to her, I’d been in the same five pound range for more than a year. Why was I still going? It took awhile to come up with (or remember) this answer, but I think attending weekly Weight Watchers meetings is one of the main ways I keep myself from quitting and returning to overeating so much that I gain all the weight back. I promised myself to go every week until I reached my goal weight, and as the years pass, that promise is still important to me. In a lot of ways, I like and appreciate how I look now, but I’m still many pounds from the healthy weight zone. It still seems important to get there. Since I committed to achieving that goal and sticking with my weekly WW meetings, I just go every week and don’t question whether I should skip it this time. I have several friends at my usual meeting, including a wonderful man who is also my boyfriend now, and they are additional reasons I keep going and even look forward to the meetings. I almost always leave a meeting with more hope that I can achieve this goal than I had walking into it. That renewal of hope may come from the leader, but it also can come from something smart and insightful someone else at the meeting said. One guest blogger here said she gets her “fattitude adjusted” every week at WW, and that still resonates now just as much as it did when I first read that. I also see examples of success at each meeting, and that reminds me that sustained weight loss and maintenance are possible. As I see people celebrate milestones I’ve passed or hope to achieve one day, it reminds me how I have lost the 40-something pounds I’m down from my highest weight ever, how I have kept it off, and what I need to do to lose the next whatever amount of pounds I need to lose to get into that healthy weight zone. In my last stretch of consistent weight loss this year when I lost about 7 pounds in 5 weeks, I re-committed to two things in addition to my weekly meetings: tracking (keeping a food diary) accurately and exercising for stress relief. I know a lot of other stuff can help me succeed on this journey, but I know that process can and will work for me. I just have to keep on keepin’ on as Sally puts it so well. Another great piece of advice Sherry shared with us on Saturday is that you go through mountains and valleys in your career. It is not a straight line. The only thing harder than getting published is staying published. This reminded me of last week’s post about the magic is the journey and all I have learned about Zen the past few years. Yes, the secret to success in life is often perseverance, but that does not mean you have to slog, trudge or suffer for every step taken backward or forward. You can persevere full of hope and optimism and meaning and joy in the moment along the journey. Do what you can to keep your thoughts, emotions and the stories you tell yourself on your side as opposed to working against you for this too shall pass. Yes, there have been dark times and there will be more dark times in the future, but there have also been great times and there are more great times to come. If that doesn’t help you change your reaction to the situation, escape into a good book for the night to renew your belief in the human spirit. It may give you the hope you need to persevere. How do you renew your hope? How do you persevere? Do you have passion, a plan of action and a reason to keep going when challenges arise? What is your structure or process?
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Oh, I just love Sherry. I served on the RWA board with her, and she’s fab. She’s also done some excellent articles for the RWR, so I have no doubt her workshop was great too.
Michelle, your posts are always a good way to kick off the week — filled with the inspiration to keep going.
As you know, I’m a big goal-setter and planner too. When I don’t have some sort of outline of where I’m going, I feel like I’m just floating aimlessly. But I try not to have them be so rigid that I implode if I don’t meet them.
Thanks, Trish! I’m very glad that my posts inspire you and help kick of your week on the right foot.
I really enjoyed Sherry’s articles in the RWR, so I knew that her sessions had a good chance of being helpful. They far surpassed my expectations though. She had so much wisdom to share – on craft and writer’s life stuff.
There is an art to setting goals and planning and balancing it all with life as we’ve discussed here. Glad you don’t let it make you implode.
Interesting post, Michelle – thought-provoking as always!
I set goals and try to have a plan too. My best buddies keep me on track and keep me going when the going gets tough. I couldn’t get through the ups and downs of this emotional roller-coaster without them. Hopefully, I do the same for them!
I think the key is to be realistic when you set the goals in the first place so that you don’t set yourself up for disappointment. The trick is to have stretching goals, but achievable too.
I’m a great believer in SMART targets from my business days and find that working from home, I need to be especially careful to not set nebulous goals and not to let everyday life intrude.
A community/support group is so helpful, isn’t it, Anna? I’m sure your best buddies find you helpful.
I’ve done some reading on SMART goals, but I always run up against my belief that I do better with process goals than result goals. I suppose I do have the measurable accountability built into my healthy living goals since I get weighed in at WW each week and pay a lot of attention to how my clothes fit/measurements. I don’t have that built into my writing goals.
Actually, Michelle, I think you can have SMART goals that are process goals as well as result goals – the key is how you frame them and how you measure them.
Too often we set nebulous goals eg I will be published by xx. Aside from being largely out of our control, you can’t build a plan around that goal. I think this applies to our lifestyle goals too, but in a different way – I suspect we get overly specific and ambitious in those!
Can you give me an example of a SMART writing goal that is process oriented instead of result oriented?
I’ll do my best – I’m more concrete/results oriented than that *g*, but I’d say that instead of saying ‘I will sell by x date’, you reframe as ‘I will become a better writer by the end of the year’. The measures are ones you set yourself and can be output quality (eg through your increased confidence, contest results, crit partner feedback etc) or output quantity (eg you’re writing more, finished that book, more submissions etc)
You can add more specific results goals as part of it – just as you would your lb/inch loss, your exercise program, your calorie count etc. eg how many workshops/books/conferences or how many submissions/ms completed etc
It’s achievable, it’s resourced if you put your time and effort into it (or pay for courses, books conference etc) and timed.
It’s also flexible and each element of the process is part of the whole. By becoming a better writer, you will increase your chances of selling.
Does that make sense?
I am so sorry I missed that WRW meeting! It sounded great on both levels.
It was, Diane! I missed seeing you there, but I know the meeting right after the retreat is always hard to attend. Hope you had a good day.
Great post, Michelle. I am looking forward to hearing the recording from Sherry’s sessions as I sadly wasn’t able to make the meeting.
I love your point about the journey — to not beat yourself up because you’re not X, yet, but instead appreciate where you are and finding meaning in as many places as you can.
Thanks, Vanessa! I find having that kind of mindset really helps me appreciate my life more.
I’m going to get the download of Sherrie’s workshop because I’ve heard nothing but wonderful things about it. One of the things I do to keep my writing mojo passionate is defensive: I try to stay away from the people who cling to the negative, who wallow in how HARD it is, who are spending more time lamenting and handwringing then they do writing. A good gripe has its place, a heart felt poor-baby can help you Get Over a downer, but I love to write, and I want to be around people how honestly share that passion.
Just sayin’.
Grace, that’s a really good point. I think I’m naturally drawn to smart, nice, generally positive/optimistic, fairly proactive, curious (as in interested in the world) people, but the folks who surround you can have a negative or positive impact on you without you even be aware of it. I see it a lot on food and other healthy lifestyle choices, but I’ve worked real hard to be more conscious of that. You’ve given me something to think about in the other areas of my life.
Hi Michelle,
I’m so sorry I couldn’t make Sherry’s talk. I knew it would be fantastic and everyone has been raving about it. I’ll have to download the file at some point.
The point in your blog that really resonated with me is not wallowing in the negative. When I go through particularly stressful periods and catch myself thinking, “I just need to survive the next 3 days…or 2 weeks…or 3 months…” that has become a signal that I need to stop and think about my life. I shouldn’t be wishing away portions of my life. Yes, I’ll face some difficult moments, but there are things about my life that I can enjoy even during the stressful times–and I need to remember to appreciate and notice those things.
The one piece of advice/expression that my maternal grandmother told me all the time is, “Don’t wish your life away.” I too could get so stressed that I would just wish for the next week to be over. Like you said, that closes your eyes to all the good that could happen that week too.
Part of it as well is how you frame things or the stories you tell yourself about your life. THere have been times in the past when I would say I can’t do a lot of fun things this month because I have a huge project at work. By focusing everything on some big event at work, I totally lost out on my personal life for months at a time. I try to be better about that now.