by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig
Over Christmas last year, I had a bit of a zoo in my house. My husband and I added a young cat to our household, bringing our total to three: two cats and a dog. My daughter came over to spend the holiday with us, which was wonderful. She brought her two cats with her. One of her cats was not pleased with our newest addition, so the two had to be separated.
Because I get up the earliest (4 or 5), I was the one who fed the animals their breakfast. Ordinarily, I have a routine with the animals before I settle right down to my writing. I let the dog out, feed everyone, refill water bowls, empty litter, put away anything that’s not in its place, and sit down to work. That’s what I considered a successful start to my day.
During Christmas, however, I had to completely refine success. If everyone ate his or her own food and there were no cat fights in the process, I felt as if I’d done well.
I think it’s a good idea to go easy on ourselves when at all possible. So often, we’re much kinder to others than we are to ourselves.
One example of being kinder to ourselves is to not set ourselves up for failure. That’s why I had to scale back my all-important routine over the holidays. I also gave myself a break with my word count then because I realized it was going to be tougher to churn out words when there were animals running over my lap and keyboard all the time.
It’s late-August. How are your goals for the year going? It’s good to take an honest look at what you planned to accomplish in 2024. Were you asking too much of yourself? Do you need to scale things back and make them more reasonable? When I had small children in the house, I always made sure my goal was 15 minutes a day. It felt good to meet my goal and gain confidence while establishing a routine.
This doesn’t only apply to writing, of course. Can you redefine success in other ways so you can feel good about your accomplishments? Instead of unreasonable goals for exercise or diet, for example, can you make some minor changes like doing stretches or core exercises when you watch TV? Or adding an additional fruit to your day?
I’m not saying we should give ourselves carte blanche to ignore all our goals. But it can be good to revisit them, modify them, and redefine success in a way that gives us the sensation that we’re progressing.
How do you set smarter goals for yourself? Have you ever had to redefine success?
Redefining Success as a Writer: Share on XImage by Sergio Cerrato – Italia from Pixabay
Working a full time job, I definitely have a routine. Some days it feels like Groundhog Day. It's funny though, the older I get, the more things pop up to interfere with my routine. So, like you said, I have to make adjustments and allowances.
It’s funny how even the most routine day can suddenly go off the rails! I’ve gotten better with flexibility.
You're so right, Elizabeth, about being kind to ourselves. It's not that we stop having goals or working towards them, but life does happen. We have to be just as kind to ourselves as we would want to be to someone else. And I have a great mental picture now of you with all of those cats! It must've been something else!
It was a zoo, hahaha!
I totally agree with you that we need to be kinder to ourselves and not set unrealistic goals. Thanks for reminding us how important this is.
It really helps me not to push myself too hard!
I love the balance approach of this blog post. The small victories!
Small victories are the best!
My goals are shifting and so is the time I spend in certain areas. Although I've never had a routine, so not much to disrupt.
You’re able to get a lot done without a routine! I would be struggling.
I always give myself the weekends off writing unless I'm obsessed with getting something done. I was very consistently writing/transcribing Monday through Friday, but as I'm in the middle of a special project until November, and one of my sons is home for college this summer, I've been giving myself a break when I miss days. The words and characters will be there!
A bigger adjustment has been not exercising every day. Weekends are hard with a new family situation, but more than that, physical therapy for the last three months has thrown me off. Whereas it used to be easy to incorporate 30 minutes into my day religiously, now it's 7 minutes here, 15 minutes there, and then maybe thirty minutes if I'm lucky. (Bonus points if I get to take a long walk.) The neurotic part of me worries I'm losing the habit, but I'm pretty confident I'll be able to get back into it once PT is over.
Not panicking is an important skill when there are life changes!
It’s all about life changes, isn’t it? I know I’ve gone through a ton of them. Sorry about the PT! I remember how undone I was the last time I couldn’t exercise because of injury. I’m doing better now with being flexible with what life throws at me. I don’t think you’re going to have a problem in the world resuming your exercise habit!
I've scaled things back so much and so often, I rarely meet a goal. On the bright side, I'm rarely stressed about things.
That sounds perfect to me!
I love this, "One example of being kinder to ourselves is to not set ourselves up for failure. " Being kind to myself is something I'm not good at. In fact, if I don't measure up to my perfectionism, then I can be harsh to my self esteem. I'm working on this and not setting myself up for failure.
If my dog and (outdoor) cats aren't fed first thing in the morning, there will be no typing done. They couldn't care less how many words I type. :)
Good for you for working on the perfectionism! I’m trying to be much kinder to myself than I have in the past.
That’s the way Finn and Maisie are. They don’t give a hoot about my books!