Doing the Scary Thing

Empowerment Center

Doing the Scary Thing

I wrote a novel.  In a month.  Without a plan of any kind.

It was deliciously terrifying!  I dove into a community of writers working towards this lofty goal of creating 50,000 words in a single month with nothing more than the plan to write something every day.  My inspiration was my friend, Jen, who was the writer in our group.  She isn’t here to do Nanowrimo this year and I wanted to be her stand-in.  I knew the goal was 50,000 words, and I knew that “winning” wasn’t guaranteed – 50,000 is A LOT OF WORDS!  I had no expectations of hitting that goal, actually.  I just wanted to commit to writing every day and was prepared to be happy with however many words I came up with as long as I met that commitment.

2016-11-06-18-11-17I recruited other people I knew to join me in this craziness.  I joined in all the community groups I could find that were set up for people working on this challenge.  I set up write-ins at the studio and at other local spots (thanks to The Collage Cafe, La Principal, and our local Starbucks for playing along) so I would have company along the way.  I went public with word count updates on my Facebook page.  I connected with the local Chiwrimo organizers and participated in their events at Open Books. The community helped me work through the challenge.

What does all this have to do with the studio?

Taking the plunge into something new like bellydance or even a new fitness class can be scary.  I obviously don’t have those fears anymore (though, believe me, I sure did before I got started with my active lifestyle), so it took something completely different for me to put myself into the shoes of those of you who haven’t found your way into a class or workshop (yet).

I get it.  Doing the scary thing is hard!  You know what?

It feels SO AWESOME when you do it!

If you start with an achievable goal (daily writing, 1 class a week, 5 minutes of practice), get a friend to join you, and insert yourself into a community of others doing the same thing, imagine what you can do over the next 30 days!

2016-12-02-20-56-18 Oh, and I DID win!

I met my goal of writing every single day in the month of November.

I finished my novel and, believe it or not, my final word count ended up being more than double the goal (100,467 words, to be exact).

 

YOU CAN DO THE SCARY THING! And I want to hear about it!