Latest / The Daily Writer / A Little Exercise to Help You Take Action

Transcript

A Little Exercise to Help You Take Action · The Daily Writer

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Hey my friend, welcome to the Daily Writer, where we help writers become authors of their own lives.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: Today we're tackling a thorny question sent in by one of my former college professors, Rick Fordyce.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: He's getting ready to retire as a pastor, and he plans to do more writing and continue growing his editing business.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: Here's what he asked.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: Dear Kent, I keep telling myself that once I retire, I will have the time to get my writing and business cranking.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: My problem, however, has not been telling myself what I need to do, it is doing what I need to do.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: Do you have any advice for moving from telling yourself what to do to actually doing it?
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: And Rick, thanks so much for this question.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: And man, I think we can all relate to this, can't we?
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: Because there are those moments where we know what we should do, but we have a little bit of trouble getting motivated to do it.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I do think the answer to this question ultimately comes down to a matter of motivation, which of course is different for every person.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: We all have different things that motivate us or compel us to take action.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I think maybe it will be instructive to share how I think about my own motivation.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: And then I'll share a quick exercise at the end of this episode.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: When I consider what motivates me in my business, there are internal forces that push me forward and external forces that pull me forward.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: So it's kind of a push and pull sort of a situation.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: Let me explain what I mean by this.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: My internal forces that push me forward include things like my desire to be excellent, or creative itches that need to be scratched, or it might be an internal drive to see how far I can go in my industry, or something like a need to write the books that I wish existed in the world.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: Now, at the same time, I have external forces that pull me forward, which include things like specific income goals for each part of my business, showing up every day for my readers, a desire to support my family financially, and also a much larger multi-year goal that's really, really exciting to me.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm actually keeping that very private for the reason that sometimes when you have a really, really big goal and you put it out there into the world, it kind of dissipates that goal and it takes the enthusiasm out of it.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: So for the time being, I'm keeping that multi-year, much larger goal private to myself.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, I haven't shared that with anybody.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: Now, maybe you relate to some of these, or maybe you don't.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: Again, everybody is motivated by different forces.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: The important thing is to get clear on what motivates you as a writer and as a business owner.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: And to that end, I recommend doing a very simple exercise that will take about 20 minutes or so, maybe less, maybe more.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: So I encourage you to sit down and journal all the reasons that you want to continue writing and growing your business.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: And don't judge any of the reasons.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's important to be really honest about what you want and why you want those things.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I find this exercise to be really helpful in getting clear on the internal and external forces that guide my desires and my behavior.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: So, Rick, and for everybody else who's listening, give this little exercise a try.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: I would actually love to know how this works for you.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: You can shoot me an email and let me know at Kent at KentSanders.net.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for listening.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: Keep writing, keep showing up, and I'll see you tomorrow.