Are you running away or towards your writing goals?

Photo by Jeremy Lapak on Unsplash

The organization I work for LOVES to do community circles anytime we have a meeting or training. Community circles are a culture-building activity and protocol that allows participants to connect and discuss how they’re feeling about each other, their employer, a particular situation or circumstance, etc.

In application community circles are great. They promote collaboration, trust, honest communication, self-reflection and a whole bunch of other stuff that I can think of right now. It’s a great tool for individual and organizational development.

However, in my organization community circles inevitably become a conversation about distrust and dysfunction between the various teams within the organization. People complain about the same things over and over again. And yet not much really changes. Thus, muting the whole point of coming together with colleagues and opening up about what frustrates them in an effort to make change and move on.

I get it. Change is super hard. And it’s harder when we know we have to change. And it’s even harder when we know what we have to do to make change. We know what we want but we just don’t seem to get there. Even though it feels like we’re making progress towards our goals, we’re actually running away from them. In our case, we’re running in circles.

So let’s think about writing goals. Are you spinning in circles and talking about the same problems or obstacles over and over and over again? Does it feel like you’re addressing the problem but not solving it? If your behavior is to keep doing the same thing but expect different results then, boy, we’ve got some stuff to work on.

Writing is hard enough as it is. Hell, it’s damn near impossible. And goals are incredibly important for writers. The right goal with the right plan can work miracles for your writing and career. But we have to make sure that we’re keeping momentum moving in a forward direction.

In writing, action always beats inaction. Writing three sentences and calling it a day because you’re pissed off, have a headache, and your kid’s Zoom crashes is completely fine (and normal during a pandemic). What’s not okay is to say you’re going to write but spend your writing time reading my blog. Yes, I’m flattered, but YOU didn’t keep your momentum moving forward.

Take a moment right now and ask yourself: Are my actions helping me work towards my goals or are they helping me run away from them?