While I’m still working on revising my first manuscript (more on that later – it’s going well!), I’m trying to get going with novel #2 as well. I was about to write “trying to get disciplined” about writing novel #2, but I remembered a recent Zen Habits post with the enticing (if sensationalist) title The Only Two Secrets to Motivating Yourself You’ll Ever Need. Leo made a very valid point that sticking to your goals is not a matter of discipline, but a matter of motivation: if you make your goals motivating enough for you, then you will achieve them without the military-style push of “discipline”. That makes sense to me.
So anyhow, speaking of motivation, the owner of the Comotivate website contacted me recently because he’d (rightly) heard that I’m interested in achieving goals. Comotivate is a quite new website (actually it’s still in beta) that aims to connect up like-minded people who are trying to achieve similar goals. For example, my goal is listed in the Write a book goal list although I’ve yet to find a buddy or a team to join. By far the biggest number of people have joined up with health-related goals like getting fit or losing weight.
But I really like the idea and encourage you to check Comotivate out if you’re like me and need a bit of support to reach one of your goals … and especially if you’re trying to write a book too then search for me and “buddy up”! It’s easy to find me on Comotivate because my username is amandak and my picture is of my cat Lucy.
Congratulations on finally editing your manuscript! It’s really great reading about others’ writing journey as well.
I’d like to join you on that Comotivate site but I plan to tackle writing a novel later.
I’d like to find a buddy for short story writing though. See how it turns out.
I also like reading Zen Habits as well and I like that post of Leo’s you mentioned. Although I tend to disagree a bit because there would be times you’d feel down and the motivation is gone. That’s why ‘commit’ is such a big word because you really have to hang in there when times are touch and stick with it no matter what. But I agree 100% with Leo that you have to focus on what you want, focus on the positive side of it so you’d have that ray of sunshine with you especially during times when everything plunges to darkness.
Oops, sorry. Meant to say ‘when times are tough’.
KEEP ON GOING!! YOU’LL GET THERE!
Thanks for the encouraging words, Kate! But don’t congratulate me too soon in case I lose enthusiasm for the editing process, save the congrats for when I’m done
You make a good point about sometimes the motivation not really being there – but I’ve resolved to try to look at in another way and find a new positive part of the task that I’ll enjoy doing (or just give up and go pull weeds out of my garden… there are enough of them there).
Hey Amanda
So cool that you registered on comotivate…I’m really hoping to get more people sign up with diverse goals and yours is such a great one. I think writers especially can draw inspiration and motivation from each other so fingers crossed. I’ll have a think about where else I might be able to ‘go fishing’ for more people to know about the site. In the meantime, I’ll check back here in two weeks and I want to see progress girl! Good luck and thanks again.
Okay Matt, you’ve set me the challenge there … will try to make some progress in the next couple of weeks! I was about to list a bunch of excuses why I might not (in-laws coming from Switzerland was the first one) but … excuses are just excuses, really.