Are you ready to do the thing?

Now that I’ve been reading and writing again (see “A new way of thinking…”)—essentially, practicing that which I want to become greater at—I can’t deny a rekindled motivation. And the vision I have for the future is now more than a pipe dream: it’s a plan. Complete with deadlines and manageable goals mapped out. During a recent workshop exercise, the leader had us close our eyes and imagine ourselves a year from now. That we’ve done “the thing” we’ve always dreamed of—written that book, earned the degree, gotten that job, took the trip, retired early. What does it feel like? How about three years… five years… 10? How does it look? Then, we repeated the exercise, only we never did the thing. It’s a year from now: how do we feel? How about three, five and 10 years later? What do the people closest to us say about it? The truth is: time goes by whether we do the thing or not.

What’s your thing?

Back it up: a hard lesson to learn

 

In my post from earlier this year, “Attaching labels to the dreams we chase,” I mention a weekend-long (remote) writing workshop I attended, and the subsequent “book of sorts” I penned. During those three days, I bled sweat and tears, my emotions raw and, at times, forcing me into a fetal position on my nearby bed. I swore, I wanted to quit and I cried. A lot. Yet, I persevered and completed the workshop along with a semblance of a story I hoped I’d return to one day to rework, rewrite, revise. More than six months later, that day came and went with nothing to show for it. Despite the three copies I had saved of my work, my book had vanished. All 50,000 words I’d poured out through my fingertips. Although I had backed it up, there were other avenues I could’ve taken to better protect it. But perhaps it’s simply not the story for me to tell at this time.

How do you protect important files?

Photo courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net.