That’s a great strategy for getting good grades. However, the skills that help you become a 4.0 student in school actually work against you in life. Here are three reasons why.

First, 4.0 students are great at following rules. You can only get perfect grades when you do exactly what the teacher says. This is only valuable if the teacher knows what they’re doing or is teaching you something that’s relevant in the real world.

Second, 4.0 students have picked up the unfortunate habit of living for the validation and applause of others. They feel like losers unless they get recognition from teachers, peers, Academic Deans, or a scholarship committee.

Third, 4.0 students love competition. The whole idea of a GPA and Dean’s List is to rank people based on their performance. This inflates the ego of the students who have obsessed over their grades, and unfairly punishes students who aren’t wired to learn in a traditional classroom setting.

I enjoyed my years as a college professor, but I also saw firsthand the shortcomings of traditional school. Let’s be honest: the academic system is designed to reward students who enjoy school.

4.0 students may get all the scholarships, awards, and academic recognition from their teachers. But those skills are not so valuable in the real world.

To become a successful writer and business person, you need to think for yourself, be willing to break the rules when needed (or, just create your own!), validate your own success, and seek out collaboration opportunities with great people.

Those skills might lead to failure in the classroom, but they’re exactly what you need to become a 4.0 student in the school of life.

Today’s Challenge: Let’s put what you’ve learned here into practice. Think about another author your respect in your social circle. Shoot them a text or email today asking if you can have a quick chat about some ways you can collaborate.

The post The Curse of 4.0 appeared first on Daily Writer | Essential Habits for Impact & Influence.

The truth is that you’re not competing with other authors. You’re not in a race with them. There is no finish line, no referee, no prize at the end.

Yes, there are bestseller lists and literary awards, but those don’t mean much in the grand scheme of things. For one thing, traditional bestseller lists are never 100% accurate. Did you know that the New York Times bestseller list is a ranking of books put together by an editorial team, and not a reflection of actual book sales?

And when it comes to Amazon bestsellers, we all know that it’s easy to make a few sales in an obscure category over a couple of hours and technically become an “Amazon bestseller.”

When it comes to literary awards, the truth is that the average reader could care less which books won which awards. Few people outside of authors and publishers care about those. Plus, literary awards are just a reflection of people’s opinions.

No, those things do not reflect your real competitors. Your only real competition is yourself.

Who were you ten years ago? A year ago? A month ago? A week ago?

Have you grown? Changed? Learned some things? Improved your writing craft? Grown your business? Made some mistakes and then course-corrected?

If you’re better than you were before, you’re winning. You’re doing just fine. Don’t worry about the “competition.” Just focus on improving yourself day after day, year after year.

Today’s Challenge: Take thirty seconds and write down three ways you have improved over the last year. Then give yourself a pat on the back. You’re doing great!

The post This is Your Only Competition appeared first on Daily Writer | Essential Habits for Impact & Influence.

The ones who are competing against everyone else take running very seriously. They like to set records and get the glory of being known as a winner. There’s nothing necessarily wrong with that.

The runners competing against themselves aren’t worried about anyone else’s time. They just want to run their own race and hopefully beat their previous record. At the very least, they want to finish the race, which is a phenomenal achievement in itself since the vast majority of people never participate in a race.

This happened to me recently when I ran a 10k race. I wasn’t competing against anyone else. I went at my own pace, which happened to be pretty slow. But I still finished the race!

Many writers look at the creative journey as one where they are competing against everyone else. They worry too much about rankings, comparisons, and what everyone else thinks of them.

Writing is about running your own race. Are you getting better over time? Are you consistently publishing your work? Are you leaning more and more into your own unique voice?

Those are the kinds of metrics that matter most.

The novelist David Morrell, who wrote the bestseller First Blood, said this: “You have to follow your own voice. You have to be yourself when you write. In effect, you have to announce, ‘This is me, this is what I stand for, this is what you get when you read me. I’m doing the best I can—buy me or not—but this is who I am as a writer.’”

The only person you are responsible to become is you. And the only race you need to run is the one against yourself.

Question: Do you get overly distracted by what other writers are doing and forget to run your own race? Be honest.

The post The Only Person You’re Competing Against is You appeared first on Daily Writer | Essential Habits for Impact & Influence.

For a while now, I’ve been wanting to do a series of conversations focused around mental health for writers. Everybody knows mental health is important, and we see lots of signs of depression, burnout, frustration, anger, and even increasing rates of suicide in society. Writers are not immune to those forces. In many ways, perhaps we are even more susceptible than the average person because we tend to spend a lot of time alone.

In light of that, we are featuring a Mental Health Series for Writers during the month of May. Each week, we will feature an interview that relates to themes of mental health. Today’s episode features a good friend of mine, Melissa Bloom, who uses her background in molecular biology, clinical trials, and yoga to focus on the new frontier—the brain. Through her Aligned Life Community and one-on-one coaching, she helps people gain a new perspective through which to view their lives.

In this conversation, Melissa shares why we need to eliminate the idea of competition, the pursuit of perfection, the concept of missed opportunities, and why we take score way too soon.

The result of dealing with all these unhealthy tendencies is that we can move past our fear, doubt, and sense of overwhelm, and into a life where we are creating from a sense of joy and purpose, rather than stress and guilt.

Melissa is truly wise soul, and I know you’ll be moved by this impactful conversation just as much as I was.

You can learn more about Melissa’s work, her upcoming book, and more below!

Learn more at MelissaBloom.life

Sign up for Melissa’s newsletter

Connect with Melissa on Facebook

Follow Melissa on Instagram

Reach out to Melissa on LinkedIn

The post Melissa Bloom on Moving Past Fear, Doubt, and Overwhelm appeared first on Daily Writer | Essential Habits for Impact & Influence.

Writing is a serious business, but that doesn’t mean you always have to be serious. A great way to write more, and have more fun doing it, is to make a game of it.

This can work in a lot of different ways. One of my favorites is to see how much I can write in a specific amount of time. I’ll set a timer for 15 or 30 minutes, and then go to town. Sometimes I’ll even have a competition with myself to see if I can beat my own record.

This makes total sense, because after all, you are your biggest competitor. As writers, we should always be trying to get better at our craft and improve every aspect of our writing business.

This is all part of a bigger picture of not taking yourself too seriously to begin with. Life is hard enough already without all the pressure we put on ourselves. So don’t be afraid to try new things and make a game out of your writing.

The post You’re Never Too Old for Games appeared first on Daily Writer | Essential Habits for Impact & Influence.

You can make a lot of mistakes as a writer and still be successful. But one of the mistakes that will kill both your enthusiasm AND your success is constantly comparing yourself to others.

Granted, it’s almost impossible not to do this as a writer. After all, it’s human nature to compare ourselves. And social media has made it impossible not to notice other people’s success in writing. Whenever you see a friend hit a bestseller list or launch a new book, it’s hard not to feel jealous.

But that negative energy doesn’t really help you with your own goals, does it? When you focus on what you lack, that negative mental energy only slows you down and makes you feel bad about yourself.

Worse yet, what you see on social media is only a small part of other people’s lives. When you see a successful book launch, you’re only seeing the highlight reel. You don’t see the months—or even years—of hard work that went into the making of that book.

So instead of feeling jealous, let other writers’ success spur you on to your own achievements. You’re not on the same journey as they are. You have your own journey with writing. There is no point in comparing yourself, because you either end up feeling bad about yourself, or you feel prideful because you seem to be doing better than someone else. Both of those perspectives will take you off course.

You can learn from other writers, but never compare yourself. Comparison kills your energy and motivation. Instead of comparing, compete against yourself. It’s the only true measurement of your success.

The post Comparison Kills appeared first on Daily Writer | Essential Habits for Impact & Influence.

The ones who are competing against everyone else take running very seriously. They like to set records and get the glory of being known as a winner. There’s nothing necessarily wrong with that.

The runners who are competing against themselves aren’t worried about anyone else’s time. They just want to run their own race and hopefully beat their previous record. At the very least, they want to finish the race, which is a phenomenal achievement in itself since the vast majority of people never participate in a race.

Many writers look at the creative journey as one where they are competing against everyone else. They worry too much about rankings, comparisons, and what everyone else thinks of them.

Writing is much more about running your own race. Are you getting better over time? Are you consistently publishing your work? Are you leaning more and more into your own unique voice? Those are the kinds of metrics that matter most.

The novelist David Morrell, who wrote the bestseller First Blood, said this: “You have to follow your own voice. You have to be yourself when you write. In effect, you have to announce, ‘This is me, this is what I stand for, this is what you get when you read me. I’m doing the best I can—buy me or not—but this is who I am as a writer.”

The only person you are responsible to become is you. And the only race you need to run is the one against yourself.

The post You Are Your Only Competition appeared first on Daily Writer | Essential Habits for Impact & Influence.