It’s not a question of whether anyone needs to give you permission. Rather, it’s a question of whether you can muster the resources, energy, creativity, discipline, and focus in order to do things you have never done before.

There are many examples throughout history of people who faced the question, “Can we do this?” when they were staring a big challenge in the face. One such example is the Apollo space program from the 1960s. NASA was consumed by the question of whether they could develop the technology and processes to send a crew to the moon and bring them safely back to earth.

But they kept forging ahead, and the question of “Can we do this?” was finally resolved when Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon on July 21, 1969.

It took resolve. It took patience. It took hundreds of thousands of people working in the space program to make that moment happen. You may not be going to the moon, but you still have big goals. There is a price to pay.

The very first way you invest in your dreams is by believing in yourself. Henry Ford famously said, “Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t—you’re right.”

So, if you’re asking the question, “Can I do this?,” the answer is YES… you can do this! You have what it takes. You really do.

But first, you have to believe it’s possible. Nothing will happen until you believe.

Today’s Challenge: As you think about your big goals for 2023, do you believe you can accomplish them? Why or why not?

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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.

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What about a whole paragraph, a scene, or even a whole chapter? And ultimately, an entire book?

It sounds impossible, doesn’t it? After all, the letter E is the most common letter in the English language. How could you possibly write a book without the letter E? It simply can’t be done.

At least, that’s what people kept telling a writer named Ernest Vincent Wright in the early years of the 20th century. He got so tired of hearing people tell him it couldn’t be done that decided to prove them wrong. The result was a 50,000-word novel called Gadsby, which in fact doesn’t contain the letter E.

To accomplish this feat, he had to tie down the letter E on his typewriter so he couldn’t use it. In doing so, he met his goal.

As you can imagine, a whole novel without the letter E is fairly clunky to read. But you have to respect Mr. Wright’s determination when everybody told him it couldn’t be done.

So the next time you have a big writing goal and people keep telling you all the reasons you can’t do it, why you will fail, or how they tried something and failed, remember good old Mr. Wright banging away at his typewriter with the letter E tied down.

Unfortunately, he died in 1939, the same year his novel was published, so he didn’t get to enjoy his success for long. But he died knowing he reached his goal.

Not a bad way to go.

Question: What goal do you have that others doubt can be done? Does it motivate you to prove them wrong?

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One of the benefits of the modern world of content creation and publishing is that you can get your material to your readers very quickly. Books, blog posts, newsletters, emails, social media posts, and podcasts are things you can create and have them instantly available to people.

Think about the opposite for just a moment, though. In addition to having short-term goals and taking action on them, I want you to think about having a ten-year dream. It’s been said that most people over-estimate what they can accomplish in a year and greatly under-estimate what they can accomplish in ten years.

There’s a lot of truth to this. Imagine what you could accomplish if you consistently take action over a ten-year period. You could radically change your life and build a highly successful writing career, if that’s what you want to do.

The great thing about having a ten-year dream is that it takes the pressure off of having to have great results right this second.

Remember the fable about the tortoise and the hare? The tortoise won by keeping it slow and steady, thereby winning the race. That’s the key—slow, steady, and sustainable progress.

So, what is your ten-year dream? Have you ever thought that far ahead? Take a moment to dream about all the things you can accomplish and how it might take the pressure off of feeling like you have to get immediate results right now.

Question: What might be possible for you in ten years? Dream big and think about the incredible possibilities.

The post What’s Your Ten-Year Dream? appeared first on Daily Writer | Essential Habits for Impact & Influence.

Establish a specific goal for your writing.

If you hang around other writers long enough, you’ll hear a lot of talk about habits. After all, you’re listening to this podcast about habits right now! However, the point of developing a writing habit is not the habit itself. The habit is just a mechanism to help you get the writing done.

But the question is: what are you writing? What is the end product this writing habit should be producing?

I encourage you to set some type of goal, since this is the point of doing all the writing work to begin with. Steven Pressfield, author of The War of Art: Break Through the Creative Blocks & Win Your Inner Creative Battles, said this:

This is the other secret that real artists know and wannabe writers don’t. When we sit down each day and do our work, power concentrates around us. The Muse takes note of our dedication. She approves. We have earned favor in her sight. When we sit down and work, we become like a magnetized rod that attracts iron filings. Ideas come. Insights accrete.

There is real power in simply doing the work. My question is: what are you working toward? Is it a book? A weekly blog post? Podcast episodes you’re writing, like I’ve done with this one? Freelance or ghostwriting work?

No matter what it is, I think it’s vital to have something you’re working toward, some type of tangible goal that is important to you.

Question: What is a writing goal you are working toward right now?

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Let’s talk about one of the hardest truths to swallow. Here it is: the circle of relationships that brought you to where you are is not the circle of relationships that will take you to where you want to be.

Most of us don’t like conflict. We don’t want to feel like we’re leaving others behind. This fact alone prevents a lot of people from growing because they are not willing to make tough changes to their personal and professional relationships.

You’ve probably heard about what happens in a crab basket. When you put a bunch of crabs in a basket, and one tries to crawl out, the others pull him back in. Most social and professional circles work the same way. Whenever you try to grow or improve, the people around you who don’t want to grow will try to discourage you. They may not do so directly, but they will express doubt that your plans or dreams are realistic. People will try to keep you in the crab basket of mediocrity in all kinds of ways.

Let me get personal for a moment. Once I had been teaching college for 12-13 years, I knew there was something more I wanted. I didn’t want to do that job forever because the context of our tiny college was very limiting. We had a small number of students, my salary was very limited, and there was zero potential for either one of those numbers ever increasing.

I was very friendly with the people I worked with. I still consider most of them to be friends. But none of them had any intentions of building a business. There’s nothing wrong with that at all, and they are wonderful people. But I knew that if I wanted to build a business, I had to start spending time around people who thought and dreamed bigger, and who were doing the kinds of things I wanted to do.

So, I started getting involved in mastermind groups and communities. I started taking courses and investing in myself. I started doing freelance work. I started podcasting and writing my own books. Most of the people in my day job didn’t know what to think of this because it wasn’t in their DNA to build something of their own.

I’m not talking about denying the value that some people have had in your journey. You can be grateful for a season or a phase in your life and recognize its value, while at the same time also understanding that you need to have a different focus moving forward. The two things are not mutually exclusive.

Life is a journey, and if you’re not willing to let go of some things, you won’t have room in your heart and mind for the people and things that you need to carry with you going forward. It doesn’t mean that those relationships were not important, and that you can’t still be friends. It just means that you are going in a different direction in life, and you will be spending the bulk of your time and energy around people who have the same goals as you do.

This is a very difficult thing to do. You have to do a real gut-check because it means some people in your life won’t agree with your direction, and you will not fit into your old social circles and old ways of thinking. So be prepared for that.

One more thing about all this: there will be some people who see what you’re doing and will want to join you. Make sure to make time and energy for those people who are curious about your new direction and find ways to help them.

Daily Question: Are you willing to let go of some relationships in order to make room for new ones that are more in line with your new direction in life, writing, and business? Be honest.

The post The Art of Letting Go appeared first on Daily Writer | Essential Habits for Impact & Influence.

If someone gave you the assignment to write a sentence without the letter E, how would you respond? Would you think it’s too difficult, or that it can’t be done?

What about a whole paragraph, a scene, or even a whole chapter? And ultimately, an entire book?

It sounds impossible, doesn’t it? After all, the letter E is the most common letter in the English language. How could you possibly write a book without the letter E? It simply can’t be done.

At least, that’s what people kept telling a writer named Ernest Vincent Wright in the early years of the 20^th century. He got so tired of hearing people tell him it couldn’t be done that he decided to prove them wrong. The result was a 50,000-word novel called Gadsby, which, in fact, doesn’t contain the letter E.

To accomplish this feat, he had to tie down the letter E on his typewriter so he couldn’t use it. Yet, he met his goal. As you can imagine, a whole novel without the letter E is fairly clunky to read, but you have to respect Mr. Wright’s determination and persistence in the face of everyone telling him it couldn’t be done.

So, the next time you have a big writing goal and people keep telling you all the reasons you can’t do it, why you will fail, or how they tried something and failed, remember good old Mr. Wright banging away at his typewriter.

Unfortunately, he died in 1939, the same year his novel was published, so he didn’t get to enjoy his success for long. But he died knowing he reached his goal.

Not a bad way to go.

Daily Question: What goal do you have that others doubt can be done? Does it motivate you to prove them wrong?

The post It Can’t Be Done… or Can It? appeared first on Daily Writer | Essential Habits for Impact & Influence.

One of Aesop’s best-known fables is “The Tortoise and the Hare.” You’ve probably heard the story before. The hare challenges the tortoise to a race, confident he will win by a long shot. The race begins and the hare gets so far ahead of the tortoise that he takes a nap.

When the hare wakes up, he finds that the tortoise kept moving and won the race!

We can learn a lot from the tortoise. It may take a while to get where we’re going, but if we persist, we’ll eventually get there.

There are times when you’ll feel like giving up on your writing goals. Whatever you’re working on, it’s important to be persistent and work through the problems that make it harder to reach the finish line.

Matthew Weiner, the creator of the hit TV series Mad Men, knows a thing or two about persistence. He said,

“It took seven years from the time I wrote Mad Men until it finally got on the screen. I lived every day with that script as if it were going to happen tomorrow. That’s the faith you have to have. Hollywood is tough, but I do believe that if you are truly talented, get your material out there, can put up with rejection, and don’t set a time limit for yourself, someone will notice you.”

It’s easy to get sidelined by problems on the creative journey. But you must persist and keep on doing the work you’re called to do. There’s too much at stake for you to throw in the towel.

Remember the lesson from the tortoise and the hare: slow and steady wins the race.

Daily Question: As you look at the projects you’re working on now, where do you need to be slow and steady? And what does it mean for you to win the race?

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I hope your 2022 is off to a great start. Here it is, the end of January, and we’ve had a solid month to get some meaningful work done toward our goals. How are things going for you?

At this point, a lot of people give up on their goals and say, “Maybe next year.” But I want you to know that it’s never too late to make significant things happen in your writing, your life, and your business. How do you do that? By being intentional. Success doesn’t just happen by accident.

I’m excited to have a guest with us today who’s going to help us do exactly that. His name is Joe Bukartek, and he is an Intentional Lifestyle Coach. Joe is a former undergraduate academic advisor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison where he supported thousands of students in achieving academic success. His first eight years post-undergrad, Joe worked in Corporate America in finance and contracts in the D.C. metro area. After Joe’s son was born, he redesigned his life to be intentionally more present with his family.

Joe is also the host of the excellent podcast, Intentionally Ever After, which is a great title!

I first got to know through his wife, Melanie, who is an author. She was introduced to me by our amazing mutual friend, Tricia Brouk. So I want to make sure to give both Melanie and Tricia a shout-out here and thank them for the connection to Joe!

Joe was a guest on our Daily Writer Community call a couple of weeks ago, and I wanted to share that call with you here. Joe shared his story of becoming more intentional in his life, and we have a fantastic conversation about what it means to be more intentional with your writing goals, and how to handle speed bumps along the way. This was a really inspiring and fun conversation.

You can learn more about Joe, connect with him, or book your complimentary coaching session below:

Check out Joe’s website, JoeBukartek.com.

Listen to Joe’s Intentionally Ever After Podcast.

Book a complimentary coaching session with Joe.

Connect with Joe on Facebook.

Follow Joe on LinkedIn.

Check out Joe on Twitter.

Reach out to Joe on Instagram.

The post Joe Bukartek: Set Yourself Up for Success with Intentional Planning appeared first on Daily Writer | Essential Habits for Impact & Influence.

One of the difficulties of creative work, which includes writing, is that we sometimes have vague ideas about our goals. We haven’t determined ahead of time what it means to win or lose. Therefore, no matter what we do, we never quite know if we have hit the mark.

This is a surefire way to get discouraged and confused because we don’t have a clear idea of success.

When you lay your head on the pillow at night, how do you know if that day was a success in terms of writing? How do you know whether to feel good or bad about your work that day?

Try this: determine what you need to write, then get it done. You can measure it by page count, word count, or time spent on writing. It doesn’t really matter. The point is to set a goal, then work to achieve it.

The author Julia Cameron, who wrote the fantastic book, The Artist’s Way, among many others, said, “Just as a good rain clears the air, a good writing day clears the psyche.” And boy, isn’t that the truth!

So, make sure that you do everything you can to have a good writing day, every day. If you set a goal and then keep that appointment with yourself, you can do it. There’s no better feeling than laying your head down on the pillow at night, knowing you got your work done and kept your promise to yourself.

Daily Question: What is your writing goal for today, and when are you going to set aside time to do it?

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