So I love doing personal goal challenges. It’s one of the ways I can motivate myself and stay on track. That’s why I love Writetober and NaNoWriMo. Do I succeed everyday? No, not even close. I do, however, improve my mindset and make more progress than I usually do. So when I discovered Jon Acuff (one of my favorite motivational writers) was doing a challenge back in Feb called “Overcoming Overthinking” in order to promote his newest book, Soundtracks, I was totally on board. The 5 quick days of lessons were like “a firehose” as Jon likes to say. I got so much information and ideas, and just felt so encouraged. I started writing every day again, and actually finished the first draft of my fantasy book. But life got busy, and I lost my focus.
P.S. I won a pair of AirPods in the Beyond Perfect Challenge because of my participation in the FB group!
So June rolls around, and I sign up for another Acuff class: “Beyond Perfect.” There were a whole lot of fun exercises and nuggets of knowledge. My favorite part was taking a stack of notecards and writing down everything I like about myself – my skills, my attitudes, my opinions, etc. I realized there are a lot of reasons to like me, and some of the things I like about me are things I need to work at being more consistent on. One of my favorite things Jon said was “Criticism that costs nothing is worth nothing” – in other words, don’t pay attention to people who have nothing to lose when they criticize you. I love the idea that “Bravery is a choice” and that we “can’t let fear control” our lives. Looking forward to putting these thoughts into my New Anthem – soundtracks I’ve started telling myself to treat myself better. Jon has another challenge coming in September, and I’m really looking forward to it!