Really good point, Charles. I think we are often quick to dismiss and penalize ourselves. Far better to see write 150 words (out of 250) as a 60% success. Framing is everything!

I wasn’t advocating for a 5,000-word goal as such, but, if you have a positive attitude about your achievements (rather than your failures), you can learn to accept falling short of your goals. If 250 words is your goal today, then, writing 150 words is 60% success, not complete failure.

I agree. Your use of, “but” suggests that I didn’t. Btw, I chose percentages to include any goal, whether it’s 25, 250, or 25,000 words. Of course, I could practice more of what I preach.

This is a positive approach, Charles, but I also think there is benefit in making goals more achievable before you try them. I know that writing those 250 words per day made me positively giddy with excitement after having spent more than a week feeling negative and discouraged with my writing.

This attitude is useful for any endeavor: study, research, gardening, fundraising, vote-getting… as long as you learn from your intermediate successes, you will progress.

Glad to hear it Angelica. This advice is particularly important for students who usually have unreasonably high expectations of themselves. Don’t try to change the world with your thesis! (There will be plenty of time for that, later, when you have your degree.) Instead, just try to pass!

Glad to hear it, Kayelle!

Thanks

Interesting observations, Emily! I think in my case, the issue wasn’t shame or self-criticism. It was just that I’d previously had a goal that had worked for me and I was slow to figure out why it wasn’t working any longer. I suspect that I was simply out of shape because, apart from my blog, I haven’t written so much lately. The truly astonishing thing to me was how much FUN writing became once I scaled back my goal.