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Showing posts with label errors. Show all posts
Showing posts with label errors. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Monday, June 29, 2009
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Friday, June 19, 2009
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Monday, June 15, 2009
Mistakes We Make: Part 7 of 13
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Self-Sabotage, errors, mistakes, discretion, human relations, vicki hinze, writers library, authors, writers, novelists, creative writing, author/editor relations
Friday, June 12, 2009
Thursday, June 11, 2009
MISTAKES WRITERS MAKE--PART 5 OF 13
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Mistakes, errors, flaws, judgment, wisdom, goofs, procrastination, solutions, constructive resolutions, resolve, determination, writers library, vicki hinze
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Tuesday, June 09, 2009
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
THE POWER OF PAUSE
Learn to pause ... or nothing worthwhile will catch up to you.
-Doug King
A few days ago, an author friend who was judging a writing competition asked me, when I’m judging, what challenge I most often see in writers’ work. I didn’t have to pause or stop to think about it and immediately answered, “Rushing.”
I then went on to explain. We write, and when we do, we translate the images that we see in our heads onto the page--or we intend to, but often important details get dropped in the transfer. Because we’re rushing to finish in the allotted time, or to get the work submitted, or read or critiqued, we don’t let the work cool long enough--and allow our minds to get occupied with other images sufficiently--so that the images we held during the creation process are dulled by time and/or distance.
So we read the work--read it again several more times--and consider it done. And then months later, we return to the work to see that what is on the page doesn’t sufficiently convey what we saw in our minds during creation.
But it’s too late. We had the critique, the reading--the work has been submitted. And now we wish it hadn’t because we see flaws that we wish we’d first corrected. Fuzzy details instead of sharp, crisp and vivid ones. We see that what is actually on the page isn’t nearly as strong as it could have been. And so we edit, honing the work, fine-tuning it to eliminate the flaws.
The problem is it’s too late to get a first impression through our normal channels. It’s been done. So now we must rely on second impressions and resubmissions, and those can’t be as strong as the first. We can’t recapture that initial burst of enthusiasm, or that sensation by others that what we’ve done is fresh and different because it isn’t--they’ve seen it and experienced it before--from us.
So the drawbacks of rushing are significant. The penalties are steep and the benefit is that if we do this once and recognize it, we might just slow down long enough to not make that same mistake again.
I can hear you say, “But I don’t have a choice. I have deadlines. I have to get this puppy submitted so that I can start the next book.”
To that, I say, “When you invest in writing a book, it should reflect your best. After all, you’ve traded time with your family, time doing other things that are important to you in creating it. If you’ve made those sacrifices, then doesn’t that warrant a complete project that is your very best? Isn’t your time--your life--worth your best?
Remember that writing isn’t all about mechanics and craft. It’s about art, too. And creating something from nothing that will transport readers into a story and embrace them so they live and experience it is art at its best.
How long does it take for those images to fade, so that what you’ve written matches the vision in your mind when you were creating? That’s a question only you can answer. For some, it’s brief. For others, it takes months. The time you’ve put into the work can be a factor. If, for example, you’ve been working on the project for six months straight, it’s going to take a while. If you’ve worked on it and other projects simultaneously, likely it won’t take as long. That splintered focus will aid you in this.
The bottom line is that you need to let the project cool long enough for you to forget the little details. You’ll likely remember a good deal about the characters and plot, but you’ll forget snippets or how A led to B. You’ll know that sufficient time has passed by reading the work. It will seem familiar and yet strange, too.
Will what you’ve written on the page ever equal the vision inside your head? Doubtful, if I’m a decent gauge. I’ve been writing twenty years and I’ve yet to do it. But when I’ve built in cooling periods and utilized them, I get a lot closer. I hope you will, too.
Blessings,
Vicki
-Doug King
A few days ago, an author friend who was judging a writing competition asked me, when I’m judging, what challenge I most often see in writers’ work. I didn’t have to pause or stop to think about it and immediately answered, “Rushing.”
I then went on to explain. We write, and when we do, we translate the images that we see in our heads onto the page--or we intend to, but often important details get dropped in the transfer. Because we’re rushing to finish in the allotted time, or to get the work submitted, or read or critiqued, we don’t let the work cool long enough--and allow our minds to get occupied with other images sufficiently--so that the images we held during the creation process are dulled by time and/or distance.
So we read the work--read it again several more times--and consider it done. And then months later, we return to the work to see that what is on the page doesn’t sufficiently convey what we saw in our minds during creation.
But it’s too late. We had the critique, the reading--the work has been submitted. And now we wish it hadn’t because we see flaws that we wish we’d first corrected. Fuzzy details instead of sharp, crisp and vivid ones. We see that what is actually on the page isn’t nearly as strong as it could have been. And so we edit, honing the work, fine-tuning it to eliminate the flaws.
The problem is it’s too late to get a first impression through our normal channels. It’s been done. So now we must rely on second impressions and resubmissions, and those can’t be as strong as the first. We can’t recapture that initial burst of enthusiasm, or that sensation by others that what we’ve done is fresh and different because it isn’t--they’ve seen it and experienced it before--from us.
So the drawbacks of rushing are significant. The penalties are steep and the benefit is that if we do this once and recognize it, we might just slow down long enough to not make that same mistake again.
I can hear you say, “But I don’t have a choice. I have deadlines. I have to get this puppy submitted so that I can start the next book.”
To that, I say, “When you invest in writing a book, it should reflect your best. After all, you’ve traded time with your family, time doing other things that are important to you in creating it. If you’ve made those sacrifices, then doesn’t that warrant a complete project that is your very best? Isn’t your time--your life--worth your best?
Remember that writing isn’t all about mechanics and craft. It’s about art, too. And creating something from nothing that will transport readers into a story and embrace them so they live and experience it is art at its best.
How long does it take for those images to fade, so that what you’ve written matches the vision in your mind when you were creating? That’s a question only you can answer. For some, it’s brief. For others, it takes months. The time you’ve put into the work can be a factor. If, for example, you’ve been working on the project for six months straight, it’s going to take a while. If you’ve worked on it and other projects simultaneously, likely it won’t take as long. That splintered focus will aid you in this.
The bottom line is that you need to let the project cool long enough for you to forget the little details. You’ll likely remember a good deal about the characters and plot, but you’ll forget snippets or how A led to B. You’ll know that sufficient time has passed by reading the work. It will seem familiar and yet strange, too.
Will what you’ve written on the page ever equal the vision inside your head? Doubtful, if I’m a decent gauge. I’ve been writing twenty years and I’ve yet to do it. But when I’ve built in cooling periods and utilized them, I get a lot closer. I hope you will, too.
Blessings,
Vicki
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
MISTAKES WE MAKE: PART 7
SELF-SABOTAGE AND SELF-FULFILLED PROPHESY
SELF-SABOTAGE: THE ART OF SNATCHING DEFEAT OUT OF THE JAWS OF VICTORY.
SELF-FULFILLED PROPHESY: THE ART OF WILLFULLY STRUCTURING EVENTS TO MANIFEST A PROJECTED OUTCOME.
It isn’t enough that we have to battle the rest of the world, we have to battle ourselves. And often we are not only our greatest critic, we are our worst enemy. We treat everyone else in the world--including strangers on the street--with more dignity and compassion and respect than we treat ourselves. Why is that? Why is it that everyone else deserves more and better and kindnesses and considerations that we feel we don’t deserve?
A huge part of it is due to upbringing and what we have adopted or has been forced upon us as appropriate conduct and social behavior. We’ve all heard some form of:
Be modest. Be humble. Be unassuming. Don’t get a big head. I made you, I can break you. You owe me. If it weren’t for me, you’d be nothing. I don’t care what you think, in my house, you’ll do as I say. Pretty is as pretty does. Never brag, it’s bad form. Don’t blow your own horn, toot your own whistle. You do you think you are? If I wanted your advice, I’d ask for it.
Loser. You can’t do that. You’re too __________ (fill in the blank).
Think back through your life. This goes back further: (color inside the lines; be seen, not heard; don’t cause a stir). What putdown or well intended behavior sapped the confidence right out of you? Made you feel small and insignificant? Hopeless? Helpless? Clueless or unworthy? Like a victim?
These types of things happen to all of us. Often, they were well intended and not meant to impact us they way they did, but they do. (Remember that saying about the road to hell being paved with good intentions? Well partly, no doubt, it got to be an often-repeated saying like this.)
Words carry power. We know that. And that definitely includes words spoken to us about us. Ones that impact us strongly, we carry with us. They help form and shape our opinions, our esteem, our behavior and our beliefs. We believe we can, odds are we can. We believe we can’t and we never will--and we will make that true because we believe it to be true. That’s self-fulfilled prophesy. And often to make it happen, we embrace self-sabotage.
An Example: An author has been writing one type of book for years. The market for that type book is dwindling and her editor recommends the author write a different type of book and makes several suggestions. The author refuses--and when contract renewal time comes around, author is told publisher will not be offering a new contract.
Author refused for any of a number of reasons. Didn’t like the type of books suggested. Had no interest in shifting to a new type novel. Feared change. Feared losing her existing reader base. The point is, regardless of the reason the author is now without a publisher.
A more blatant example: An author goes to a conference and at a luncheon complains to a table full of people about her publisher. An editor for that publisher is sitting at the next table and overhears her house being raked over the coals. Said editor reports this tongue-lashing in a public forum to author’s editor. How how enthused is said editor to work with said author?
We all take wrong steps. We try something that doesn’t work. We write something that doesn’t resonate. We plan and set expectations based on the information we have available but that information proves faulty. These are mistakes, yes, but not ones where we have through our own arrogance or ignorance or fears or other personal issue-based actions, shoot ourselves in the foot and cut ourselves off at the knees.
The discretion errors are most frequent. Or, I should say, the lack of discretion. Over the years, I’ve seen more authors sabotage their careers by exercising a lack of discretion than anything else. A little story to keep in mind:
Author A wrote for an Editor at a publishing company.
Author A had some very nasty things to say about another writer to Editor.
Editor spoke very little and formally--cautiously--to Author A because Author couldn’t be trusted to be discreet.
Author A was offended by Editor’s distance and had some very nasty things to say to Editor about it, then promptly went to the Editorial Director and asked to be assigned to a new Editor.
The request was refused.
Author A left the Publisher and wrote for a New Editor at a New Publisher.
Before Author A’s first book with New Publisher came out, her New Editor left the New Publisher for employment at a third Publisher.
New Publisher hired a replacement: Editor from Publisher.
So now Author A is with Original Editor at New Publisher. The Editor she said some very nasty things to and asked to reassigned away from.
Small world, publishing. And Editors move around to move up. Author A is in a tough spot. One she put herself in because of her lack of discretion. Net: self-sabotage. Can she recover: probably only if she looks for and secures a New New Editor at a New New Publisher.
Life would have been so much simpler for Author A had that author just be discreet.
Self-sabotage isn’t only seated in esteem and confidence and negative issues. It can also be seated in fear. Like the fear of success.
People driven by a dream will just about kill themselves to hit benchmarks that define for them success. They’ll climb the ladder, struggle and sacrifice and put in super-human effort to get up to the next rung. Their goal is in sight. They’re almost there. Almost to the pinnacle that has occupied their hopes and dreams and cost them so much and now--now they’re---
scared to death and decide they may not really want it, or that they definitely do not want it.
Suddenly unthought of facets come to life:
✦If I make that sale, people are actually going to read what I write. They might hate it, have ugly things to say about it--about me. I could be embarrassed, humiliated, rejected.
✦If I make that list, people are going to expect so much out of the book. What if it disappoints them. What if they bad-mouth me and it? My family, friends, everyone I know will hear all about it. I’ll look like a fool, an idiot. I could be hurt. My kids could be hurt or embarrassed or humiliated. Rejected.
✦The last book did so well. What if this one bombs?
✦I am going to be judged. I could be found wanting and/or rejected.
See how these things all tie back to self-esteem and image? Your perception of who you are and your place in your world, and in the worlds of others?
We all want to be loved and accepted. We all want our work, which is an extension of us, to be loved and accepted.
And it’s hard to open ourselves up for not being loved and accepted. But the simple fact is this:
Some will love and accept us.
Some will hate us and reject us.
And some will be indifferent.
Of all these things--think about this--indifference troubles us most.
Why? Because it jerks our chains and feeds those little nags in us that says we and what we are doing are insignificant.
You can go into broader analysis, but in my experience, when you do and then you dive deep, it takes you right back to this place. Maybe you need the journey to feel sure of that. Maybe you can take the word of one who has journeyed and taken that journey with many others. Regardless, you do need to grasp the reasons we sabotage ourselves and take constructive steps to resolve the underlying issues. Understand them. And stop doing it so that you can fulfill your potential.
How do you do that? There are many ways, I’m sure, but one I know works is by knowing what you need. And that will be the topic in Mistakes We Make, Part 8.
Blessings,
Vicki
© 2007, Vicki Hinze
SELF-SABOTAGE: THE ART OF SNATCHING DEFEAT OUT OF THE JAWS OF VICTORY.
SELF-FULFILLED PROPHESY: THE ART OF WILLFULLY STRUCTURING EVENTS TO MANIFEST A PROJECTED OUTCOME.
It isn’t enough that we have to battle the rest of the world, we have to battle ourselves. And often we are not only our greatest critic, we are our worst enemy. We treat everyone else in the world--including strangers on the street--with more dignity and compassion and respect than we treat ourselves. Why is that? Why is it that everyone else deserves more and better and kindnesses and considerations that we feel we don’t deserve?
A huge part of it is due to upbringing and what we have adopted or has been forced upon us as appropriate conduct and social behavior. We’ve all heard some form of:
Be modest. Be humble. Be unassuming. Don’t get a big head. I made you, I can break you. You owe me. If it weren’t for me, you’d be nothing. I don’t care what you think, in my house, you’ll do as I say. Pretty is as pretty does. Never brag, it’s bad form. Don’t blow your own horn, toot your own whistle. You do you think you are? If I wanted your advice, I’d ask for it.
Loser. You can’t do that. You’re too __________ (fill in the blank).
Think back through your life. This goes back further: (color inside the lines; be seen, not heard; don’t cause a stir). What putdown or well intended behavior sapped the confidence right out of you? Made you feel small and insignificant? Hopeless? Helpless? Clueless or unworthy? Like a victim?
These types of things happen to all of us. Often, they were well intended and not meant to impact us they way they did, but they do. (Remember that saying about the road to hell being paved with good intentions? Well partly, no doubt, it got to be an often-repeated saying like this.)
Words carry power. We know that. And that definitely includes words spoken to us about us. Ones that impact us strongly, we carry with us. They help form and shape our opinions, our esteem, our behavior and our beliefs. We believe we can, odds are we can. We believe we can’t and we never will--and we will make that true because we believe it to be true. That’s self-fulfilled prophesy. And often to make it happen, we embrace self-sabotage.
An Example: An author has been writing one type of book for years. The market for that type book is dwindling and her editor recommends the author write a different type of book and makes several suggestions. The author refuses--and when contract renewal time comes around, author is told publisher will not be offering a new contract.
Author refused for any of a number of reasons. Didn’t like the type of books suggested. Had no interest in shifting to a new type novel. Feared change. Feared losing her existing reader base. The point is, regardless of the reason the author is now without a publisher.
A more blatant example: An author goes to a conference and at a luncheon complains to a table full of people about her publisher. An editor for that publisher is sitting at the next table and overhears her house being raked over the coals. Said editor reports this tongue-lashing in a public forum to author’s editor. How how enthused is said editor to work with said author?
We all take wrong steps. We try something that doesn’t work. We write something that doesn’t resonate. We plan and set expectations based on the information we have available but that information proves faulty. These are mistakes, yes, but not ones where we have through our own arrogance or ignorance or fears or other personal issue-based actions, shoot ourselves in the foot and cut ourselves off at the knees.
The discretion errors are most frequent. Or, I should say, the lack of discretion. Over the years, I’ve seen more authors sabotage their careers by exercising a lack of discretion than anything else. A little story to keep in mind:
Author A wrote for an Editor at a publishing company.
Author A had some very nasty things to say about another writer to Editor.
Editor spoke very little and formally--cautiously--to Author A because Author couldn’t be trusted to be discreet.
Author A was offended by Editor’s distance and had some very nasty things to say to Editor about it, then promptly went to the Editorial Director and asked to be assigned to a new Editor.
The request was refused.
Author A left the Publisher and wrote for a New Editor at a New Publisher.
Before Author A’s first book with New Publisher came out, her New Editor left the New Publisher for employment at a third Publisher.
New Publisher hired a replacement: Editor from Publisher.
So now Author A is with Original Editor at New Publisher. The Editor she said some very nasty things to and asked to reassigned away from.
Small world, publishing. And Editors move around to move up. Author A is in a tough spot. One she put herself in because of her lack of discretion. Net: self-sabotage. Can she recover: probably only if she looks for and secures a New New Editor at a New New Publisher.
Life would have been so much simpler for Author A had that author just be discreet.
Self-sabotage isn’t only seated in esteem and confidence and negative issues. It can also be seated in fear. Like the fear of success.
People driven by a dream will just about kill themselves to hit benchmarks that define for them success. They’ll climb the ladder, struggle and sacrifice and put in super-human effort to get up to the next rung. Their goal is in sight. They’re almost there. Almost to the pinnacle that has occupied their hopes and dreams and cost them so much and now--now they’re---
scared to death and decide they may not really want it, or that they definitely do not want it.
Suddenly unthought of facets come to life:
✦If I make that sale, people are actually going to read what I write. They might hate it, have ugly things to say about it--about me. I could be embarrassed, humiliated, rejected.
✦If I make that list, people are going to expect so much out of the book. What if it disappoints them. What if they bad-mouth me and it? My family, friends, everyone I know will hear all about it. I’ll look like a fool, an idiot. I could be hurt. My kids could be hurt or embarrassed or humiliated. Rejected.
✦The last book did so well. What if this one bombs?
✦I am going to be judged. I could be found wanting and/or rejected.
See how these things all tie back to self-esteem and image? Your perception of who you are and your place in your world, and in the worlds of others?
We all want to be loved and accepted. We all want our work, which is an extension of us, to be loved and accepted.
And it’s hard to open ourselves up for not being loved and accepted. But the simple fact is this:
Some will love and accept us.
Some will hate us and reject us.
And some will be indifferent.
Of all these things--think about this--indifference troubles us most.
Why? Because it jerks our chains and feeds those little nags in us that says we and what we are doing are insignificant.
You can go into broader analysis, but in my experience, when you do and then you dive deep, it takes you right back to this place. Maybe you need the journey to feel sure of that. Maybe you can take the word of one who has journeyed and taken that journey with many others. Regardless, you do need to grasp the reasons we sabotage ourselves and take constructive steps to resolve the underlying issues. Understand them. And stop doing it so that you can fulfill your potential.
How do you do that? There are many ways, I’m sure, but one I know works is by knowing what you need. And that will be the topic in Mistakes We Make, Part 8.
Blessings,
Vicki
© 2007, Vicki Hinze
Wednesday, December 06, 2006
MISTAKES WE MAKE: PART 1
The opportunity for errors abound in life, and of course, that extends to your career. How well you identify and define them, when you identify and define them, has a direct relationship on your ability to resolve the potential problem areas--before they become errors or mistakes that you must live with forevermore.
Unfortunately, we too often zing along, ignoring warning bells (or doing our part to resolve them and they relying on the next person in our personal chain to do their part without verifying they have) and the window of opportunity to nip a potential challenge in the bud before it becomes a problem is missed.
A couple of examples: You submit your work to an agent, who supposedly is submitting your work. You don't have anything verifying that, and later learn the agent hasn't submitted at all. Whose mistake is that? Well, the agent's word that the submission is done should be (and often is) sufficient, but it happens too often that it isn't to assume it. Reputable agents know their word is their bond. But if a formerly reputable agent fails to be honest with you, or fails to do his or her part, who pays the penalty? The author. And the author loses the time and can't reclaim it. Considering that the time can be a year or even more, that lost potential is nothing at which to sneeze. In the past year, I've been approached by five authors who have been in the center of this challenge.
The moral of this example: Verification is part of your job. Never work with someone you can't trust. But even the most trustworthy person in the world is capable of human error. Verify. It's your work, your career and part of your job to monitor the process closely enough that you know what is happening with your work.
Another example is one I've seen too often to count. And that is, an author is with a publisher, loses an editor and is struggling with an ill-fitting new editor. The author doesn't want to leave the publisher but everything s/he is doing is being rejected. S/he can't please the new editor.
It's interesting to note that in these cases, the author is well aware of the challenge but so fears being at loose ends when changing houses that s/he willingly bangs his/her head against the proverbial wall, trying to please the new editor (which simply does not happen). Often this attempt to please goes on for an extended time--a year, two years, and sometimes longer. Time during which the writer's doubt that s/he can produce a publishable manuscript grows and his/her confidence in her writing abilities dwindles.
The moral of this example: do not write to please an editor. Write the stories you must write. The ones that nag you, that wake you up in the middle of the night. The stories that haunt you if you do not write them. Those stories contain the magical element of enthusiasm and interest that permeates a work and infuses it with strength. It can't be faked, and without it, publishing potential is crippled.
Look at it this way. You're being rejected anyway. Why not be rejected on a project you're crazy about versus one you're writing to please someone else? At least if your beloved project is rejected, you've loved it. That can't be said for the one written to another's specifications.
There are two things we really need to look at closely in these problem area situations.
1. Warning Bells.
2. Fear.
Regardless of by what name you call those warning bells--intuitive nudges, hunches, gut instincts, divine shoulder taps--they are early-warning indication systems. Ones that sound the alarm when something has tripped it, and to spare ourselves challenges that become mistakes, we need to perk up and pay attention, and then act on them. Even the best alarm system in the world only notifies. It's up to the person notified to act to prevent loss and/or damage.
Bottom-line advice: Heed your hunches.
Fear is a mean taskmaster. It can cripple, debilitate, destroy. It has as much power as we give it--no more, but no less--and there is but one way to overcome it: courage.
You can run or hide, but fear will find you. You can play ostrich and bury your head in the sand, but when you do, your ass is exposed and up in the air, just a perfect target for getting kicked--and it will.
You're going to face that fear whether or not you want to do it, so why not face it on your own terms?
It's impossible to outrun, outwit or otherwise avoid fear (or any other merciless demon) when it's in your own mind. Accept it. Unless you deal with fear constructively, it remains in you, it grows, and you'll never be free of it. Enslaved is no way to live.
Bottom-line advice: Recognize fear but embrace courage. Fear debilitates. Courage liberates.
We'll continue with Part 2 next time.
Blessings,
Vicki
Vicki Hinze
c 2006
Unfortunately, we too often zing along, ignoring warning bells (or doing our part to resolve them and they relying on the next person in our personal chain to do their part without verifying they have) and the window of opportunity to nip a potential challenge in the bud before it becomes a problem is missed.
A couple of examples: You submit your work to an agent, who supposedly is submitting your work. You don't have anything verifying that, and later learn the agent hasn't submitted at all. Whose mistake is that? Well, the agent's word that the submission is done should be (and often is) sufficient, but it happens too often that it isn't to assume it. Reputable agents know their word is their bond. But if a formerly reputable agent fails to be honest with you, or fails to do his or her part, who pays the penalty? The author. And the author loses the time and can't reclaim it. Considering that the time can be a year or even more, that lost potential is nothing at which to sneeze. In the past year, I've been approached by five authors who have been in the center of this challenge.
The moral of this example: Verification is part of your job. Never work with someone you can't trust. But even the most trustworthy person in the world is capable of human error. Verify. It's your work, your career and part of your job to monitor the process closely enough that you know what is happening with your work.
Another example is one I've seen too often to count. And that is, an author is with a publisher, loses an editor and is struggling with an ill-fitting new editor. The author doesn't want to leave the publisher but everything s/he is doing is being rejected. S/he can't please the new editor.
It's interesting to note that in these cases, the author is well aware of the challenge but so fears being at loose ends when changing houses that s/he willingly bangs his/her head against the proverbial wall, trying to please the new editor (which simply does not happen). Often this attempt to please goes on for an extended time--a year, two years, and sometimes longer. Time during which the writer's doubt that s/he can produce a publishable manuscript grows and his/her confidence in her writing abilities dwindles.
The moral of this example: do not write to please an editor. Write the stories you must write. The ones that nag you, that wake you up in the middle of the night. The stories that haunt you if you do not write them. Those stories contain the magical element of enthusiasm and interest that permeates a work and infuses it with strength. It can't be faked, and without it, publishing potential is crippled.
Look at it this way. You're being rejected anyway. Why not be rejected on a project you're crazy about versus one you're writing to please someone else? At least if your beloved project is rejected, you've loved it. That can't be said for the one written to another's specifications.
There are two things we really need to look at closely in these problem area situations.
1. Warning Bells.
2. Fear.
Regardless of by what name you call those warning bells--intuitive nudges, hunches, gut instincts, divine shoulder taps--they are early-warning indication systems. Ones that sound the alarm when something has tripped it, and to spare ourselves challenges that become mistakes, we need to perk up and pay attention, and then act on them. Even the best alarm system in the world only notifies. It's up to the person notified to act to prevent loss and/or damage.
Bottom-line advice: Heed your hunches.
Fear is a mean taskmaster. It can cripple, debilitate, destroy. It has as much power as we give it--no more, but no less--and there is but one way to overcome it: courage.
You can run or hide, but fear will find you. You can play ostrich and bury your head in the sand, but when you do, your ass is exposed and up in the air, just a perfect target for getting kicked--and it will.
You're going to face that fear whether or not you want to do it, so why not face it on your own terms?
It's impossible to outrun, outwit or otherwise avoid fear (or any other merciless demon) when it's in your own mind. Accept it. Unless you deal with fear constructively, it remains in you, it grows, and you'll never be free of it. Enslaved is no way to live.
Bottom-line advice: Recognize fear but embrace courage. Fear debilitates. Courage liberates.
We'll continue with Part 2 next time.
Blessings,
Vicki
Vicki Hinze
c 2006
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