Have you ever heard about the three comfort “zones”? In the middle you have the “comfort” zone. That’s where you’re chillin’ on the couch or hanging out with friends. You’re good here. Then you have your “stretch” or “learning” zone. This might be when you’re working away at your job (and nailing it, I might add) and then your boss comes over and asks you to do something new and different- and challenging. Or even going on a rollercoaster for the first time. You might be scared, you might be excited, but you’re going to give it a crack anyway. Then you have your “panic” zone. Hello! Not happening. The guy you like just asked you out and you ran away. You thought you were just playing in the snow, but your brother signed you up for ski lessons. You wanted to go for a nice drive with a friend and then she drops the bomb that you’re actually heading to a crowded shopping centre- and you hate crowds. This is the zone where fear and panic kick in, you are not comfortable, at all, and you need to take a step back.
It is important to challenge yourself in life, without jumping into the “panic” zone all the time. Work out what is do-able. What can you do to stretch yourself, learn something new, and experience something you wouldn’t have if you stayed on the couch and watched another episode of 2Broke Girls.
Some of my upcoming blog posts (actually, a lot of them, because this blog is one of the things on the list) are about some of the things I’m challenging myself to do. To move from the “comfort” zone to the “stretch” zone, and to grow, learn and experience new things. With that in mind, here’s my experience with my first “monthly challenge” …
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Kaila Walker is a wonderful woman with great insights and services, spread across different platforms, who I highly recommend you check out. One of the great services she has on offer is a live write-in membership. It’s a monthly membership in which she goes live on Facebook once a week, and you all do live writing sprints together. It’s community meets accountability meets support meets advice… which now meets monthly challenges. Theses challenges change every month, and always push you to try something new, and maybe something you never thought you’d do.
The first challenge, in May, was a 24 hour write-a-thon (because, you know, start easy… obviously.)
So, what was it like? What did I learn? Well, I will tell you…
My plan was to attend every live video (there were 3 between 12am-8am, and then another at 9pm). I wanted to attack 6 small sections of my MS, getting out as many words as possible. The point of this was to get a great start on my MS, so I could see progress and feel better about getting started.
Well, I didn’t attend every live- I ended up watching one later on in the day and skipping another session altogether. And my word counts varied greatly in each sprint/session. But I did “finish” what I planned to work on.
Sort of.
So, the best part of this challenge for me wasn’t the progress I made, but the lessons I learned. For example, lets talk about the sections of my MS that I “finished”. Basically, I got the bones down. I pretty much raked up the yard, sectioned it off and decided which seeds I was going to plant in the outline stage, and then these sprints were me putting the seeds in the right spot. But I didn’t cover them over, water them, or check for weeds as they began to sprout. I wrote the scenes the way you tell your family how your life has been when it’s been a while since you caught up. Skimming over work, friends, partners, hobbies etc. until someone asks for more detail about a particular topic. I wrote the scenes in a way that the characters moved, spoke, reacted, felt etc. but with very minimal detail. I wrote that they walked into the cafeteria but didn’t describe the door they walked though. I wrote that they turned the corner to see a lady but didn’t describe the lady. But this is what I NEEDED though- to move the story forward, knowing that I would come back to flesh it out later.
I also learned that I write better when I write in longer sessions. And that I write better, in general, with less pressure to get a lot of words down in one session. When I was writing in 20min sprints, I spent the first five minutes reading what I wrote beforehand to refresh my memory, and then thinking about what came next. Then I spent the next 15 minutes rushing, as if I had to get all the words down in that sprint or my book would all be miraculously erased, and I would have to start again. Whereas, when I did 40 minutes in one sprint, I didn’t stress about that “lost” five minutes, and just focused on the writing. I ended up getting similar word counts in general, but I had much better quality in what I was actually writing. This in turn led to the realisation that word count means very little to me. While keeping track of word count is a great idea to work out the best time/circumstances you work in, for me it was putting undue pressure on something that didn’t need it. I wrote less when I was stressing about writing more, and I wrote more when I didn’t care about it.
So, with those lessons in mind, would I do a 24 hour write-a-thon again? No. That’s not to say that I wouldn’t challenge myself to sit down and write as much as I could in one day, but I wouldn’t do it with the pressure of challenging myself to write for 24 hours. Would I recommend that others try a 24 hour write-a-thon? Yes. You might not write much, or you might write half your book. But you’ll never know what kind of progress you could make if you don’t challenge yourself. And as you might have guessed, I’m big on learning lessons from everything in life. When you challenge yourself to do something big, it’s amazing what you can learn about yourself (and your writing). And challenging yourself alongside others doing the same thing is a great way to get accountability, support, advice and comradery.
Comic con brings like-minded people together, just as mothers’ groups are great support for mums. Having a community of like-minded writers you can turn to for support, to learn and grow with, and to challenge yourself and each other, in a safe space to learn and grow, is great not just for your writing, but for you as a person. Especially if you’re new to writing and feeling overwhelmed or a little lost- we can all be lost and confused together! Haha. I know I have felt so much better about my writing, my author platform, and the general direction I am going in my writing journey, since branching out and talking with other writers.
Todays take away: It can be daunting to challenge yourself. But there are different ways and degrees in which you can do that. Figure out what pushes your buttons. Figure out which buttons you can push, without pushing yourself over the edge. Sometimes the smallest things can cause big changes, so challenge yourself to do something different- like a 24 hour write-a-thon, or even a 24 hour read-a-thon. And after you’ve taken that challenge, consider what went wrong and what went right. What would you do different next time? Would you do it again next time- and why/why not? Would you recommend the challenge you attempted to someone else- why/why not? Challenging yourself isn’t just about pushing yourself out of your comfort zone, but also learning more about your comfort zones.
The next monthly challenge I’m trying is to “create a daily writing habit”. You will read about my experience with that one- it should be interesting, I suck at daily habits- in one of my upcoming blogs.
Until then, challenge yourself. I dare you.
- Jacinta
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P.S. You can also find all my posts from the write-a-thon weekend on my Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/JacintaHudsonWriting/ and on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/jacintahudson/. Kaila's platform covers all things travel, writing and motivation. So if that is something you're interested in, hop on over to her website at http://thisiskaila.com/ where you'll find heaps of information, along with all the links to her social media accounts. She also runs the Write With Intention Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/groups/WritewithIntention/ which is definitely worth checking out if you're a budding writer.
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“Challenges make you discover things about yourself that you never really knew. They’re what make the instrument stretch- what make you go beyond the norm.”
– Cicely Tyson
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