Do you procrastinate or even deceive yourself about whether you’re procrastinating instead of getting started on your writing?
Do you yield to the urge to flee from your writing every time you feel a little scared?
Mental toughness is what you need, but it doesn’t occur by accident.
1. It’s a question of priority
2. It’s a question of strategic planning
3. It’s a question of feeling scared but doing it anyway.
4. It’s a question of taking steps—keeping yourself writing today for 5 minutes longer before you take a break than you did yesterday.
5. It’s a question of acknowledging yourself for doing what you said you would do.
I recently spoke with someone who has bravely put herself in dangerous situations in order to do research toward her dissertation.
However, she told me that she could speak to an armed person far from civilization as we know it more easily than she could sit down to write.
Getting started with her writing requires more than a little mental toughness. To make mental toughness a habit, she enrolled in my Virtual Dissertation Boot Camp.
Another courageous client is taking unpaid leave from her work and flying across country to the city where her advisor now teaches. She will finish her dissertation before she flies back home.
In the meantime, she continues to write, and she’s taking steps to ensure that she will reach her goal. Besides making specific plans for the work she will do when she gets to the new location, she is also visualizing herself at work. She shows her mental toughness by making the hard decisions and with each successive step she takes.
You choose mental toughness. It doesn’t just happen.
Here’s to your courage!
Nancy
P.S. Check out how Dissertation Boot Camp is a great tactical step toward achieving mental toughness. More information is available at my website (www.nancywhichard.com).
Nancy Whichard, Ph.D., PCC
Your International Dissertation and Academic Career Coach
www.nancywhichard.com
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