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Posts Tagged ‘deadline’

Have you given yourself until, say, tonight or tomorrow to write and then your plan is to take a break, send the thing off, go on a holiday? 

Time to take stock. 

Stop and breathe.

Where are you in the process?  You’ve put in time, you’ve written some, and you have a bit more to do. 

This isn’t the time to kick yourself for not having done more. 

This is the time to be grateful—grateful that you were able to do whatever amount of work you’ve done.  Grateful that you’re still at it, that you haven’t been derailed, that it hasn’t been as bad as it could have been. 

Don’t take for granted what you have accomplished. 

Being grateful—actually practicing gratitude– gives you courage and can make hope possible. 

Gratitude generates hope.

Did you ever see that movie Hope Floats?  No excuses from me for liking the film—I know it’s sappy and, yes, Sandra Bullock has a brief scene in which she wears a cheerleader’s costume and leads a cheer. 

Slip off that critical perch—no smirks now. I confess that I like the line that Sandra Bullock’s character says about hope:  “Just give hope a chance to float up. And it will.” 

Keep that gratitude going.  You might not recognize hope, but I’ll bet you it’s there, mixed in with the gratitude.  Lots of power in gratitude and hope that can fuel you to your deadline or planned stopping point.

Take a breath.  Add a smile for the heck of it…and jump back in.

Until next time,
Nancy
www.nwcoaching.com

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Don’t wait on others to set your deadline. 

When someone tells you that if you don’t act now your chance will be gone forever, you will want to act.

If you know that you have a hard deadline for submitting writing, you will want to act.  You may resist doing the work, but you will want to act.

What I’m asking you to consider is what if no one is asking you to act.  If you don’t take responsibility yourself, the writing will sit there, nothing added, no further revision, no additional development.

That’s sad. 

My challenge to you is to make your own hard deadline.

Shape it around a holiday, Christmas, New Year’s, your birthday.

Wow!  How fortunate for you– there’s a holiday upon us.  Why wait?

Plan your writing retreat now. 

What is your own hard deadline?  Please let me know and I’ll hold that for you.

Also, I have a great gift for you– go my website (www.nwcoaching.com) and sign up for my newsletter.  I have something you can use!
 
Until next time,
Nancy
www.nwcoaching.com
 

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Maybe you have received ads, as I have, proclaiming that “this is your final courtesy reminder about tomorrow night’s teleconference.”  Final reminder?  Wow!  I take note of that, even if I hadn’t thought about going to the teleconference at all.

One client who had set this Saturday night before her family’s Christmas as a deadline for sending off a chapter to her advisor said, “It’s always interesting how deadlines like this one that I’ve set are effective.  Only some deadlines are like that, like ‘ultimate deadlines.’”

If you celebrate Christmas, you probably feel some of that firmness, the “hard deadline” aspect that surrounds the holiday. 

Choosing and wrapping gifts, buying food, planning the celebration all are all focused on a deadline—a very specific point in time. 

If you have imposed a deadline on yourself that you will have produced a certain amount of text by, say, Dec. 22, the demarcation between the time for working to produce the text and the holiday that follows is clear-cut.

It is a natural for boosting your motivation and helping you shift into high-level momentum.

You still have time to set up you own goals to produce text or to finish some other specific work before the holidays.  Join in!  You aren’t alone—all over the world, people are writing tonight.

I’d love to hear what you have set for your deadline.

Also, I have a great gift for you– go my website (www.nwcoaching.com)
and sign up for my newsletter.  I have something you can use!
 
Until next time,
Nancy
www.nwcoaching.com

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