Have you hit a roadblock lately?
Have you hit a roadblock lately?It sure seems that I have. As a first time anthology creator and compiler, I’m finding it challenging quite frankly. I’m enjoying the process, and I especially like the creative aspect of compiling a collection of stories into a cohesive whole. In fact, this is a project that I’ve dreamt about for years. I’m no longer dreaming about writing the book Stories of the Traveling Talismans. I’m doing it! And it’s a kind of wonderful that I can’t even begin to describe. I’ve grown up to become a weaver of sorts, but rather than weave with fabric, I weave with words, and I absolutely love it and can get lost in it. However, despite my love for writing, it does come with challenges, and what seems to be the most challenging for me lately is waiting for the submissions to come in. I find that I’m worrying about whether or not I will find enough interested writers and thus submissions. After talking with my husband about this concern, I’ve come to realize that this is a perceived obstacle, and I’m going to seize the opportunity to shift my positive thinking into overdrive rather than let negative thinking overtake me.
How am I going to shift my positive thinking into overdrive?
First, I’d like to share a little about the photo above. My conversation with Bill about my writing challenges reminded me of this picture. I took the picture several weeks ago while traveling back home from the beach. At that time, we had a carload: Bill (driving), myself, our two daughters and one granddaughter. When we had arrived at the beach, and everyone got out of the car, it came to our attention that Kim, the eldest of our two daughters, had misplaced her backpack which had her phone in it. After expressing some frustration with Kim over the misplacement of her bag, Bill and Kim decided we’d better head back home to find the bag. All five of us, with disappointed expressions, got back in the car. Ugh! Instead of walking over to the beach to enjoy the warm sand beneath our toes, the radiant sunshine and salty ocean breeze, we ended up driving back home. That certainly wasn’t what we had planned. What was supposed to be a relaxing day didn’t seem so relaxing after all.
Lo and behold, on our way back home, we saw a drawbridge ahead of us rising. It seemed that Murphy’s law was in full swing when this happened. Let’s be honest. When you saw the picture, what was the first thing that came to your mind? I know that my first thought was “What?! Now we have to wait in traffic! We’ll never get to the beach!” After the initial shock that the drawbridge indeed works (we hadn’t seen it actually work before), laughter ensued. You see, when we drove over the drawbridge earlier in the day, to go to the beach, Katlin, our youngest daughter said, “Does this thing actually work?” So when we drove back over it to go home, you can imagine our surprise when the bridge, with it’s massive gear assemblies pulling it up, simply and ever so slowly rose up. The bridge no longer looked like a bridge but rather it looked like some medieval fort wall that was stopping us from passing through and that was keeping us from retrieving Kim’s backpack so that we could get back to the beach. Of course, it eventually went back down, and we were able to drive over the bridge, retrieve Kim’s backpack and go back to the beach.
And that’s just my point…
Even though something may seem like an obstacle, usually there’s a way around it. It’s not the perceived obstacle that’s keeping us from achieving our goal(s). It’s typically our thinking. Dr. Wayne Dyer said it beautifully when he said, “Change the way you look at things, and the things you look at change.” And that’s precisely what I mean when I say that I’m going to shift my positive thinking into overdrive. In essence, I’m saying that rather than think about things negatively, I’m going to think positive thoughts and ramp up my positive thinking when negative thoughts seem to be taking over. I’ve got a book to write! It’s going to be smashing! It may even end up on the New York Times Best Sellers list! This my friends is positive thinking in overdrive. And why not? It just may happen!
Growing stronger…
