After 30-plus years working as a writer and editor, I recently decided to add 'coach' to my titles.
A few years back, I started writing kids’ fiction and other creative projects on the side, which was a big leap after mostly writing about fairly serious and/or technical topics at work.
But making time for these personal projects turned out to be challenging; when faced with “real” work, family responsibilities and day-to-day minutiae, guess what always ended up at the bottom of the to-do list?
Getting past it
I know I’m not the only one out there who struggles with this. You have a project that you’re excited about – a book, a piece of music, an art project, etc. – but you can’t ever seem to make yourself set the time aside to work on it.
So what might help you get past that hesitation and actually do the work? Depending on your wiring, getting an outside push from someone on a regular basis may work really well.
That’s what virtual “habit” coaches do — and what I've signed up to do for others who want to keep their creative and/or personal projects moving forward.
Proof point
I decided to coach people on creative habits because coaching worked for me.
I had been trying to change my unhealthy carb-loving eating habits for several years, but I had a lot of stressful things going on, and I never made any progress. (If you left it up to me, I would happily restrict my diet to bread of every variety, pizza, pasta, sandwiches and french fries ... oh, and pie and ice cream. No salad, no vegetables.)
After reading Better than Before, a book on the connection between personality and habit change by author Gretchen Rubin, I filed myself into Rubin’s “obliger” category – meaning that I am great at responding to commitments to others (work deadlines or volunteer commitments, for instance), but not great at meeting personal goals.
The Rubin book, as well as podcasts by author and master experimenter Tim Ferriss, convinced me that it was worth doing my own experiment: Getting some "outer accountability" for the habit I was trying to change.
(Outer accountability could be described as a fancy way of saying "someone/something to nudge or nicely nag you.”)
So last March, I signed up with a wonderful online coach, Dorothy Stainbrook, on the website Coach.me.
It worked. And it worked at a time when I could easily have justified comfort food; my sister had cancer and was near the end of her life. I was leading her village of helpers, doing my single working parent thing and trying to keep my teenager's life as normal as possible.
Miraculously, that coaching relationship helped me at last feel in control of one area of my life at a time when very little else was under control.
There was a certain comfort in having my coach check in with me, review what I was eating every day (via an app) and give me tips and recipes. As a result of Dorothy's coaching and a great blueprint (the Slow-Carb approach), I changed my eating habits drastically.
And there has been another healthy bonus: Losing weight. That wasn't my focus/goal, but you'd be amazed how much you lose when you stop eating mostly bad or nutritionally worthless carbs.
A PERSONAL TRAINER FOR THE MIND?
When I was considering working with a coach, I questioned whether this was a legitimate expense for me. I'm used to paying for other services, but this was new territory. In the end, I decided it was similar to getting a gym membership – if it would help me get over this hurdle at last and end up with healthier habits, it seemed well worth the fee to get daily encouragement and check-ins from my coach. (The fact that I could cancel any time also made it a lot easier for me, the skeptic, to finally make the decision to give it a go.)
Now that I know the end of the story, I can say it was definitely worth the money ($15 a week). Making this change had been on my New Year's Resolutions and Big Life "to do" lists for years; the fact that I finally made it happen was a shot in the arm.
If that outer nudging could help me conquer eating habits, who knew what other goals coaching might help with?
Coaching for creative PARALYSIS
My success with coaching was so surprising and striking to me that it seemed clear that I could apply my perspective as a writer/editor and my experience with Coach.me to help fellow writers/creative people in the same way – providing accountability and encouragement to finish those projects that get stuck in limbo.
This limbo is something I understand all too well; I can get very excited about an idea but find myself paralyzed when the time comes to getting it out of my head and onto the page; same goes for revising the work that I've managed to draft.
Some of you may have critique or writing groups that help keep you honest about your goals, and if so, that's great.
But if you are doing this on your own and have a project you want very badly to finish (or if you just want to establish a habit), I can encourage you and keep you on track.
Worth it?
Whether it's worth it to pay for encouragement and accountability on your creative projects is something that only you can decide. When I think of past projects that were sidetracked by my paralysis, it makes me wish online coaching had been on my radar earlier; finishing those projects would have been worth the cost of a few weeks of coaching to me.
Maybe you, too, will find that it's worth it to have someone in the picture who is regularly reminding you that you have permission to work on these projects (I believe we often need this permission from ourselves even more than from the people in our lives) and giving you encouragement and nudging to carve out time for your writing.
Interested in experimenting with coaching? Visit my page on Coach.me.
Regardless, good luck with your writing or other personal creative work – however you manage to make it happen, it will be worth it in the end.
~ Carla Atkinson