I’m tired.
I bet you are too.
It seems like life pulls from ten… one hundred… a thousand directions at once. Often we are left with no time or energy to get it all done, finally falling into bed only to start all over in a few hours.
For many of us, writing is not our day job. It’s what we do around all the other things in our lives that require our attention. We work to earn money to pay for necessities and wants. We take care of our loved ones. We maintain the things we own. If we have any time left, we divide it between eating, sleeping, playing, and writing.
Is it any wonder we are tired?
Often writing gets pushed to the bottom of the pile. We feel the pinch. Our productivity slows to an occasional drip. We fall behind. In our exhaustion, we decide that maybe we aren’t a writer after all.
Maybe we jump to the wrong conclusion.
Before you give up writing because you’re tired, consider these 5 options
1. Pray often. Nothing done without God’s guidance is worth doing. When you take time to pray, life slows down. Your perspective changes. Your vision clears and often you can see how to get it all done.
2. Allow yourself a dream. Often the crunch of not enough time or energy won’t allow dreams to grow. Without a dream, we have no hope for the future. Our drudgery becomes our reality. When we allow our heart to dream, we give our brain a goal and our life a purpose.
3. Schedule a day off once a week. Give yourself permission to take a Sabbath from writing. Allow yourself one day a week when you don’t open that computer file or pick up that pen. You’ve just freed up time to tackle that house project or take your kids to the zoo.
4. Keep your goals flexible. Often my life looks nothing like I plan: the washer breaks, someone misses the bus, and I get in my car to hurry to school only to realize the gas gauge is on empty. While my days don’t look alike, rarely do they look like what is written on my calendar either. Why, then, do I expect my goals to always be in line with my life? Keeping my goals flexible allows for life’s mishaps.
5. Seek Counsel. Ask a trusted friend or mentor for advice and wisdom concerning your writing. Sometimes another person’s perspective is all that is needed to change our own.
I know you’re tired, I am too.
Don’t quit writing, though. I want to hear your story.
Comment Below: What things are you doing to give yourself a break from writing, or to schedule time to write?
* Image credit: Mary B. (Creation Swap)
About Heidi Kreider
