It’s that time of year when we may be tempted to pile on more and more activities and tasks on our To-Do list because the holiday wouldn’t be complete without buying just the right gift for our entire family, making Grandma’s fat sugar cookies, whipping up a batch of holiday fudge, or baking that special banana bread. While we may not be able to see them, they would know that we were thinking about them when our holiday handiwork arrive. Get the picture? On top of all your usual obligations, now the holidays add on more commitments where you may feel that something has to give.

Will it be your writing time?

How did I know that would be considered as something you could drop off that gosh darn list? No, I’m not reading our mind. I understand completely and can relate. I’ve been in your shoes. I know the dilemma of wanting to honor the gift of being able to write along with maintaining my status as the go-to, get-it-done, person in my family, business, and community.

I was working with a client recently who was feeling the stress making those hard choices of deciding which things to keep and then which of her something else of her many commitments would suffer. She admitted that her amount of writing time has suffered tremendously. But she also shared that she felt so much better when she was able to journal and the writing got done. Interestingly enough, the amount may have diminished, yet the content was more meaningful and felt deeper. 

One specific issue surfaced which concerned her (and I’ll bet you can relate to this too). Can you guess what was nagging at her?  Yup. Talking about our life experiences often includes other people. So how do you share about specific experiences when you know some feelings may be hurt because the reaction could be “oh, she’s writing about me.” This is where you can lean into your intuition and take ownership of that part of the story which is yours and yours alone.

1. Celebrate whenever you show up on the page. It’s your sacred time to be able to have that conversation on paper with your soul.
2. Don’t edit your writing in your journal. If you decide to take something from your journal and expand it into a blog or article, then you will want to edit and “clean things up.” But never forget your vision of sharing your truth is to have an impact on your readers to inspire, inform, and educate them so that they can live their best life.
3. Don’t be attached to the results of how someone else receives and digests the content you share. Their reaction is from their perspective and their business.

Remember: Your story matters and no one else can tell your story from your perspective. The really beautiful thing is when you are sharing your story from your heart, your readers will not only lean in to your story, they will feel seen and have the confidence to step into their story as well. I believe they will think that YOU have been reading their minds!

I’m curious if you have ever read something where you had the impression the writer was reading your mind. Please drop over to my Facebook page and let me know how you shifted your To-Do list to be sure your writing time stays sacred.

photo credit:  Pixabay.com