Moving Forward

For the first time in several years, I’m at the beginning of a story that will see publication. The blank page stares at me, mocking my previously noted ideas of character and plot. I have sudden urges to clean the house, reorganize my pantry, or go shopping. Even when I can hear the characters in my head and see the story taking place in my mind, putting those first words into black and white is often daunting for me.

Even if you aren’t a writer, perhaps you know this feeling, this paralysis at the beginning of a project. You feel the pressure of other people counting on you. The fear of not living up to expectations—your own and others’. The doubt in your ability to perform, even if you have a long track record doing that exact thing. So how do we move forward?

Here are four things that have helped me move both my writing and my life projects toward completion:

1. Acknowledge that the process will be messy. I love how author Geraldine Brooks describes the writing process: “Mess, mess, mess, mess, art.” I don’t know about you, but I usually want my process in whatever I’m seeking to accomplish to be “perfect, more perfect, perfection, finished.” Once I acknowledge things will get messier before it becomes a more organized completion, the less pressure there is to dive in and start.
2. Pick a place and begin. Sometimes we get stuck at the beginning because we don’t know what the beginning actually is. And that’s okay. Start with what you do know. Either that will become the beginning or the thing you do will help you to find the beginning.
3. Set daily goals. This can be an amount of time you spend on the project each day or, as in the case of writing, a number of pages or words. But whatever marker you choose for your goal-setting, hold yourself to it, even if at the end of that “session” you don’t feel like any real progress was made. You did make progress, even if it doesn’t look as you’d envisioned. If nothing else, you figured out what not to do in reaching for your goal the next day.
4. Reward yourself. Even if you didn’t do as much as you wanted to do, even if you didn’t do it as well as you wanted to do it, there is always something you did well or right. Did you meet the goal you set? Reward yourself! Can you see a tiny bit of progress toward the final goal? Reward yourself! It doesn’t have to be anything big. In fact, small, daily goals need small rewards. (Save the big ones for the end of the project!) Reward yourself with reading an extra chapter in a book or taking a bubble bath or even just allowing yourself a few quiet minutes alone. Anything, really, as long as you take a minute to acknowledge that you have, indeed, made progress, no matter how small.

The apostle Paul talked about life in similar terms.

Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: 
forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward
the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. (Phil. 3:13-14)

Considering that our projects in this life are God’s calling for us—whether writing or working or taking care of our homes and families—and are often a significant part of our sanctification process, I find these words so encouraging.

These are the things I’m focusing on as I slog forward these days. Because even slogging is forward motion. The finish line is ahead. I’ll get there as long as I keep moving.

How about you? Is there a project you are having trouble getting started? What are some things that have helped you begin—or keep moving forward in—something you want or need to complete?