Why are they obstacles? (2-b)

Kai wrote:
So why are your obstacles actually obstacles, and what can you do to turn them from obstacles into things you can do work around?

In my post for assignment 2-a, I listed several obstacles. I'll answer this assignment one obstacle at a time.

Obstacle 1. I'm a SAHM to four girls ranging in age from 12-years to almost-7-months. Daytime hours are one constant interruption...as they probably should be (to some extent anyway) or why bother being a SAHM. I'm also responsible for doing the books for DH's business, which cuts into any spare time even more.

Why is this an obstacle? Because the interruptions break into my thought process. I lose track of where I am and where I'm trying to go. They're an obstacle because I'm not home to be a writer. I'm home to be a Mom...and tending to the little ones' needs is the biggest part of that job description. And as for taking care of dh's books, well, that's temporary until he's bringing enough money in to hire someone else to do it for him. In the meantime, he needs the help and I have the ability to do that. It does take time away from writing, but his business enables me to stay home with my/our kids and to try to write.

How can I work around these obstacles? I'm trying to as best I can. I use naptime to either write or work on dh's books. I also stay up later than I probably should. Sometimes I use the TV to occupy the 3yo. The baby is usually in my lap anyway. On occasion, my Mom comes over to help me out. However, she is not as enamored with helping me out so I can write as she is of helping me out so I can do things around the house or work on dh's books. (Again, it's the whole writing isn't work mentality.) On VERY rare occasions, dh will take the 3yo out for a few hours so I can work on something. However, he hasn't done that since the baby was born...and she's now seven months old.

The best way I can use this particular obstacle to my favor is to incorporate it into my writing. Use what I encounter everyday to write an essay or as the basis for an informative article that I could sell to a parenting publication. But unless I make a wonderful discovery as I research an article on working through the interruptions, the interruptions will continue and I will continue to be distracted by them.

Obstacle 2. After so many years of trying to fit someone else's mold of me, I lost me. I lost passion and I lost creativity. I need to reclaim those things before I can write with them.

This is an obstacle because I'm coming from a dull, dark void where I had no thoughts, no opinions, no passion and few feelings. Any creativity that I once had atrophied as I wallowed in the abyss for over twenty years. As bootcamp started, I sat at the base of a huge precipice. Writing was--is--my only means of scaling it. My first steps have been fueled by sheer willpower. I will NOT be in the abyss any longer. Each subsequent step refills a little bit of that lost passion and creativity. By the time I reach the top, I expect to have reclaimed what I lost and be ready to surge ahead. I know what it's like in the void. I don't ever want to be there again.

Obstacle 3. My time management skills are horrendous. I waste a lot of time.

The reason why this is an obastacle is obvious. What can I do about it? Set goals. Make lists. Break things down into bite-size chunks that I can accomplish in an organized manner and check off as complete.

Obstacle 4. I keep losing that belief in myself. I posted before that I always felt like a fraud when I tried to fit in with people so unlike me. And now I feel like a fraud as a writer because I took so much time away from it. If I wanted to write, why didn't I just write? What makes me so sure that I can do it now? What makes me think I'm any good? I fear putting myself out there. But without putting myself out there, I get nowhere.

This is an obstacle because I expect too much from myself (to be perfect) and too little from myself (why bother trying when I'll probably just screw it up). It's an obstacle because I'm not allowing myself to experiment, to fail, to learn and to grow. Why should anyone else give me a chance when I won't give one to myself? If I don't believe in myself, how in the world will anybody else? If I don't put myself out there, how will I ever go anywhere?

The answer to turning this obstacle around is simple: just write. Put words down on a page. Whatever words come into my head. See where they go. Nine times out of ten they go someplace that's really not all that bad. Sometimes they even have a point to them, a point that others can understand as well as I. By just writing, I do risk negative feedback and argument. But what is the worst that can come from that? Hurt feelings. Will it kill me? No. And what doesn't kill me makes me stronger.

And what I write should only get better.

Obstacle 5. ME. I am my biggest obstacle.

I set up my own roadblocks. I create barriers where none existed before. I always have some excuse: I don't know enough. I'm not good enough. I don't have enough experience. Everybody else is so much better at this than me. I just don't have the time. And on and on and on...

Recognizing this self-defeating behavior is the first step to turning it around. I was starting to see the behavior before, but the first bootcamp exercises substantiated it for me.

I'm now starting to turn it around.

I'm writing everyday in an online journal. I'm not hiding behind the safety of a notebook or a private Word doc (though these venues have their purpose, too). Not only have I opened myself up for feedback, I practically beg for it. :-)

Also, just yesterday, I admitted to dh that I'm doing this bootcamp and that I'm posting to a blog. I was hiding it from him until now. He rolled his eyes and laughed at me. I could hear his thoughts as though he said them aloud: "Another time-waster." Next will come his comments about me having enough time to write in a blog but not having enough time to write something for his website.

But I think this time I'm ready for those comments.

Before starting bootcamp, I was afraid that anything I wrote for dh's website would be garbage. But I'm not afraid of that anymore. I can write. I have TONS of room for improvement, that's for sure. But...I CAN WRITE. (In fact, I now feel ready to start working on his website. Maybe I'll work on that later tonight.)

These daily blog entries--and the feedback I get from them--are giving me great confidence in my writing ability. Writing these entries helps me organize my thoughts and teaches me how to focus. This daily writing actually energizes me. I have felt more alive in the past two weeks than I have in twenty years.

I now know--and accept--that I need to write to feel whole. I need to write to grow. I need to write to live my life to it's fullest. Without writing, I wither and my soul dies.

Now if I can just maneuver around that first obstacle, I think I can take care of the rest.