Friday Speak Out!: "Three Easy Steps to Getting Back on Track," Guest Post by Connie Hebert

Three Easy Steps to Getting Back on Track

by Connie Hebert

Who are your "Side-trackers?" You know, the experts at derailing your creative goals. The detractors who create storm centers and disrupt the focus of creative beings like yourself.

Often long on problems and short on answers, many of these rabble-rousers are famous or frustrated artists themselves. In the wake of your Side-tracker's latest drama, your creative work gets placed on the back-burner...again.

Don't let these trouble makers get the best of you. It's springtime––a time for new beginnings. Here are three easy steps to help anyone get back on track.

First, learn to recognize Side-trackers. Here are some specific behaviors common to this group:

~ Disrespect for your reality i.e. calling with a problem even
though you have a deadline of some kind, and they know it.

~ Break agreements by being late (or too early) and demanding
allowances which wreck havoc with your schedule

~ Spend your money and/or time by needing to be rescued,
often in the middle of a workday

~ Blame others (you) when something goes wrong

~ Go ballistic if someone points out one more broken promise

~ Deny they are Side-trackers

Second, learn how to diffuse Side-trackers.

~ Admit you are involved with one. Denial only prolongs
the agony.

~ Be brutally honest. Why are you entangled? Are you getting
anything out of it? Does your Side-tracker enable your
procrastination? Are you afraid of failure?

~ Accept that keeping them around is self-destructive.

~ Ask yourself what creative work you'd be doing if not involved
with your detractor.

~ Stop dancing to the Side-tracker's tune. If you can't, get help
such as counseling or support from friends who've been
through the process.

~ Keep in mind the consequences of putting your needs
aside such as cheating your of your birthright, devaluing
yourself and your talents, holding back your Gift to a world
badly in need of it, and losing out on the richness of an
existence filled with peace and the joy of self-expression
and self-fulfillment.

Finally realize it's your choice. Choose wisely. Your creative life depends on it.

* * *
Connie Hebert, MSW, is the owner and author of her "True Inklings" website. (See link below.) Retired from a successful career in psychotherapy, education, and seminar training on human behavior, she now writes full-time. Her current work in progress is a nonfiction novel with the working title of "Converting the Maiden; a Memoir of Surrender." She's also published short pieces in trade magainzes and in "The Shine Journal," an online publication.

Follow "Connie's Blog" on her website: www.trueinklings.com
Connie can be reached at: conniehebert@me.com



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Would you like to participate in Friday "Speak Out!"? Email your short posts (under 500 words) about women and writing to: marcia[at]wow-womenonwriting[dot]com for consideration. We look forward to hearing from you!

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