Own your progress- it’s yours after all! :)

At Pacemaker we believe that we need to celebrate progress towards our goals and not just completed goals. We stressed the importance of celebration in our last blog post, but we want to help you follow through. In the spirit of personal celebration, we hope you’ll be inspired by these four ways to ensure you’re owning your progress.


REST – Take the day off!

Our lives are so fast-paced. Responsibilities, deadlines and commitments come in from all directions and if we’re not careful, the burnout WILL catch up with us. It may seem counter-intuitive, but it is so important that we plan our rest days!

That’s one of the many reasons Pacemaker allows you to personalize your workload on particular days and even factor buffer days into your writing plans. To celebrate your progress, schedule yourself an extra buffer day. Even a few hours without thinking of your daily word count can relieve stress and help get the creative juices flowing for the next phase of writing! Give resting a try!  


REFLECT – Writing is a journey!

This is particularly important in cases where we’ve set a big goal and fallen short of it. There is a big chance we’ll end up preoccupied with the part we missed, even if it is minuscule compared to all that we completed.

Reflecting can help redirect our focus in a way that encourages us to celebrate what we’ve achieved thus far- our progress! Think of all the twists and turns that your writing project took that you didn’t expect. Think of the surprises in your story that bowled you over. Think of all the words you’ve written, and all the words you’ve deleted and replaced. It probably amounts to a few pages at least, which is nothing to say of the miles and miles of words and pages you turned over in your mind to get those out!


BE GENTLE WITH YOURSELF – Treat yourself as you would treat another writer in your situation!

In general, we are a lot harder on ourselves than we need to be. In fact, we’re willing to wager that as a writer, you’re probably harder on yourself than you would be on another writer facing the same challenges as you are! Imagine it- another writer comes to you and says, “I feel like a failure, I only wrote half the words I scheduled this week!”.

In what universe would your external dialogue with them mirror the internal dialogue you would lambaste yourself with if you were in the same position? None! We all would, as quickly, and as sincerely as we could, redirect our Creative-peer away from their shortfall, overwhelm them with praise for their progress, and infuse them with hopes of glorious future triumphs! We would commiserate with them, and tell them, from the bottom of our hearts that we know how it is, and that that’s just the journey. That’s exactly what our internal dialogue needs to sound like!


SPREAD THE WORD – Share your progress!

Find your community, and keep them updated! We’ve spoken before about the importance of the social aspect of writing. We HIGHLY recommend telling family, telling friends, telling followers through social media, about your progress! They are your tribe, and can be a lifeline- refusing to let you sink into despair, pulling you back to the reassuring reality that this is indeed the process. Allow them to help you celebrate you!

Oh! And no more disclaimers and apologies (this ties in with being gentle with yourself). Your progress is not an apology! When you tell others about your progress… tell them about your progress! Don’t sandwich it between laments about how much more it coulda, woulda, shoulda been. Own it! So no more, “Yeaaaa, I suck at writing. Today I wrote 3 pages. What a fail!”. NO! – “TODAY I WROTE 3 pages!” — PERIOD!


These are just a few small ways to get you started! What are some of the ways you celebrate your progress? We’re thinking of starting a page on Pacemaker where writers can leave words of encouragement and praise to be delivered at random to other writers! We think that would be a lovely surprise for our users! What do you think?

Enjoy your writing journey, and as always, remember, Pacemaker can help!

Celebrate your progress, not just your completions!

When you made your first Pacemaker writing plan you probably set a pretty big goal. Let’s say that goal was 200 pages in 30 days, no breaks. At the time you set this goal, you were probably feeling super inspired and focused, really eager to get the job done. But life happened.

Life. Happened.

When you weren’t tired, you were stressed out. And on the days when you actually managed to get enough rest- writer’s block! Of course, there were also days when you did some serious damage, maybe you even went over your page count for the day!

But now you’re at the end of the 30 days and you’re only at 100 pages. What now?

YOU CELEBRATE!

30 days ago you had nothing! And now you have 100 pages! That’s 0-100 REAL QUICK and it’s important that you not only acknowledge that, but celebrate yourself for that!

As a Creative, you have an incredibly heavy burden to bear- the weight of the project you’re working on, the limited time you have to work on it, the desire to see the project through to completion and to see it become a success. The pressure is ever increasing and so is the temptation to just throw in the towel.  

This, of course, is on top of everyday life- day jobs, family, friends, and your typical average everyday global pandemic. You’ve got a lot going on, but you’ve managed to write the pages you’ve written on top of a very full plate. You deserve to celebrate! TREAT YOSELF!

We can so easily become distracted by all the things we haven’t done that we subconsciously [or consciously] ignore or downplay the things we have accomplished, creating a perceived deficit in our list of achievements. We forget that progress itself is an achievement. This is why it’s so important to intentionally take time out to celebrate progress- just as hard, just as purposefully, just as enthusiastically, as completed goals! It keeps us encouraged. It boosts our morale. And if we’ve fallen off the bandwagon, celebration can be the jolt that helps us get right back on!

At Pacemaker we’re all about celebrating progress towards the bigger goal. So, whether that be 1 page or 100 – Congratulations! Keep up the good work! As always, we’re here for you if you need to adjust your plan – judgement free, and we’ll be back again to celebrate your next progress update with you!