I’m back from my writing sabbatical! Thank you for being patient with me as I ran reprints on the blog. Now, it’s time for more original posts from yours truly and my guest posters.
As you probably know — because I never stop talking about it — I’m now a wellness coach. I offered 50 lucky people a free wellness coaching phone session to help me towards my certification (I’m full up, by the way!), and many of those people happened to be writers because they responded to a post about the offer on the Renegade Writer Blog.
As I coached these writers on their wellness, I started to see an amazing trend: These writers’ health woes were directly related to the state of their writing careers. For example, one client was an emotional eater who reached for sweets whenever she felt she wasn’t making enough headway on a writing project. Another blamed problems ranging from allergies to liver issues on the fact that she deferred her dream to be a writer due to a lack of time. And there are more examples.
It’s no secret that stress and emotional disturbance can lead to health problems. I’m not sure whether everyone’s job is so closely linked to their health, but I’d wager that the connection is stronger in creative professions where we consider our careers our passions — our very lifeblood.
So how can you improve your writing career — and your health?
The biggest obstacle getting in the way of most would-be professional writers is that between their regular jobs, their families, and their other obligations, they can never find the time to build their writing careers — time to brainstorm ideas, time to write, time to market.
The trick is to make the time — don’t find it. Many writers moan that they can’t find the time for their writing — and their frustration leads to health issues ranging from anxiety to emotional eating. The trick is, you can’t just find unused time lying around waiting for you to come along and use it for writing — you have to make time.
Ask yourself this super-secret coaching question: If your doctor told you that you had to work on your writing career right away or you would die, how would you do it?
I’ll bet if this happened, you would manage to carve some time out of your schedule. Maybe you would cut an obligation or two out of your schedule. Or ask your spouse for one kid-free hour a day. Or start ordering more take-out meals (healthy ones!) so you don’t have to cook and clean every night — or even take advantage of the many meal-prep places that are popping up. Or get up an hour early (or stay up an hour later).
See? There’s no shortage of ways to make time if you really, really had to. And trust me — you have to. If you’re a writer, your health depends on it. [lf]
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