The Global Liberty Community
Three Ways Writers Self-Sabotage Their Productivity and How to Stop
Very few individuals with goals set out to deliberately hamper their potential. Unfortunately, whether you’re a blogger, writer, content developer or fiction author, self-sabotage is real. It slips in all sorts of clever ways. Whether through pesky writer’s block or just self-distraction, we creative types have so many ways to unintentionally develop habits that cost ourselves time, opportunity and money. And it’s ludicrous.
Why should you care what I think about self-sabotage? Another writer might say, so yeah, I’ve been writing professionally for over eight years. Everything from business proposals and press releases, to political commentary and breaking news, to persuasive essays and fiction. I previously founded Fictionista Workshop (now the Writer’s Collective), a collaborative, virtual workshop for online fiction authors that helped dozens of women get published. Blah, blah let’s connect on LinkedIn.
All of that means nothing. What matters more is that I’m a recovering self-saboteur. I’ve tried and failed at NaNoWriMo four years in a row. Many years ago, my obsession with perfection caused me to consistently miss dozens of deadlines that cost me paid writing gigs. As I type this, I have three fully outlined yet unfinished novels on my hard drive with word counts between 35k-90k. They remain in draft because they’re “not good enough”, ok?
The most promising novel is a 30-chapter 210k word creation from 2008 that’s now scattered across 15 folders on my hard drive. Everyone that has read it loves it. Friends and family ask when it’ll be published. The book’s Facebook page has over 1k likes. 8 years later, I’m just now inching closer to being finished. Just typing that makes me feel like an idiot because that’s what I was, no doubt. Needless to say, I know a little about self-sabotage and my writing is the only area of my life that I formed these awful habits.
How did I stop? By realizing I might have a problem, observing my behavior and committing daily to stopping. That’s it. There’s no magical cure. Just stop. So please allow me to share with you the top three ways I self-sabotaged and how I quit so you too can stop being ridiculous.
Click to continue on CreativeDestructors.com.
Join The Discussion
6 CommentsThoughts? Comments?
Please login or register to post a comment.
Bob Vacanti February 9, 2015 , 9:49 pm Vote0
Thank you for this, Tiffany! I suffer from all of these writing pitfalls, with only 9 chapters of a novel to my name after 2 years of self-editing. Creating rough outlines has helped somewhat, but I really need to let myself write without being so damn critical all the time.
Tiffany Madison February 9, 2015 , 10:27 pm Vote0
It’s so crazy! Have you had any results?
Dave Burns February 9, 2015 , 11:13 pm Vote0
What you read “The War of Art” by Steven Pressfield?
I am an unrepentant pantser, though I do sometimes rationalize it by thinking of it as journaling, which can be followed by a restart, outline, etc. When I know I need to say something but I don’t know what to say, journaling helps me think about it. I should probably be more careful about letting that sort of thing get into my blog, though.
Public mistakes have the virtue of inspiring some crowdsourcing and discussion. If I always waited for understanding, I’d never publish anything. OTOH, I imagine some readers find it tiresome to read my explorations.
Jessica Leigh February 10, 2015 , 3:34 am Vote0
You’re absolutely right, Tiffany. It was only until I began writing on Liberty.me that my perfection obsession calmed a bit. Thank you for the inspiring words!
Friendly Robot 001 February 10, 2015 , 10:12 pm Vote0
hello
Seth Cochran February 25, 2015 , 3:20 pm Vote1
Guilty of all three. Great article.