Actions are votes for the type of person that you want to be.  I heard this on a newscast on New Year’s Day. The brief interview was about how to make your resolutions a reality.

Small actions leading to better habits was the gist of the conversation.

If you want to lose weight don’t think about the weight but what a person who loses weight does and then do that.  Think about  what a person who has achieved that goal has done and basically what would they do.

What do you want to do? What does a person who does that thing do? And then do it?

Simple… yes…

Hard at the same time.

What if you don’t know what the person you want to be does? You have an idea, but so much of it is still a mystery. You see the outer shell of that world not knowing of what is underneath.  Social media is great for giving us peeks into other people’s lives. Those peeks however are cultivated ones designed to let us see more often than not the best parts of their lives.

The lense of social media can be deceiving.  Everyone else seems like they seem like they have so much confidence.  You might be afraid to even try.  Mistakes are going to happen and very few actually completely stop you unless you allow them to do.

You might ask questions or advice from experts and be disappoint when the advice is vague or seems just out of reach.

What if you are already doing it, just not at the level you want to?  What if it still all seems overwhelming?

My advice pick somewhere and start.  The TV expert d’jour stressed making small changes first before trying bigger things.   And he isn’t wrong.  You still need a place to begin.

When I was a young, I would often clean by piling everything on the bed and putting things away from there. The mound of stuff was always overwhelming. The idea in my young mind was that I couldn’t go to bed until such time as everything was off the bed.  Often because I was not a neat child it would be over my head.  I would scan the mound for the easiest thing to put away.  Dishes to the kitchen, laundry into the hamper, toys and books arranged as I went. It got better.  The mess would return, but I had a strategy  to get take care of it.  My teenage-self just learned to either make a nest out of the junk or push the mess on to the floor on the opposite side of the bed from the door so my folks won’t see.

I want to be a better writer.  I want to write more constantly, publish multiple times a year and have writing expenses match with writing income. Currently, those two figures do not agree. And, yes, there are expenses that however is another post.

Writers have to hustle.  They have to generate multiple streams of income.  One thing I learned early on from selling my book on Amazon, was that you don’t get paid right away. I knew this from other author friends, but the reality selling a few dozen books and not seeing the money for three months was eye-opening. A couple of times, I was surprised when there would be extra money in my account.

So small habits will I be incorporating into my life to learn that hustle?

1. Learn the business side of writing – the small thing I can do with this is keep track of how many books I’ve sold and where I’ve sold them.  In the beginning, I was great at this until it came to the point where I was selling physical copies on my own.  I lost track there.
2. Write on a schedule.  Set a schedule and stick to it.  This takes a lot more planning than you would think.  Wednesday, it meant writing right after coffee since I made plans to spend the day with my sweetheart.  Today,  it meant craving space out either before or right after work. Maybe both depending on the goals.
3. Examining what my goals are and defining success.  How will I know if I am a success if I don’t define it for myself.

Where are you going to start on your goals? What little habits are you going to incorporate to make things happen in your world? Please share your thoughts below in the comments.