When you think back over your writing, during the past couple of weeks or months, it's easy to think about all the things that haven't gone so well.

You might find yourself dwelling on the times you didn't write, or the writing sessions that you ended up ditching partway because you couldn't focus. You might linger on the gap between where you are, with a few scrappy chapters written, and where you want to be -- at the end of a book.

And this can be really discouraging. 

When you see all the things that aren't where you want them to be, you might feel like giving up altogether. If it seems like you still have a very long way to go until The End, you might well put off writing because the 15 or 30 minutes you can manage seems like a tiny drop in a very large bucket.

When it comes to writing goals, it's also easy to fixate on what you didn't do instead of what you did do.

Maybe you planned to write every evening for an hour after work, but you only managed it on Monday and Tuesday. Instead of thinking about the days you didn't write, celebrate what did happen. You wrote for two hours! And that's a real achievement. If you wrote for two hours every week, you could finish the draft of a whole book within a year.

Maybe you published a blog post last week, and no one commented on it or shared it. You feel like no one is reading at all. Instead of focusing on the lack of comments and shares, celebrate the fact that you finished and published something. (You could also check Google Analytics or your blog stats, and chances are you'll find that your post had at least some readers!)

I find that focusing on what's going well can make a huge difference to my mood and general outlook on life, too.

Each evening, I write down three or more "Good Things" that happened during the day. Even if the day has felt long and tiring, even if there were unexpected bumps in the road, just turning my attention to good things (even little ones!) helps me end the day on a much more positive note.

Creating a daily "Good Things" list might not be for you, but maybe a weekly "Good Things" for your writing would help you focus on what's going well? The act of noticing those things could prompt you to look for ways to get them into your following week, too.

Happy writing,

Ali

P.S. If you missed last week's blog post, you can find it here:

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