I'm getting REALLY angry at all "motivational" books / blogs / posts who keep saying things like "Stop watching TV / playing *World of Warcraft* and you will have a few hours a week to create a business / write a book / whatever".
Because I don't watch TV. I watched like two EPISODES of TV series last year. And probably no more than 5 movies of which some I didn't even finish.
I'm not playing video games. I wish I could but I don't have enough time.
I'm already sleep-deprived so don't even start with "Get up an hour earlier".
And I still can't gather more than a few minutes a day to work on my personal projects.
And even if I *do* find some time, sometimes I'm too tired or overwhelmed to do anything more challenging than going to sleep or scrolling my phone. And before you start with "So stop scrolling social media and you'll be able to write", just DON'T. At those times my level of focus is so low that I couldn't put two words together.
And I still WANT to do those projects. I NEED to be creative for my mental health.
So here's to those who - like me - have daily goals to write TEN words. No, NOT ten thousand or even a hundred. Just ten words. One or two sentences. If I'm lucky and can write a few hundred, that's great! But ten words are FINE. Do you know how many words I wrote yesterday? THIRTEEN. I had literally a few minutes.
I'm often writing on my phone because turning my computer on would eat up all the time I have to write. I don't have any special ritual with scented candles or special tea because all this setup takes too much of my time.
I'm writing all this because maybe you need to hear this.
Maybe you need to hear that setting tiny little goals is OKAY. You don't need to write thousands of words a day.
Maybe you need to hear that watching a movie or scrolling your phone when you're overwhelmed is OKAY. Having free time does not equal being able to do a task, especially a creative one. You can't be always on your 100% capacity.
Maybe you need to hear that there's someone out there (me) who is doing even less than you. If you add 20 words to your current WIP today, you're still ahead of me. So if you see those writers making amazing progress each day, just think there's me who's struggling to do 1% of that.
And that's OKAY.