Today, a random question shocked me. My colleague asked about my Labor Day plans. What? I grabbed my calendar and confirmed the distressing truth. Labor Day, summer’s death knell, is a few weeks away. In 41 days, we mark the Autumn Equinox. Where did summer go? I have noticed the daily sunsets are earlier, and sunrises are a little late. A hint of fall creeps in at unexpected moments. It stalks my verdant garden.

This year’s legacy is craziness, unanticipated adjustments, and boatloads of uncertainty. Caught in the whirlwind of making it all work, time has evaporated. Like it or not, summer must soon give way to crisp breezes and falling leaves. Summer is not lost. September yet lies on the horizon, and the opportunity to reclaim the expansive vacation hours I remember from my childhood, rest in the tip of my pen.

I won’t let September steamroll me, leaving regret for missing the charms of another season. My best hot weather friend, my air conditioner, will find me absent. There are flowers to smell, a game of hide-and-seek to play with the baby bunnies in my yard, and joy to discover. I have scheduled a visit to the farmer’s market to select corn on the cob, celebrate vine-ripened tomatoes, and pick blueberries for a fabulous tart. There is still a chance to read a brilliant book on the patio while enjoying my favorite iced coffee. I expect grilled veggies to taste better, and the evening stars to shine brighter.

How will you extend your summer?

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Keep on writing.

Jo Hawk The Writer

They say character is who we are when no one is watching. There are mornings when it comes in handy. Character spur us to act and commit. Being committed is doing what you promise you will do when others would quit. It is staying the course and continuing along the chosen path, even when the going is tough. We might slip and fall, but we get up and try again.

To become successful, we need to roll discipline into the mix. Discipline is a tool that allows us to conquer ourselves by obeying a code of behavior, enforcing prescribed conduct, and imposing self-control. Mastering ourselves frees us from bad habits, laziness, and lethargy. Self-discipline helps access delayed gratification, which improves our progress towards larger goals with future payoffs.

The three-musketeer package of character, commitment, and discipline aids in removing distractions, making decisions, and powering through the tough jobs. We can prioritize our agenda according to the biggest ROI. When we realize the difficulties of those tasks, we do well to tackle them first. We work within our personal clocks, playing to our strengths as a morning person, or resisting a fight against our night owl tendencies when we schedule our day. It is not all toil. The reward is the progress we make towards achieving our goals.

What gets you out of bed?

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Keep on writing.

Jo Hawk The Writer

Its Monday morning, the alarm sounds, and you slap the snooze button repeatedly until silence rules. Sweet, beguiling sleep is elusive, and you lose the valiant battle. Groaning, you burrow into once warm covers, hoping to block the ugly realities looming with the breaking dawn. Daylight is much scarier than the deep, dark night. Dread, despair, and the feeling of preordained defeat pushes you into your hollow cocoon of denial. Was it always this way? Do you remember when bright-eyed and bushy-tailed described your daily greeting to the day’s potential?

Courage and fear go hand in hand, two sides of the same coin, yin and yang, the shadow to the sunshine. They say those who search for bravery lack confidence in themselves. In today’s crazy upside-down world, unpredictability laced with anxiety is the name of the new game. They masquerade as procrastination, perfectionism, and imposter syndrome. Does that sound familiar to any of my writer friends?

Even sensitive, introverted, timid, and over-stressed souls can summon the audacity and inner pluck to move, listen to their Jiminy Cricket voice, and saddle up.

Can you find your untapped courage today?

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Keep on writing.

Jo Hawk The Writer

It’s easy to view successful people, entrepreneurs, star athletes, and envy their fame and fortune. They live a dream life, the existence we want for ourselves and our families. We wonder what makes them special and why our desires have not materialized. We don’t consider their path to greatness. Their road may have required sacrifices, no parties, missed movies, waking early, strict diets, and forsaking staying out late. They have spent hours, days, weeks, and years relentlessly pursuing their vision. 

To advance toward our goals, we must make difficult decisions. Focusing on a single target means letting something else go.  In a world where they coach us to “never give up,” we can find ourselves forced into a life of contradiction, tension, and lack of progress. We race through an endless list of activities. Exhausted, and discouraged we try harder without focus we sporadically work longer hours, thereby condemning ourselves to tread water.

By shutting a door, we allow doors with different opportunities to open. How many times have you heard someone who has experienced a major failure say it was the best thing that ever happened to them? They had to quit one situation to reconsider their beliefs and free their minds to alternative possibilities. The truth is, only you can decide what is worth giving up. 

What are you willing to let fall away to achieve your goals?

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Keep on writing.

Jo Hawk The Writer

Contemplating a new project is exhilarating. Excitement runs high as we envision the joy and satisfaction we expect from a completed task. The pros far outweigh the cons, there is no question we should proceed. So why do we become experts at delaying? We know what it requires, the essential steps, but we procrastinate, we wait, we opt to pursue less productive activities.

Whether we fear failure, dread increased responsibility based on our success, or find ourselves paralyzed by the desire for perfection, we need an answer. We must tap into our passion and enthusiasm. Do you remember that feeling?  

Procrastination lives in our heads, and the fastest way to dispel it is to move. Exercise, take a walk, spend time with optimistic people, get your blood flowing, and feel it coursing through your body. Then channel those emotions and start your work.

How do you find your magic?

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Keep on writing.

Jo Hawk The Writer

Steve Jobs makes being a creative sound easy. You simply connect random things in unique ways. Then you can feel guilty because you didn’t really do anything. Bah.

Being creative requires guts and hard work. You must be willing to fail, to learn from your failure, and to look at your problem from multiple angles until you find the right answer. When nothing works, you return to the drawing board and develop a new plan. Thomas Edison created multiple versions of a lightbulb that didn’t work. Babe Ruth struck out 1,330 times in his career, compared to his 714 career home runs.

Yes, creatives have a knack for seeing from a different point of view. They can take experiences and thoughts, and craft them in new ways, create new ideas, new processes, and new things. But it doesn’t happen without work, experimentation, and risk.

What risks are you taking today?

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Keep on writing.

Jo Hawk The Writer

We hear this advice a lot, ‘Do your best,’ they say. But how do you go about it? Start by using yesterday as your baseline. What did you accomplish? Identify one item you could improve upon, then do it better, and faster. Incremental improvement is all you need. As you are working, throughout the day, let your passion seep into your work and do each task as if you intend to create a masterpiece.

Pretend you live a world-class life. You are the master chef when you prepare your morning coffee.  As the Prima Ballerina, you dance, floating gracefully into the shower, where Drake has curated your morning playlist. You channel your world-class stylist as you complete your morning routine. Coco selects your outfit and accessories. At work, your inner Einstein helps you complete your spreadsheet, Banksy illustrates your PowerPoints, while Hemmingway composes your emails, and Dale Carnegie conducts your meetings.

Bob Harper leads you through a grueling workout, Danica Patrick drives you to the grocery store, and Julia Childs prepares your dinner. Vow to give up using excuses for why you can’t. Get out of your way and start. Keep your promises to others, without fail. But realize it’s just as, even more, important to keep the promises you make to yourself.  Get a good night’s sleep, dream beautiful dreams, then do it 1% better tomorrow.

How will you make today better than yesterday?

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Keep on writing.

Jo Hawk The Writer

I have favorite authors, cherished books, and poems committed to memory.  Their words and the stories they create enrich my life, but I don’t want to write in their style or tell the same stories. The mold that shaped them is not the one that created me. Forcing myself to follow in their footsteps is the fastest way to kill my creativity. So, I don’t even try.

Those writers, authors, creators, and dreamers inspire bravery. Daring to pursue your own path means you walk alone. It pushes you to the edge of your comfort zone and forces you to jump. Life doesn’t hand you a parachute, bear repellent, or sunscreen as you head into the unknown. Friends and family offer sage advice, saying you don’t know what’s out there. They beg you to return to safety.

As a creative, it’s like asking you to stop breathing. The world needs your ideas, your stories, remarkable paintings, new devices, beautiful music, and the products of those searching for great achievement.

What achievement will you give the world?

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Keep on writing.

Jo Hawk The Writer

I never fit in at school. Child me didn’t understand, I thought I would gain knowledge. Adult me realized schools are institutions to teach children one lesson. They imprinted our minds, hard-wiring our psyche with the need to conform, to act like everyone else, to aspire to be average. When you finish high school, the path leads to college and your first job. Every step on the trail reinforces the advantages of conformity and sameness while nurturing a perception of the risk involved in being different.

Peer pressure, dress codes, formal reviews, and dollars in your bank account remind you, we are being judged. Somewhere, someone doesn’t approve of who I am, what I wear, what I do, and scoffs at how much money I don’t have. I would hate for them to lose their job, so I stopped following the rush to mediocrity. The opportunity cost of copying trends and denying my unique style became massive.  

Being yourself is difficult. Misunderstood, mocked, and treated as an outcast, is the norm for the nonconformist. They attack because they don’t understand and are fearful of the answers to questions they don’t want to consider. The payoff comes at some future date when even if they still don’t understand, they learn to respect the consistency of those who dare to be different.

How will you celebrate your unique self today?

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Keep on writing.

Jo Hawk The Writer

The internet hums with suggestions to be more productive, run faster, finish the never-ending to-do list. Don’t slacken your pace. Continue to advance to the next great item guaranteed to make our day. We spend our time working hard and achieving our goals. The message is attaining our objectives will bring us gratification. We buy into the mindset, the lifestyle. One by one, we reach the target and discover it leaves us without the fulfillment they promised.

If we are honest, we realize real pleasure, fun and enjoyment lie in the journey, the places we see, the individuals we met, the lives we touch. The struggle is thrilling. Helping each other brings us an unparalleled joy.  These truths etch themselves on our souls and represent the stories we need to tell. These paths filled with hardship and hope are the journeys our readers want to follow.

How do you celebrate the journey?

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Keep on writing.

Jo Hawk The Writer