Cultivate Success

How do you start a new project?

What if the project you envision is large and you feel overwhelmed? How do you keep the motivation going in the afternoon after being excited in the morning?

Social media is of little help with posts shouting how to write bigger, better, faster! “Don’t delay, you’re already behind, here’s five ways to work three times faster!” Over-promised promotions popping up on you phone are designed to make you feel ill equipped to succeed on your own. It can be paralyzing. But they all leave out the one crucial detail required for success.

Cultivation.

Real success is cultivated by many small steps in the same direction.

And each small step needs to be acknowledged as work completed, hours logged, a goal achieved. Forgive me for reworking an old expression, but the journey to the top of mount Everest isn’t completed in a single giant leap, it’s a slow walk up the trail with many thousands of steps, plus the camping out over several days, bringing oxygen and supplies, a sandwich or two, likely a guide and the belief in your own journey, while everyone else thinks you’re nuts.

I recently created a garden at my home. It took a year. The parallels to building a long form story process were amazing to me. You start with nothing, you shape odd empty parts together, and they all are separate and feel disconnected.

After all the difficult groundwork you look back at your work with disappointment; it looks very unimpressive. It actually looks somewhat like you’ve wasted your time. But you believe in the process, you believe in your design, you give it daily attention. Trim growths, guide shoots, daily cultivation lays the groundwork for creative growth and expansion.

You find that putting in many small attentive steps every day six months go by and you’ve transformed the world around you.

The blank page starts with emptiness. Emptiness is the unknown, a social gathering with strangers, a new workplace with new rules. Even as you work to create your design the early stages feel separate, disconnected and often looks unimpressive. That happens to me every time, by the way, with every new project.

But you believe in the process. You’re a mountain climber and you’re going to reach the peak.

Keep small goals to be achievable every day. Every writer is different, some are page counters, some are clock timers, others are vibing adventurists who focus on characters or sequences. Every step forward is a step closer to the summit.

Put in the time every day, acknowledge the work completed, hours logged, a goal achieved, you are cultivating. Sometimes the worse thing you can do is to wait to start until you feel you have all the answers because that space may not exist. Some answers are only revealed on the journey. The path to the top of your mountain is one that you may find on your own. No other guide could have shown you you’re exact ascent. Don’t get overwhelmed, focus on the path, not on the mountain.

Watch the trail and go step by step.

Cultivate that journey. And transformation of the world around you awaits.