Are you intimidated by how much work still lies ahead of you? Do you battle to get started?

If your writing journey was a story, it wouldn't be flash fiction, it would be The Lord of the Rings, it would be the Hobbit, it would be a journey that stretches from one continent to the next with a pot of gold waiting for us at the end of it.

But sometimes, looking at what we still need to do is like seeing the great Misty Mountains before us, and realizing how far we still need to go before we reach that gold. It can be intimidating, and we end up delaying, we end up pushing our deadline forward. If it's going to take 6 months, then I can watch TV, because what difference does a few hours make? Those hours turn into days and the days turn into months and before we know it, our deadline has come and gone and we are no closer to reaching our goals. 

But perhaps, we are looking at time and our writing in the wrong way. 

What if we changed our perspective?

Imagine that there was nothing at the end of the journey, but that time was a conveyor belt, with the gold rushing towards us, day by day, and the way we take hold of it is by doing something constructive. 

Every time you sit down to write, you are filling your pockets. Every time you exercise, you are grabbing gold, and getting just that little bit richer, and, at the end of the journey, our final treasure is determined by how much we picked up along the way. 

It doesn't benefit us to look at how much work still lies before us, because that's intimidating, but we should rather look at how quickly our days are passing, and how much potential gold is passing us by, every time we sit down to do something that doesn't count. 

With this perspective, the work isn't as intimidating as the thought of losing out on time, the most precious commodity we have. Can you see the difference? 

If we keep your eyes on wasted time, then spending a night in front of the TV suddenly feels expensive. 

So, my fellow traveler, remember, your reward isn't waiting for you at the end, it's being offered to you, day by day, a little bit at a time. Grab that gold by the bucket full, and before you know it, your manuscript will be complete, and you will have built up your own reward.