I’ve been thinking a lot over the past few days about what makes me happy. For too long, I have been focused on what I want to eliminate from my life to be happier (like my day job!). But that’s not where my energy should be. Ideally, I should be focusing in the things I do that give me a sense of happiness and figuring out how to do more of those and bring more of those into my life.
So, what does this have to do with my writing progress? I determined that one of the things that makes me happy is accomplishment. I enjoy the feeling of achieving milestones and making progress toward a goal (one of the reasons I’m addicted to RPGs – and that’s “R” as in “Roll”, not “Role”). Another thing that makes me happy is creating and completing something and seeing it make another person happy or make their life better.
So, applying both of those to my book writing, happiness comes from making concrete progress toward the completion of my book. I want to focus more on how I have moved the needle forward each day. Today, I had an advantage since it’s a Sunday and the kids have been sleeping in, so I had a lot more time to write, but I got nearly 1500 words done and, more importantly, finished a chapter. Ding. Level up. I want to focus on that feeling of happiness. That should motivate me to get back to it next time I have the chance, too.