MINDSET, MOTIVATION, AND WELL-BEING FOR WRITERS
A TO Z!
Tuesday, 2 July 2024
MINDSET, MOTIVATION, AND WELL-BEING A TO Z FOR WRITERS
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My ideas are not ever meant as a substitute for consulting with a qualified health professional.
“Mindset, Motivation, and Well-Being A to Z for Writers” is the title of an online course I teach. As an author, educator, editor, and dedicated journal keeper, the idea for this course came to me after reading the book Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance by Angela Duckworth. I was also inspired by The Willpower Instinct: How Self-Control Works. Why It Matters, and What You Can Do to Get More of It by Kelly McGonigal, Ph. D.
These topics readily apply to the writing life, and I’m always on the lookout for ways to keep myself, my students, and clients motivated, healthy, positive, and forward moving. Both books mention the stick-to-ive-tive-ness of several famous authors, and I started to collect a list of all the modes and methods. The list was long. To make it manageable, I alphabetized each idea and POOF! This workshop blossomed from there.
As a lifelong learner, I put the ideas into practice and recognized immediately how practical and accessible the techniques are. I decided to share my experience in a course in the hopes of helping others achieve their dreams, goals, and aspirations. Besides alphabetizing the tips, the course demonstrates the specific ways writers can make use of them in daily life and work.
What Is Mindset, Motivation, and Well-Being?
Here’s the workshop description:
“Mindset, Motivation & Well-being A to Z for Writers” presents a host of suggestions for overhauling your writing life inside and out. Some of the topics will resonate and some will need to percolate for a while, but everything from coping with anxiety to applying zero-based thinking can potentially recharge your existence until you are unstoppable in every aspect. These premises apply to more than just writers, but the creative juices needed to produce stories is more draining than it looks. These concepts could be the missing ingredient you’ve been searching for.
Mindset
I like how psychology researcher Carol S. Dweck, Ph. D. of Stanford University describes mindset:
“Mindsets are just beliefs. They’re powerful beliefs, but they’re just something in your mind, and you can change your mind.” (16)
There are basically two mindsets: fixed and growth. In the workshop, I examine what this means to writers and how they can reshape mindset to be more positive by practicing a wide range of actions that can be applied a little at a time.
Motivation
Of course, motivation means how much horsepower or get-up-and-go you have to accomplish a task. Looking at motivation from a writer’s perspective, the course looks at the consequences, competence, choice, and community aspects involved in staying motivated.
Well-being
Although the term wellbeing is typically associated with emotional stability in psychological circles, I look at it with a wider lens that includes the areas of physical, emotional, spiritual, and communal strength. For my purposes, the hyphenated version well-being is more accurate because I’m a writer and because ‘well’ is an adjective and ‘being’ is a verb and such things require punctuation. The course presents a myriad of ways you can choose from to improve your overall well-being.
What is your writing mindset?
How do you stay motivated to write?
What ideas do you have for maintaining health that sustains your writing goals?
Be well, write well!
All good things,
~Joy
Women with clean houses do not have finished books! ~Joy E. Held
Works Cited
Dweck, Carol. Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. Ballentine Books, 2016.
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JOY E. HELD is an author, educator, editor, entrepreneur, and literary citizen responsible for this site and its contents. She is the author of
Writer Wellness: A Writer’s Path to Health and Creativity (Headline Books, Inc., 2020)
Writer Wellness Workbook: A Guided Workbook and Journal to Accompany Writer Wellness: A Writer’s Path to Health and Creativity (Headline Books, Inc., 2023)
The Mermaid Riot (Fire and Ice YA, 2024) Young Adult Historical Fantasy
She writes spicy historical fiction under a pen name.
She is the winner of multiple writing and book awards:
West Virginia Writers, Inc. Annual Writing Contest, Honorable Mention, Novel, 1998.
New York Book Festival, Honorable Mention, Writer Wellness, 2020.
Next Generation Indie Book Awards, Finalist, Writer Wellness, 2021.
Northeast Ohio Romance Writers of America, Member of the Year, 2020.
Northeast Ohio Romance Writers of America, First Book Award, 2020.
She is an adjunct faculty member in the Southern New Hampshire University Online MFA Creative Writing.
She is a proud graduate of Seton Hill University in Greensburg, PA with an MFA in Writing Popular Fiction.
She is a member of The Authors Guild and the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators.
Joy is the founder and CEO of My WRITEDAY Subscription Box for writers and readers.
