What Is Your End Goal? by Sally Shupe

Happy Thursday! We are halfway through the year. I had to look at my calendar to see if that was true. It is so hard to believe it is July already! Did you set weekly, monthly, yearly goals? Where do you stand on meeting those goals? On reviewing where I started, what I’ve accomplished, and where I’d like to be, I realized a few things.

Celebrate how far you’ve come. Have you been working on a sewing project? Cleaning out the basement or garage? Starting a new book, or finishing one you’d already started? Look back at where you started. If you’ve gone through one box in the garage, that’s one box you don’t have to go through now. Do you have a few rows started on your sewing project? You’re farther along than you were. How many words do you have in the book you’re writing? That’s more than you had. Write each day, and you’ll have even more.

Reviewing what you’ve done in the past will push you to do more in the future. Have you ever started a diet and gotten discouraged? Why the discouragement? Couldn’t stick with it? Didn’t lose weight? I’ve found if I start making changes, and realize a difference, I’m more apt to stick with it. Losing a few pounds, losing a few inches, encourages me to keep on. It’s the same with the sewing project, the writing project, running, or anything else. When you’re trying to run four miles, and realize you’ve already run three, it’s much easier to run that last mile. If you keep at that sewing project, your work adds up over time to a completed project. Same with writing a book. If you keep adding words each week, eventually you will have a finished book. Words add up to sentences. Sentences make paragraphs. Paragraphs become chapters. Chapters make books.

You can do it!

Another thing I’ve found is it’s good to have a group of friends you can share your accomplishments, your failures, your successes, your worries and discouragements with. Who better to celebrate with you than someone who has been on the journey with you? Connect with me if you need someone in your corner to pray for you, to encourage you, to celebrate with you, to sympathize with you- and then encourage you to keep on keeping on. Together we can do this! Check out my author page at sallyshupe dot weebly dot com. You can find links to my email, blog, twitter. I’d love to connect with you!

Is there a project you’re working on? How far have you come? Share in the comments, and let’s encourage one another.

“So then, go on comforting and building up one another, as you have been doing.” -  1 Thessalonians 5:11

Reviewing what you’ve done in the past will push you to do more in the future. @SallyShupe1

Sally Shupe lives in southwest Virginia with her husband, has two grown kids-a daughter still at home and a son not-so nearby, and a whole bunch of pets: four dogs, three cats, a rabbit, and birds at the birdfeeder (and the mandatory snowman when the snow cooperates). She is an aspiring Christian author of small town contemporary inspirational romance, with two completed manuscripts and several more in progress.

When Sally’s not writing or working full-time, she is a freelance editor for several authors who write fiction and nonfiction; students working on dissertation papers; a copy editor/content editor for several e-book publishing companies; performs beta reading for various authors; publishes book reviews; is a member of ACFW; and loves genealogy, running, and crocheting.

Sally publishes weekly blog posts that can be found through her website: https://sallyshupe.weebly.com/, and she posts on the first Thursday of the month at https://seriouslywrite.blogspot.com