12 Steps to Banishing Self Sabotage

Twelve Steps to Banishing Self Sabotage
by
Lynda Sue Cooper (aka Lynda Sandoval)

"Hello, my name is Lynda, and I can be my own worst enemy when it comes to staying focused and persevering."

Hi Lynda.

Can't we all be our own worst enemies at times? If--like me--you often find yourself self-sabotaging your own writing goals, here is a (just for fun) twelve-step program (respectfully modeled after AA's) to help you get back on the straight and narrow:

1. We admitted we were powerless over the future outcome, and that negative thoughts about our progress, or lack thereof, were making our writing life unmanageable.

2. We came to believe that a power greater than our self-doubt--that of our subconscious mind--could restore us to sanity.

3. We made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of our subconscious, promising to nurture it along the way with specific instructions about where we wanted to go and positive, reinforcing self-talk.

4. We made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

5. We admitted to our subconscious, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our self-sabotage.

6. We were entirely ready to work on removing all these defects of character without punishing ourselves for them.

7. We humbly asked our subconscious to help us to remove our self-sabotaging shortcomings.

8. We made a list of all manuscripts, ideas, and dreams we had given up on, and became willing to make amends to them all.

9. We made direct amends to such projects wherever possible, except when we recognized them as hopeless first or early efforts (which are still valid to the process).

10. We continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong, lazy, misdirected, or negative, we promptly admitted it.

11. We sought through prayer or meditation or positive self-talk (or whatever works for us personally) to improve our nurturance of the self-conscious, praying only for steady work toward our goals and the strength to persevere.

12. Having had a spiritual and creative awakening as the result of these steps, we vowed to carry this message to other doubtful and/or self-sabotaging writers and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

Work through these 12-steps, and you'll be well on your way to the career you've always wanted!

Despite the <ahem> occasional bout of self-sabotage, Lynda Sue Cooper/Lynda Sandoval is the award-winning author of seven novels, two nonfiction books, and untold thousands of whiney E-mail messages to her writer friends. In March 2001, Pinnacle Encanto will release her next book, ONE AND ONLY, which recently received a five-star review from Scribes World and was chosen as "A Keeper Shelf Selection" by The Romance Journal. Visit Lynda on the web at www.LyndaLynda.com or, if it floats your boat, send her a whiney E-mail at TundraFlwr@aol.com.