How to Write a Strong Story When You Feel Less Than Strong

Making blogging, newsletter, and other content marketing details when you're sick, stressed, or sad... It's one of the toughest parts of running a practice or a small business because, let's be honest, you're pretty much always writing this week's material just days or hours before it goes live. What happens when life or your mood gets in the way of getting yourself in front of your audience?

First, ask yourself: MUST I get this written today?

That depends on several factors, so go deeper and ask yourself a few more questions.

Are these self-imposed deadlines or did you promise a guest post or something that is going to print?

When another site or publication is waiting on you, writing becomes a job you simply need to do. I suggest you set a time, sit down in that chair, and put words on the page. Call in a friend or an editor to help you bring it up to your "I feel fabulous!" standards if you're having trouble connecting your ideas and connecting to readers.

Breaking a promise to yourself is no easier than letting down a colleague or an editor, but it may have fewer longterm consequences. Can you forgive yourself for posting on a Friday instead of a Thursday? If you're not in the middle of a big launch cycle, can you skip on the newsletter this week?

When you set publication schedules for yourself, be clear about your own boundaries. Be realistic and be compassionate with yourself.

In my case, a #365project offers ZERO wiggle room. Daily means daily and skipping a day seems like a really big problem. The pay off on showing up every day is huge, but there is a big price. I admit that I am looking forward to a nice, manageable weekly project for 2017! (Editor's note: by mid-May 2016 I realized that a daily publishing project was a terrible idea for me.)

If you decide you MUST write even when you're not feeling like yourself...

Look into your own working style. How do you handle other projects when you just don't feel good?

Are you more successful when you muscle through (and then take a much needed rest after)?

Or, are you more productive if you are tender with yourself throughout? Do you thrive with lots of tea breaks and gentle stretching and doing the work in the corner of the couch wrapped in your favorite blanket?

What if writing wasn't a chore? What if it was your solace?

When you are writing a post that comes from the heart, try to look at blogging itself as part of your own healing process.

After all, as a therapist or healer or creative being, many of the issues that your ideal reader faces are likely related to low energy and  longing to get the zest back. People appreciate it when you meet them where they are - though do remember that your job is to offer hope and some sort of next, positive step.

Write from a place of quiet and restoration. Let the message be soft. This post may take way longer to write than it "should." Let that be ok - especially if the the alternative is "I feel crappy" default mode whether that's a Netflix binge or staring vacantly at your Facebook feed.

Write what feels good today and call that your "self-focused first draft." Get to bed early tonight and come back to things in the morning. Then, thanks to the gifts of distance and perspective, you can tighten up your sentence and paragraph structure and look at the whole piece in terms of the needs and interests of the ideal reader.

Need help deciding how to look at your writing through the eyes of the ideal reader? Start by learning the Story Triangle.

Get instant access

Writing Prompt: Write Something “Useful”

The bar you set for product development should be the same bar you set for marketing—especially content marketing. People should know what they can expect from engaging your content and how it will help them transform something about their life or business. This cannot be vague. It cannot be hyperbolic. If you want it to be effective (you do), it needs to be incredibly specific and measurable. People need to be able to know when the objective is reached.

A promise to help you live your dream life or “crush it” in business is not a promise that can be kept. It’s not a good value proposition. It cannot be measured.

This comes from a Tara Gentile post that totally opened my eyes to some of my own blind spots when it comes to writing and content marketing. I’ll be diving into all that throughout this week’s #365StrongStories posts.

In the meantime, I invite you to take a first step toward thinking about how to ground your stories in something real and measurable.

Take an incident or a moment of inspiration from your weekend. Something that made you say “I wonder if that would make a good blog post?” Write down a first draft that focuses on your thoughts and experiences. Then, walk away and come back and craft a second version that helps your ideal client “transform something about their life or business.” Be a bit strict with yourself. Cut away the fluff and refuse to be vague or hyperbolic. Be real and be helpful. 

Send that second draft to me or tag me when you post the final version on your blog and social media!

The privilege of a quiet place

Apparently Ben Franklin had noisy children. If they were mentioned at the man's museum, I didn't notice because I was herding my own children (who were no noisier than the other kids playing tourist in Philadelphia with their families.) Indisputably, Franklin was a terrifically accomplished guy. He needed the quiet to think all the thoughts and invent all the things.

Having a quiet place to read, think, create... What a privilege.

I hope you have a room of your own to shape your stories and craft your ideas. I hope you have noisy outings with family and friends that enable you to appreciate the silence too. And if either is lacking in your life, I pray they manifest soon.

Truth time: the sweetest moments make boring stories

Spontaneously, I loaded my two year-old into the car and drove north. We would travel over an hour to a small town with a gigantic children's consignment sale. Big sister missed the adventure because was off at school, but we'd make it up to her with an entirely new wardrobe for the next school year. And then, my little one and I headed to a perfect little gluten free bakery and feasted on sandwiches and cookies. Actually, her cookie was free because they thought my kid was so darn cute.

It was a rare Friday when I let work melt away. The multitasking I did was the usual mom stuff, not the crazed mompreneur stuff. I sized up jeans and picked through special occasion shoes while trying to keep a toddler from filching any toys. It was blissful.

What a beautifully boring story! In fact, it's not a story at all.

At best, it's an Instagram caption. You might feel connected enough with me to be happy that I enjoyed this sweet little oasis in the midst of the mess.

At worst, it's a self-congratulatory status update. You dismiss it as just another mompreneur spreading her sunshine about her wonderfully well-balanced life. Who cares if it's true. It just feels like white noise.

To make this into a story, I'd need to steal the sweetness of the moment

This really was a crazy nice day. My eyes welled with tears as I just let my love for my little girl wash over me.

And yet, I was painfully aware of how fleeting this all was and how quickly my six year-old had outgrown these spontaneous excursions with mama. If I let myself blink, I might find that four years have passed and I'm a mother of elementary school kids and I'm all alone on Friday mornings. My chest tightened just to think of it. (And I dismissed all the stress around "I never have enough time to work!" because that is a whole separate issue.)

I don't want to cast a shadow over this experience. I want to remember April 15, 2016 as pure and perfect (especially since we had gotten our taxes done in February!).

But, if I wanted to dig deeper, get real, and find a story in this outing I'd offer up Brene Brown's ideas about "foreboding joy." After all, there's a heck of a lot of juicy material in:

When we spend our lives (knowingly or unknowingly) pushing away vulnerability, we can't hold space open for the uncertainty of risk, and emotional exposure of joy. (Daring Greatly)

That's where the story worth blogging about is hiding - it's in the inner conflict I experienced. Lucky for me, it's my job to teach you about story, not about navigating the contradictions of parenthood. (I'll leave it to you to write into the rich and difficult topic of foreboding joy and the other worries that threaten the sweetest of days - goodness knows this story proves we parents need help figuring all that out!)

In the new content writing class You, Your Stories, and Your Audience we dive deep into how to tell the difference between compelling story and just a bunch of words. Learn more and join me!

The Inconvenient Allure of Solitude by Guest Storyteller Maia Macek

I didn’t have my phone to take a picture as I sat by the river at dusk and watched the waves roil up against the rocks of the shore. A part of me felt like I was supposed to capture the moment and post to social media about it, in relentless entrepreneurial spirit, showing the world what I’m up to, a life coach publicizing her life in the modern currency of display.

As I looked out at the lighthouse, impossibly perched on an outcropping, with the Hudson River endlessly fleeing into the distance, my mind, ever that of the writer, ceaselessly cast out lines describing the view and my feelings about it.

I remembered childhood daydreams and long afternoons reading Victorian novels, ones filled with empty space and few characters. I could see myself installed in the lighthouse as its keeper, a dented tin teapot boiling water on the stove, me curled up in a window seat, holding a tattered book, feeling the solitude swirling all around me, a near-tangible companion.

I longed suddenly for the days before the internet, before this incessant drive to always be plugged in. I longed for the days before electricity, even.

Days and nights filled with inconvenience, maybe, but also full of the presence of something deeper.

Full of a presence that I sometimes worry I have lost, that the world has lost.

Until I sit, alone on a wind-blown day, the screeching of gulls swooping overhead, and I realize that true solitude is always here, waiting for me to visit.

Maia Macek is a Personal Liberation Coach who, after connecting with her own calling through a series of personally defining triumphs and mishaps, now guides her clients to unleash their true gifts, so they can live a life better than they even realize they deserve.

Editor's note: I'm so pleased that #365StrongStories gave me a chance to meet Maia (I saw one of her thoughtful Facebook posts and knew I wanted to include her voice in the project). My community and I would love to hear your story too. Apply to become a #365StrongStories writer! Submit to #365StrongStories

How writing about painful moments allows us to connect to readers

It is a question, practically of relationship. We must get back into relation, vivid and nourishing relation to the cosmos and the universe. . . . For the truth is, we are perishing for lack of fulfillment of our greater needs, we are cut off from the great sources of our inward nourishment and renewal, sources which flow eternally in the universe. Vitally, the human race is dying. It is like a great uprooted tree, with its roots in the air. We must plant ourselves again in the universe. D.H. Lawrence, from Lady Chatterley’s Lover

When I heard Tara Brach share this passage, it would have been a good idea to pull over. How could I keep my eyes on the road when I felt like my heart was tearing open so it could reach out and grab at truth?

When I came home and Googled Lawrence’s words, I found Tara again. This time, seeing her quote him in print in a blog post, I just let the sobs erupt through that jagged hole in my chest.

Wait. Let me pause for a moment. Torn open, sobbing, and all jagged…  A dying human race?

Is this all too much? Is this what you expect from that nice writing coach with the family stories and the infatuation with Irish poetry?

Just for a moment (and maybe longer), the fear and worry comes to the surface

In truth, I think we all worry that our disconnection from the earth and from one another is a problem.

(And, based on what my open-hearted, socially conscious friends and I share with one another, that’s often an understatement - some days that fear is the thief of joy and we worry about everything from cancer to rising oceans.)

And yet, we dance on. Sometimes, we numb out and turn up the music too loud and refuse to examine these concerns. Or, because we have faith that we are planting ourselves in the universe and there is still time for the seedlings to create a new forest before we all run out of air, we take hopeful, inspired action.

But as healers and clinicians, we’re no stranger to the shadow places

For those of us who are healers, for those of us in the vulnerability business, these “humanity is a great uprooted tree” fears are something to be embraced - or at least something not to be avoided.

After all, we know that numbing out and running away never solved anything. Plus, it is because there is a collective sense of being “cut off” that we must offer our work to those who need nourishment and renewal.

Pervasive suffering and separation and the yearning for reconnection is the “why” of our work. Or rather, soothing that separation and bringing an end to suffering is the “why.”

Our marketplace and our economy may be telling us that what passes for relentless optimism - buy more, make more, dig more - is the only way to growth and fulfillment. Instead, we know that “more” won’t necessarily satisfy the “greater needs” that Lawrence wrote about. (Hard to believe the book was published almost 90 years ago, isn’t it? His observations about industrialization and alienation feel so fresh and necessary today.)

We know that true evolution is found in exposing the roots of the pain and the disfunction and that we can consciously, hopefully plant something that will nourish the individual and nourish our world.

Yes, the pain, the worry, and the fear have a place in your writing - and hope does too

You’ve heard about addressing the pain points in your copy. Show the reader that you understand their problems and then offer up your solutions.

Pain has a pace in your storytelling too. It plays a role in your content creation and your blogging.

Allowing yourself to “feel the feelings” and staying open to something like a podcast or a passage from century-old novel that cuts you to the bone will help you create content that connects. It will help you speak the truth that your readers long to hear.

Even in our Instagramable world, people do want wisdom that cuts a little deeper - especially when you also serve up hope and transformation through the brilliant work that you do.

Dare to tell your painful stories once you have done your own healing. It's the healing that speaks to the soul and helps us reestablish a collective root system.

When All Else Fails, Tell a Story Like a First Grader

One day a cat was playing in its back yard.

A dog saw the cat and started chaseing after it. They chased eachoter all over town.

The cat did not get tired and the dog did get tired and the cat ran all the way home safe and sound!

The END.

By Moira, age 6

(Mama added paragraph breaks, but flawless punctuation and terrifically cute spelling errors are the author's own.)

What did we learn today, class?

Besides the fact that cat rule, we learned that all good stories have a beginning, middle, and an end.

The status quo (playing cat) is disrupted by conflict (dog appears on the scene), rising action (the chase!) takes you to a climax (cat triumphs) and a satisfying resolution (home again).

Next time you worry that you're not a storyteller, remember that you wrote the perfect stories when you were in first grade.

Refusing Fear Despite All the Unknown Tomorrows

“You working? I so proud of you.” Sticky palms move from my cheeks to lock around my neck. I still marvel at how much strength is in those tiny arms and how much hug that two year-old body can muster.

It is all childhood trust and wonder. Her words outweigh her in an awesome way. Of course, she is mimicking a phrase my husband and I have offered her and her sister a thousand times in a thousand ways. But in this moment, she is so much more than a sweet-faced parrot. She is offering up the gift I needed right then. She is injecting meaning into yet another morning spent tapping keys and pushing against the digital tide.

At the same moment, Terry Gross’s familiar voice introduced the day’s Fresh Air guest. A man - Charles Bock - had written a novel inspired by his wife’s two year bout with leukemia. Soon, the author was talking about what it was like to throw a birthday party for their three year-old just days after her mother’s death.

I’m making lunch and sipping “tea” poured from a tin pot into a plastic cup. I miss every other sentence of the interview, but I promise myself I will catch the podcast later. But I know I won’t. I know I do not have the time or the strength to listen again. All I can do is spare some splintered attention to entertain one of my darkest fears - that lurking cancer demon that might be destroying this perfect life this very minute.

Even though this story hurts a heart that already feels too sodden and tender today, I do not change the station. After all, there’s nothing special about my pain. My family cancer stories are not so close as to make this conversation unendurable. It’s my childhood friend’s mother who died before 60 and a brilliant woman (who I long to support with more than prayers) who is in the brutal thick of it right now - these are the women I think of as the fear seizes my chest.

Listening began to feel like some sort of test of honor and endurance. Can I hold the exquisite tenderness of my toddler and the terror that we might not always be counted amongst the lucky ones, the healthy ones, the “touch wood all is well” ones?

No amount of prayer or gratitude or pride will guarantee any of our stories have a quiet ending at the conclusion of a one hundred year journey. Switching off NPR and singing along to a forgettable song will not weaken the monsters of accident and disease that might lurk around the next corner.

There’s no way to assure the safety of everyone I love. I cannot force my own cells to behave themselves. But what I can do is make sure that my fear doesn’t steal the sweetness of the next giggle or grown up pronouncement from that little girl’s lips.

All any of us can do is control whether we lose today wondering about an unknown tomorrow.

Writing Prompt: The "why" behind the stories you tell and hear

Story is currency in conversation. It's how we trade ideas, convince people about accepting a new concept, or inspire people to take action. Story is how we connect with strangers and it's how we reach the hearts of the people we know so well. This week, pay attention to the conversations you participate in. This can even work when you're watching a TV show with strong writing.

Look at the stories you tell aloud and those that are told to you. Write into one of those stories.

Write about a story you tell and explore why you tell it. Explore what meaning lie beneath. You're sharing that childhood anecdote or what happened at the store yesterday for a reason. It might "only" be to get a laugh or pass the time (entertaining someone with a story is no small matter). Explore what other meanings lie beneath.

Or, write about a story told to you and consider what you learned about that person through the telling. Their hopes, fears, passions, and past - how are those revealed in the details they share and the emotions their words convey?

Why this exercise? What can it teach you?

Stories swirl around us constantly. There's a deep truth in the concept "humans are wired for story." Take this opportunity to see that in action. When you become a more aware student of everyday story, you will begin to tell your own strong stories with greater ease and confidence.

If your stories and observations make it into a blog post or a social media share, please tag me and #StrongStories!

It's my turn to sit at the storyteller's feet: 100 days of #365StrongStories

Ninety-nine stories have taken us to this moment. I'd been planning an announcement of how I'd be reshaping this project for the next 100 days because, frankly, I just can't go on like this. My human, professional, and creative energy just won't carry me through the next stage of the journey.

But, instead, it's time for me to rest and to sit in the audience. Season two of Outlander begins tonight. These books have been part of my imaginary landscape since I was 15, and I am going to escape there without a worry about telling my own stories tonight.

I'll see you tomorrow, friends.

The content writing that is worth your time is part of a broader plan

I love it when the core of my work gets challenged, I realize I agree with the argument, and I feel all the stronger about doing what I do in a way that truly serves the greater good.

This is how I felt when I listened to Jonathan Fields of Good Life Project talk about “The Content Marketing Delusion.”

Jonathan's argument - wonderfully delivered in one of his short weekly “riffs”:

Content is more about sustained growth, positioning, and trust and, yes, eventually leads than it is a high probability vehicle for launch and accelerated growth.

Put simply:

Content is your long game. Hustle is your "now" game.

Challenging the "When all else fails, blog!" mentality

Jonathan goes on to talk about  how hiding behind the blog page or the podcast mic and relying on content creation can be an act of self-protection. After all, hitting publish is easy. Gearing up for conferences or calling potential clients or influencers… <gulp!>

I launched my #365StrongStories because I loved to write and because I wanted to walk the content creation walk, yes.

A few dozen posts into my 2016 project, however, I saw that I was allowing a story-a-day to monopolize my energy because I felt safe in my private creative space. I was praying my stories would be seen, but also pleased that it was all on my own little marisagoudy.com terms.

That said, I have immense compassion for myself on this one. After all, mothering small children doesn’t exactly set you up to attend lots of snazzy networking gigs in the city.

And think about Susan Cain's book Quiet and what she taught us about introversion (and even the needs of gregarious extroverts). Depending on your constitution, putting yourself out there might require more energy than you can spare. Based on the reality of my own daily life, I just didn’t have the energy to do more or show up anywhere but my own blog most of the time.

All of that is OK, but you have to align your daily actions with the professional and creative dreams if you expect to succeed.

I wasn't building the livelihood my family needed by simply writing a lot.

"Just write" can't be the only visibility strategy for an entrepreneur with bills to pay. Writing and exploring ideas is satisfying, but it doesn't fill the belly. Marketing and connecting with people who will take action based on those brilliant words is what makes entrepreneurship work.

Oh yes, the hustle.

Jonathan’s message was  big, fat moment of TRUTH - even though, upon first glance,  his title it may look like a slam of my bread-and-butter writing coaching work.

The content writing that is worth your time is part of a broader plan

Not so long ago, this podcast might have sent me into a panic. How could I build a business around helping people tell stronger stories if content marketing is a “delusion”?

Blogs and guest posts and free reports do have a key role to play for many entrepreneurs and private practice owners. My work is vital to the right people who are doing the writing for the right reasons.

If someone is opening a brand new business or practice and expects to write some blog posts and expects the appointment calendar to fill, however, my #1 job is to remind them that content is part of a bigger puzzle.

Content connects, it strengthens relationships and establishes loyalty, but as Jonathan says, you gotta “hustle”

"Hustle" is a tricky word. When Brene Brown told us we didn't have to "hustle for worthiness" I was thrilled to leave all the stress of hustling in the dust.

But when you tune into Jonathan's quick episode I think you'll see the word in a broader, more constructive context.

Most of the time, you need that first digital or real life introduction. You need to move it and shake yourself out of your creativity cave and find your first readers who will love and share your content. You find them through conversation and asking the right questions, not by saying "hi, I wrote this, read it!"

It would be great to rely on "love at first blog post" but it's almost never that simple.

Again, this Good Life Project podcast came at the perfect time.

Right now, I am hustling in a way that feels great to me, connecting with my own ideal clients (and genuinely fabulous humans) on Facebook groups like Melvin Varghese’s Selling the Couch Community and Agnes Wainman’s Blissful Practice.

And, as my business matures and my family is able to do without me for a few nights, it is time to take that "hustle" into the real world. I'm booking a bunk at Jonathan's Camp GLP. (Will I see you there in August?)

Remember, the writing coach isn't telling you to quit writing

There's another side of content creation that Jonathan doesn't have time to address in his riff: the way that writing helps you develop your vision, your professional brand, your creative power.

Writing and content development are absolutely necessary as you develop your online presence and platform. They are fundamental to growth. Just be sure that you understand that writing and publishing alone aren't likely to catapult you to six figures or to whatever "enough" is for you.

As I Remember It by Guest Storyteller Ginny Taylor

As I remember it, three of us physician assistant students sat around a table, a group project before us, “What is Child Abuse?” It was 1979. Child abuse was just emerging then - even though it has been in the world for thousands of years - as something criminal. Definitions appeared in texts with photos of cigarette burns on young arms, of babies’ bottoms blistered from hot water.

As PA students, we needed to recognize these signs to treat them as burns and referrals to social workers. This was physical abuse.

But then there was also this other term, sexual abuse. Old men flashing children. Rape. Molestation.

And suddenly, for the first time in ten years, a memory resurfaced. A man old enough to be my grandfather. A trusted camp counselor, a man we called Uncle Jim.  Positioning me, my back to him so I couldn’t see his face. His hand between my thighs. Groping the crotch of my bathing suit. Fondling.

Then, on the heels of this memory, a realization hits me.

I had been molested. In 1969 while at a summer church camp, I had been sexually abused.

And I say to my group, “This happened to me.”

At least, I think I say this aloud, for it’s always at this point my memory blurs. I know I say it to myself. And I know there is silence afterwards.

Perhaps it’s silence from the group. But even if they had spoken, what would they have said? We were only being trained on treating the physical signs. We were years away from inserting PTSD into our lexicon. We are still are years away from de-stigmatizing mental illness.

I don’t blame my group of peers for not speaking up in my watery memory, just as I now no longer blame myself for the decades of silence that followed. All of us were only coping the best we could with the tools we had.

Just like that molested girl… Just like that 10-year-old girl who, when Uncle Jim let her go, ran down the path to the swimming pool and dove deep… Just like that girl who resurfaced still holding her breath.

Women of Wonder founder Ginny Taylor teaches holistic practices like those in the WONDER COMPASS Story Art Pages, that can help women become the heroine of their own healing journey.

In recognition of National Sexual Assault Awareness month, special pricing on the WONDER COMPASS Story Art Pages is available.

“Share what is vulnerable, not what is intimate.”

Share what is vulnerable, not what is intimate - Brene Brown | #365StrongStories by Marisa Goudy | writing coach for therapists, coaches, healers, thought leaders

"I don't share anything until my feelings and growth aren't still dependent on it."

- Brené Brown

A slide with this quote on it lit up the chat box during the recent Story Triangle webinar.

We were deep into our exploration of what makes stories work and what makes them fall flat. At this point in the class, we were talking about how a story loses its balance when you, the writer, get lost in the details of your own story.

It's almost always a struggle, deciding what story elements add depth and what's going too deep.

As I hit publish, I’m grateful to have Brené to look to when I worry “Is this TMI?

After all, when writing is both your private, emotional processing tool and the way you communicate publicly and professionally, it can feel like a tightrope walk.

How do you tell the difference between a rich, compelling story and simply pouring out your guts?

Again, there’s a Brené quote for that. (Isn’t there a BB line for just about everything related to relationships and speaking truth?)

“Share what is vulnerable, not what is intimate.”

Sharing vulnerable stories reveals your humanity and creates connections.

Pouring out the intimate details into a public space where people who aren’t prequalified to hold you in all your glorious imperfection…

At best, you get no response at all. At worst, potential clients judge what they do not understand, turn away, and seek out someone who they believe is more in control of their sh*t.

So how do you tell the difference between the vulnerable stories that are ready for the spotlight and intimacies that need to be held in reserve?

1. Check in with your own process. Can you say “I’ve healed this” and feel you’re being completely honest with yourself?

2. Decide why you’re telling the story. Do you have something to teach based on your experiences or do you just need someone to be your witness?

If your answer to #1 is “I haven’t healed this yet,” that’s great. Pull out your journal, call a friend, make sure your on time for your next therapy or healing session.

Do. Not. Blog. This. (Yet.)

If you your answer to #2 is “I need a witness,” embrace this beautifully human moment. Everyone needs to be seen, heard, and understood.” Yes, be fully present in your need to be seen, but do so with the people you know and trust - not your professional audience.

The Light In the Tunnel is Not a Train

My dad has taught me just about all the unusual expressions I use. “We’re in the weeds” (we’re screwed). “86 it” (toss it). “Some days chickens, some days feathers” (you can’t win them all).  

He came of age in the restaurant industry, so these are probably the cleanest phrases you’ll ever hear in an industrial kitchen.

Today when I called my father to tell him that my storytelling for business webinar was a great success, I was finally able to talk about how bloody hard the journey to “yes!” has been. As an entrepreneur himself, he can relate to the bright dances in the sun that I want to share and the long shadowy walks I don’t want to talk about.

Perhaps he has been watching my struggles from afar and holding on to anecdote he shared with me for some time. It certainly isn’t something you tell someone unless they’re smiling and feeling a tiny bit invincible.

Back in one of the nastiest economic slumps he ever endured, he told me, he read an article with the headline that read something like “For the foreseeable future, the light at the end of the tunnel has been turned off.”

Going through that collectively must have been awful - even if misery loves company. So often, however, I know that we solopreneurs and private practice owners go through the same terror. We can't stand the thought that all this hard work won’t pay off, but we're too battered and tired to be hopeful. We’re terrified we’ll never get to the “I did it!” day.

This, of course, brought us to consider how, as a small business owner, you often wonder if the light you’re seeing is the promise of daylight or some terrible train bearing down on you.

At least for today, I am riding on that train and I see nothing but blue sky.

Thanks, Dad. And thanks to everyone in my community who participated in my Story Triangle webinar. You can still register to receive the recording (available through April 11).

Get Instant Access

The only inspirational quote you need as a writer & entrepreneur

Nobel prize winning poet and Irishman Seamus Heaney's quote is scrawled on a post-it above my computer. It fights for space with love notes from my daughter and memos about my many accounting goofs, but it's the only inspirational line I keep in my line of sight.

"If you have the words, there's always a chance you'll find the way" is the only guidance I need because it speaks to heart of my work as a writer and as an entrepreneur.

These words are going to open my Story Triangle webinar that's set for 1 PM ET tomorrow (Tuesday, April 5).

Even in our multimedia world where video talks and images sell, words are always at the heart of our work. We need the words to build the narratives that change minds and touch hearts.

We tell stories to find a way - a way to connect, to inspire, to build a business and a livelihood, and, ultimately to make this world more beautiful, bearable, and bold.

Please join me tomorrow. I'd be honored to show you a new way to use your words and stories.

Save my seat at the webinar!

The Dark Side of Professional & Creative Overcommitment

Stories of overwhelm and overcommitment can be funny or tragic. Picture the comedy montage of the woman trying to do it all who ends up passing the dog a sippy cup, placing a bowl of kibble in front of the toddler, and leaving the house in her slippers. You've seen these pictures by Danielle Guenther, right?

The un-funny tales of a woman weeping in the school drop off line and staring blankly at her computer screen, willing herself to get something done aren't the stuff of Facebook shares - though they might be the stories that you use to connect to clients who need to heal overworked minds and bodies and who need support to heal and feel whole again.

Sometimes you can't be funny enough to cover up the ache

I'm running the risk of giving my "oh, silly mama, you can't do it all!" story into something way darker and related to a breakdown. I hope I am seeing this soon enough to make a change so I don't end up really letting myself, my clients, my readers, and my family down. Instead, I am rumbling with what it means to make a daily commitment and what it means to change it or even break it.

Still, I don't have an answer. Still, I am not able to tell you a strong story with a beginning, middle, and end about #365StrongStories. Still, there's no satisfying resolution to my #365project dilemma.

Instead, from the messy middle of it all, I can share with you a daily practice sister who understand - Saundra Goldman is re-examining her own continuous practice routine.

Saundra's current project is a 100-day commitment to meditation, not a year of public writing, but I am inspired by her willingness to listen to her physical, emotional, and creative needs and recognize that life happens. We need to flow with life and the muse and honor ourselves enough to reevaluate when necessary.

Saundra references Karen Brody's yoga nidra training in her post. Here's a guest post that Karen wrote for us last year.

One of the things that is inspiring this #365 review is my free online class, Connect with Readers & Clients: Discover the Story Triangle. Ultimately, the triangle is about keeping your writing is in balance - a lesson I think we could all use in all aspects of work, story, and life.

Save my seat at the webinar!

Can we be honest about the kids' birthday party thing?

It is possible to be deeply grateful, even as you the shudder shakes your spine. You realize that all little girls have the same ear-splitting screech and your daughter is not the only one who could break glass with her heedless enthusiasm. That's something consider as you cling to the corners of the joyful, germ-infested pit of a childhood birthday party venue. Even if the noise is making your vision blur (funny how the senses seem to get so muddled in the midst of extreme stress), you can also pray that your kid will be so funned-out after the party that she'll be happy to go home and color. Or stare at the wall. Silently.

If it's an especially good day, you can find another parent who looks equally as sick and terrified. You can sidle over and - using hand gestures and exaggerated frowny-faces, if necessary - express that you too understand the birthday party obligation to be worse than 28 hours of labor. You may understand each other well enough to stick to walls of the next celebratory obligation like a small colony of anxious barnacles.

I admit I am this mom. And though I am a little worried about seeming like an anti-social ingrate, I kinda hope it will mean that we'll get fewer invitations.

Except today, we went to one of the loudest, germiest spots of all, and I am still smiling. Even though I briefly lost my two-year-old and I had to bellow like a belligerent foghorn to get my older daughter to get her shoes on, I am still smiling.

In truth, I am a bit concerned. Have children finally broken me? Am I going to be the mom in the bouncy house at the next shindig?

Oh, wait, those spine-quaking shudders just began again. Eek... What if I actually become the mom that learns how to play?

This morning of motherly mayhem seems anything but productive, but it proves that you can use your experiences and craft them into stories that help you connect with your prospective clients. Learn more about how to do this at the free Story Triangle webinar coming up Tuesday, April 5.

Save my seat!

It's Time to Open Up the Definition of "Story"

The classic definition of story: a narrative with a conflict and a resolution. A story has a beginning, middle, and an end. These days, we've lived ourselves into a broader definition of story, however. Now, we talk about "the stories we tell ourselves." This is about positive thinking and inner gremlins. It's the internal monologue that is either filled with lots of "you've got this" or "you suck."

As entrepreneurs and private practice owners, as creatives, as people trying to make a livelihood out of personal passion, that inner voice is often heavy with doubt and fear.

Let's see how we can shift that story.

My own doubt and fear is growing fat and scary because I'm overcommitted. I pledged too much creative energy when I said I would write a story every day. I committed more time than I had to give to conceiving, writing, designing, posting, and sharing a story and an image.

I'm toast. I've discovered that quantity over quality really is a losing proposition.

It's not time to quit #365StrongStories. Not yet. Not when I have so many dedicated guest storytellers involved. Not when I find out that people around town are talking about this crazy great undertaking of mine. I'm waiting until at least day 100 (today is #92) before I decide to make any great changes in the schedule.

So, in the meantime, I am going to tell a different sort of Strong Story. I'll be offering up a few powerful lines that I hope will stick in your head and help shift your mindset into something that sounds a whole lot like hope, confidence, and peace.

And so, today: my work is worthy.

This is what I tell myself when I stress over webinar sign ups and the size of my community. It is what I tell myself when I decide that I can be seen even if I'm not pulling off the mad feat of creating and posting every day.

Your work is worthy too. Let's make it our mantra today.

Storytelling Is About Relationships

Is this your fantasy too? You get to be the person with the space, the time, and the luxury to simply write. Uninterrupted days are lavished on your own ideas without a care for the reader or the marketplace.

Well, that is certainly my fantasy, but we all know I have an incurable addiction to words and sentences. Maybe your fantasy is that you'd never have to write another word again! Maybe you pray that you'll be able to build a solo business or practice without creating online content and telling your brand's story.

Whether your a born writer or you're someone who needs to be tied to the keyboard to get the blogging done, we all need a reality check:

Stories depend on relationships and relationships depends on story.

Next week, in the Connect with Readers & Clients: Discover the Story Triangle we're going to explore how stories build relationships and how stories depend on relationships.

We go a little in today's Facebook live video (below). Be sure to sign up for the free webinar to learn how to make these relationships work in your own writing. Save my seat!

Luis: A Study in Breath by Guest Storyteller Liz Hibala

It was a simple passing by most standards. A friend’s cat, Luis, died. I knew him in a cursory way.  He was an old fellow when I met him, an orange tabby with bowed front legs and a raspy smoker’s meow.  He had a remarkable, intentional presence even when he clumsily circled my lap looking for the precise place to lower his ancient bones. As if to make full contact, he kneaded my legs along the way, claws extended, completely unaware or unconcerned the pain this ritual brought. He was himself.

Here, then not here, totally dependent upon the absence of an inhaled breath.

We move through time and space on ephemeral wings of breath. Experience and emotion, relationships and solitude -  all dependent upon the repetitive motion of inhale and exhale. It is breath that maintains our presence here, it is breath that connects us to all life. At times intentional, mostly automatic, our breath is a constant companion. It moves with us through joy and struggle, triumph and heartbreak, with unwavering loyalty. With each breath, change. Each breath, a unique motion of its own. A microcosm of cosmic movement and eternal change.

I sit in the corner of my couch, writing. One of my cats lounges against my leg in a quiet, seemingly contented mood, drifting in and out of sleep. His long black fur gently rises and falls with each breath. I marvel at the simplicity of this scene and the simultaneous enormity that it holds. A quiet morning, a soft peacefulness, and the rhythmic movement of muscle directing air.

It’s all in the breath.

Liz Hibala is an emerging Crone, Reiki Master, and author living in the mountains of western Montana. Learn more about her book Óran Mór and her Reiki practice.