There’s nothing quite like a good stretch, is there?
Picture it. You’ve finished up your workout, and you head to the mats to stretch out your overworked muscles. The first few seconds are less-than-pleasant (okay, they hurt like hell!), but as you lean into it, you begin to feel the muscles lengthen and the tightness ease. A good stretch usually means less soreness the next day and, in my opinion, is as important as the workout itself.
But stretching doesn’t need to be relegated to the gym. It’s important to push past that discomfort in life, to persevere until we move beyond the ‘I can’t’ moment to the ‘I did’ moment.
It’s not always easy, of course. We often walk out of the gym without taking that five or ten minutes needed to stretch it out, even though we’ll regret it in the morning.
Stretching out of our comfort zone can be an enormous challenge. We feel safe with what we know, what we’re good at, but if we don’t push past the point of comfort, we may never find out our other capabilities.
As I’ve mentioned before, my first stories were fan fiction. I wrote them for myself and, eventually, for the friends I’d made within that fandom. I had a fabulous time with it, but I reached a point where I needed to try something new.
That something became Lizzie’s Surprise (and the seven other stories in the series). At the time, fan fiction was my comfort zone. Pushing myself out of it was meant overcoming that initial fear, leaning into it just like that tight muscle. Sharing the characters and world that had previously only existed in my head took me to that moment of pain and, then, beyond it. Turn ‘I can’t’ into ‘I did’.
As a writer, I’m always looking for ways to stretch and to grow. I recently entered a Flash Fiction contest, not with a hope of winning, but to stretch beyond my romance novel comfort zone. It was so much fun! In forty-eight hours, I wrote a one-thousand-word short story in a genre that I am not familiar with and don’t generally read. Only time and the judges will tell me if the story has merit, but the exercise was priceless.
I believe that it’s vital that when we reach those moments where something feels a little scary, where our brain tells us to slink back to our comfort zone, that instead, we lean into it. Feel the stretch because it means we’re learning and growing, and the next time we’ll go a little farther, just because we can.
Picture it. You’ve finished up your workout, and you head to the mats to stretch out your overworked muscles. The first few seconds are less-than-pleasant (okay, they hurt like hell!), but as you lean into it, you begin to feel the muscles lengthen and the tightness ease. A good stretch usually means less soreness the next day and, in my opinion, is as important as the workout itself.
But stretching doesn’t need to be relegated to the gym. It’s important to push past that discomfort in life, to persevere until we move beyond the ‘I can’t’ moment to the ‘I did’ moment.
It’s not always easy, of course. We often walk out of the gym without taking that five or ten minutes needed to stretch it out, even though we’ll regret it in the morning.
Stretching out of our comfort zone can be an enormous challenge. We feel safe with what we know, what we’re good at, but if we don’t push past the point of comfort, we may never find out our other capabilities.
As I’ve mentioned before, my first stories were fan fiction. I wrote them for myself and, eventually, for the friends I’d made within that fandom. I had a fabulous time with it, but I reached a point where I needed to try something new.
That something became Lizzie’s Surprise (and the seven other stories in the series). At the time, fan fiction was my comfort zone. Pushing myself out of it was meant overcoming that initial fear, leaning into it just like that tight muscle. Sharing the characters and world that had previously only existed in my head took me to that moment of pain and, then, beyond it. Turn ‘I can’t’ into ‘I did’.
As a writer, I’m always looking for ways to stretch and to grow. I recently entered a Flash Fiction contest, not with a hope of winning, but to stretch beyond my romance novel comfort zone. It was so much fun! In forty-eight hours, I wrote a one-thousand-word short story in a genre that I am not familiar with and don’t generally read. Only time and the judges will tell me if the story has merit, but the exercise was priceless.
I believe that it’s vital that when we reach those moments where something feels a little scary, where our brain tells us to slink back to our comfort zone, that instead, we lean into it. Feel the stretch because it means we’re learning and growing, and the next time we’ll go a little farther, just because we can.
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