You know how it is.

You know that you should lose weight, but you still comfort eat.

You know that you have to go and see the dentist because of that nagging tooth pain that wakes you in the night – and you know that all you have to do is one more solid day on the last chapter of your book, and you will have finished the first draft.

But you don’t do it.

Instead, you find any form of procrastination to divert yourself from the things that you know you should do. Sometimes they are the things you MUST do to achieve your goals.

In fact, the more important the thing is, the more excuses you find not to do it.

And it is so frustrating you could scream.

Seth Godin, the internet guru, calls this ‘The Lizard Brain,‘ – “the voice in the back of our head telling us to back off, be careful, go slow, compromise. The resistance is writer’s block and putting jitters and every project that ever shipped late because people couldn’t stay on the same page long enough to get something out the door.

The resistance grows in strength as we get closer to shipping, as we get closer to an insight, as we get closer to the truth of what we really want. That’s because the lizard hates change and achievement and risk.”

The lizard brain will sabotage us from the inside.

In writing – and in life.

Because the more we care about our work and life and want it to be the best possible, then the more we fear the horror of that thing going wrong and come crashing down on top of us – and all of the misery and pain and criticism that will come with that apparent failure.

Fear = Importance= Deeply caring = Risk. And the Lizard Brain takes over and makes us run away.

It was designed to help the early human avoid becoming some other creature’s lunch. Now it wants to keep us safe.

The tough part is saying – Okay, Lizard Brain. Know you are there but I am okay.

Gulp. This evolution business is tougher that it looks.

With that in mind, I am going into the cave for a new fun project which I do not have an official deadline for and which I know is not going to be judged by anyone but me. And my characters. And the vision I have for the book against the final text which emerges at the end.

Drat. 🙂

I am a goddess. I am a goddess. I am a goddess. Repeat as necessary.