Wednesday, October 08, 2008

Dress pants & Deadlines!

Motivation. That's what it's all about huh? I didn't realize how exactly how much motivation mattered until this morning...I am officially back in my pre-pregnancy black dress pants!!

WOOOOOHOOOOO!!!!

Yep. 12 weeks after having my baby daughter, I am finally back in a pair of regular ol' button up, zip up, black slacks. Hey, I'm just super excited to wear something with a waistband! (been wearing my black gauchos to work literally almost every day since starting back!)

Who knew old clothes could be so exciting?

The best part is, now I'm motivated. Sure, I was motivated before, but without results, it was hard to stick with it. I would think "my clothes don't fit anyway, so why not eat an entire box of Mac-n-Cheese for dinner?" or "I can't wear my pants anyway so why not bake cookies?"

Apparently, my last week of eating sandwiches for lunch and Special K cereal for breakfast and dinner, avoiding the chocolate at work, taking the stairs as much as possible, walking around downtown running errands for my job, and doing stretches and crunches periodically at night has paid off. So now, maybe I can kick it up a notch and get back into my skinny jeans in a few more weeks.

That silly motivation. Now that I have results, I'm eager to get MORE results. Funny how that works. And you know what? Its the same with our writing, isn't it? We get a rejection letter (the equivalent of our jeans still not fitting) and we want to give up and quit writing. (or eat comfort food!) But we land an agent, or receive a fabulous crit from a friend, or attend a conference and get encouraging feedback from an editor, or, GASP - land that first contract, and BAM - we're motivated to write-write-write! We want more results.

Deadlines can be a good motivator, as well. I learned that while completing my edits for my MS contracted with Steeple Hill. I had until a certain date to finish my revisions, and though at first I was a little nervous about getting it done in time (I was pregnant, after all! And moving!) I ended up beating my deadline by almost 3 months!

Do you need a little motivation today? A shot of skinny jeans? A ticking clock? Then here's to Dress Pants and Deadlines! You can do it!

3 comments:

Eileen Astels Watson said...

Awesome news about your slacks, Betsy Ann! CONGRATULATIONS!

A little encouragement goes a long way, doesn't it?

Keep up those stairs, girl!

Georgiana Daniels said...

Congratulations!!! That's really cool! Yes, I definitely need a shot of skinny jeans, but maybe prayer will work?

Anonymous said...

12 weeks? That's good.

I just had baby #3 2 1/2 weeks ago. I sure hope to be right behind you getting back into those pre-pregnancy jeans. Shrink, hips!