Give Your Finest Effort, and You Will Succeed…

Writing is like the ocean. There are waves to its motion. Some days the water moves along in short rises, where a vessel can move over each wave easily enough. Other times, the waves rise so high they become white, and a challenge to pass without being taken over. 

The small waves are the writing days with a task we can overcome with little effort. The big waves are the days when the writing task seems insurmountable. 

Presently I am working on the crafting and launching of my first ebook, and there is a lot of stuff I’m trying to do I have never done before. All these new tasks scare me so much I want to crawl under my covers and hide. 

There are so many doubts and questions running around in my mind it’s causing my anxiety to spike. 

As I’m going through this process, though, I’ve realized something. The harder a task is, the more importance it has on our lives and careers. In other words, anything worthwhile takes effort. If I cower from the towering waves in writing, I will never move closer to my goals. 

This post today is as much for myself as it is for you. Let’s conquer our writing challenges together today, and let’s start with an inspiring example. 

The Finest Effort 

While writing this I thought of a scene in the 2016 film The Finest Hours. It is the retelling of a true story from 1952 when the coast guard performed a daring rescue of a crew whose oil tanker had split in half. 

In the scene I thought of, Captain Bernie Webber and his coast guard crew had to cross the bar in a storm before they could reach the oil tanker. The chances of surviving the crossing weren’t good. 

But refusing to let the oil tanker’s crew down, Bernie and his crew decided to go ahead with the insurmountable task despite the risk to their lives. 

The scene in the movie where they cross the bar is breathtaking. As Bernie guides the small coast guard boat up and down the massive waves, it doesn’t seem possible that they could stay afloat. But they do. 

Bernie brought his crew to safety, along with most of the oil tanker’s crew as well. 

The whole movie is defined by moments going against the odds of surviving, and through it all the coast guard crew doesn’t give up. 

Now our writing doesn’t leave lives in the balance like this story, but our work is important enough that we should finish. Our writing is worth giving our finest efforts to its completion.

Tips and Tricks

From my own experience of tackling the waves in my writing, I have developed some tricks which help me get to the other side. While the task is still challenging, these tricks make the task a little easier to overcome. These tips are what help me, and they might help you as well. 

1. Take a Breath

– Stop what your doing and take deep breaths. When a challenge arises, it often induces stress. So calm your thoughts and anxious feelings first before moving onto the task.

2. Decide to Follow Through

– Decide at the beginning you will finish no matter how hard the journey turns out to be. Promise yourself you will follow-through to the end. Once this decision is made, the fear of failing is eliminated so you can focus solely on your plan for success. 

3. Break Up the Pieces 

– Don’t try to accomplish the task in one whole chunk, but break up the task into manageable pieces. It is easier to work on smaller tasks than coming head to head with a giant wave. This one trick has been my lifesaver.  

4. Take One Step at a Time

– Take the pieces you created in #3 and focus on one piece at a time. Your goal is to not get stuck on one task, but to steadily keep moving forward. Take one step at a time, and achieve a little progress every day. If you keep moving—even if it’s at a snail’s pace—I can guarantee you will reach the finish line. 

5. Celebrate

– Finally, celebrate your success. In the end of The Finest Hours, when the men return home safe, everyone celebrates the miraculous rescue. Celebrate your own victory. It was a worthy challenge and you surpassed it. 

Take the Challenge

I truly believe we can do more than we think possible. It will be uncomfortable, we may be scared, and we will make mistakes, but we can’t let those fears keep us from trying. To get anywhere, we must complete our challenges. 

The hardest challenges are the most rewarding in the end.  Don’t cower from the challenge, because you are capable of completing the task.