Lessons from Goal Getter School: laurel standley

Episode 18

Lessons from Goal Getter School: laurel standley

Sue Campbell

transcript

Sue Campbell: Welcome to the Pages & Platforms podcast. I'm Sue Campbell, a book marketing and mindset coach. Lots of writers have goals but many writers don't have the healthiest relationship with their goals. Goal Getter School is a place where I teach writers to meet their goals without being an asshole to themselves and without burning out. Listen to students share their key takeaways from the program and get some gems for yourself.

Laurel Standley, welcome to the Pages & Platforms podcast. Thanks for being here.

Laurel Standley: Thank you for having me.

Sue: So why don't you start by telling us a little bit about yourself and what you write.

Laurel: Sure. I am an environmental chemist, mostly retired now. And I write in three areas because I just can't help myself. The serious one is I started working on a nonfiction book on how toxic chemicals get into food, and I needed to break it up and I needed to do blogs on it. I wanted to get rolling on that.

Secondly, I am working on a serious novel that is about working in science as a woman and in a very male-dominated field. That one is very much from my heart. I needed to get rolling on that as well, and kind of get some order around it because I really had many, many ideas and needed some organization there.

The third thing I am working on is lighthearted, makes me laugh, and those are the cozy mysteries. What came from that also was a scone cookbook. Two of them were published this past fall plus the cookbook, and I needed to work on marketing, which is something that I have — as Sue well knows — quite an aversion to. I needed it demystified and broken down into parts that I can overcome my reluctance with. So those were my three projects.

Sue: Love it. You're not alone. So why don't you tell us exactly how we scoped your goal for each one of those projects?

Laurel: What really, really helped me was that's kind of an enormous mountain of work. Just plain facing off with it, sometimes it's hard to even get started, so we really broke it down and especially with the working on the toxins in food book, I needed to write blogs.

It’s an overwhelming subject. It's hard to get started before you know everything, and you will never know everything. So, chipping away at it, having a schedule for introductory blogs to get me rolling, and really breaking it down into components so that I could get some blogs out.

I did run into, I realized that I was asking too much of myself. We broke it out and I aimed at that and realized about halfway through that I was just piling too much on myself and it's really important not to put something out if it's not well-documented. As a scientist, you shouldn't do that.

I realized I had to back up and do some research and slow my roll a little bit, but that was a learning experience. What you think you can do in the beginning is not necessarily, but you find out, okay, well that's too much. Slow down a little bit!

Sue: Yep. It's perfectly fine to make adjustments. The thing that’s not perfectly fine is just to throw it all overboard and give up, right?

Laurel: Yes, exactly. Or to put out something that's not well done. There are things you can be more casual about, but on this you can't.

Sue: Right, 'cause of the science. Absolutely. So that was the toxins in food writing area? Then tell us how we scoped your other two goals.

Laurel: The other book, the serious book about being a woman in science. What I did was made an appointment with Anne for the end of the three months, and I did preparations. I went through the Story Path process and her Story Spine process.

That also really helped me take that very, very long outline I had been dumping ideas into for two years and make sense of it and then get it to her for her feedback. That was the goal for the three months was to do that process and then get feedback from her so that I can write the book, write the first draft of the book.

Sue: Yeah, I think that was really smart. That was a really smart approach that you took for that. Tell us about the cozy.

Laurel: I had spent fall working on a lot of technical issues, setting up a newsletter, working on my website, and all that kind of thing. I ran into a lot of obstacles that I'd really reached a point of frustration with. I'd gotten stuck on moving forward and it really helped to have advice on what I was aiming at in terms of what kind of marketing to do and also have some fun. You mentioned have fun with the creative end, 'cause that is the fun part for me.

I had fun designing ads and playing a little bit with it. That was really important for me. I have to do that. I have to make it something fun in order to get myself over it. And just plain simply having the moral support, so when I had to run into something, I could dedicate some time to it and do it and know that there's help there if I need it, and just kind of push through it that way.

The other thing, as I mentioned, was I learned to break things into really tiny steps when I get scared of something or there's just that resistance for some things, and break it into the tiniest of steps. One day I do this tiny thing, then I do that tiny thing the next day. So it takes me a few days, but I got it done as opposed to putting it under the desk and ignoring it 'cause it just overwhelms me.

Sue: Yes, exactly, the little chunks. What's just the next little baby step forward that I can take? I'm often fond of saying our brain wants to know the how-to of every single step we're gonna need to do before it's even willing to get started. That's such a dangerous place to be. We have to just say, you know what? I don't need to know everything yet. I just need to do the next little thing. For your cozy book three, you also had a goal related to the third cozy, right?

Laurel: Right, it was in rough draft form, what you call the working draft form. I wanted to get that to where I could hand it off to my editor. So I did that. I got it done and it is now her problem for a while.

The other thing I learned was I will try to work on three or four things at the same time, and that is too much. That's another thing that's too much. So I need to actually, instead of spreading all of them out for say, three months, I need to like cycle them in, do two at a time, get one done.

I got done actually with the edit of that book early. My editor wasn't ready for it yet, but I put it away and kept myself from going back and fussing more so that I could then turn to the other things that I'm working on.

Sue: Yes, that was great. I'm looking at your project plan right now in the spreadsheet that we created, and a couple of things really stand out. You were very specific about when you were gonna work on the cozies versus when you were gonna work on Undercurrents, which was the science-based novel that you were talking about. You didn't do those on the same day because you needed to be in a different head space for each. I think you were kind of using the cozies as a respite from the heavy emotional lifting of Undercurrents.

Laurel: Very much so.

Sue: And we built in rest days. So we had days built into your three months. Goal Getter School is not about white-knuckling it and running yourself into the ground in order to meet a certain goal. We want to create sustainable habits and ways of getting work done so you can continue to do this throughout your whole life. Every single week you had two full rest days where you weren't doing anything related to any of this.

Laurel: Right, and the occasional beach day, I would find that I would hit a wall and I'd be sitting there staring at my computer and not getting anything done. You can schedule in rest days, but there's some times when you are physically done or mentally done, and you need to take a pause. I loved your suggestion recently of, make sure there's a plan for the other side of that pause, 'cause that pause can go on and on and on. If you're not careful, you can get derailed.

Sue: Yes, exactly. So it's like, okay, today is my beach day, and tomorrow I'm for sure going to do X, Y, Z, right? Again, a number of different people have different ways of talking about that inner voice of self-sabotage, but you know that inner voice of self-sabotage will use anything against you.You may legitimately need a rest and a beach day. It's still gonna try to take advantage of it and stretch that into an indefinite hiatus, right? I think you did a really good job with that. I think you did a really good job listening to when you needed that and getting back to it as well.

Laurel: Another thing I've found is when I have reluctance to work, like getting back on track after you've kind of paused, is to set a timer. If I set a timer for 45 minutes, that will get me in the seat and working. And even when the timer goes off, I can keep going, but it just gets me over the “I can't get started thing, 'cause I'm tired.”

Sue: Right, exactly. So tell us a little bit about how you were doing on these priorities before Goal Getter School. Like how long have these things been going for you?

Laurel: I had been kind of derailed for about four months because of all the tech stuff I had to do. There was obstacle after obstacle after obstacle, and I just lost my spirit. I had been working on the cozies for years and had a pretty good momentum on those. But however, with that much web and MailChimp and so forth to do, I just had reached the end where I wasn't writing. That's why I signed up for Goal Getter School, 'cause I knew it would recharge me and clear the deck and get me going again.

Sue: Beautiful. So any other key takeaways for you that you got out of the process that have made a difference that might be great little nuggets for other writers?

Laurel: I think the accountability, checking in with you weekly was also important. For the first couple of weeks after the Goal Getter School ended, I slowed my roll to recover a little bit, but I also noticed I wasn't up to my tasks, I could saunter off a bit more. So that accountability aspect is really important.

I have a friend who is very creative and also has a hard time getting her business rolling. She's not a writer, but she's a creative, and that would really help her too. Just to have that check-in and have that support and have that accountability.

Sue: Yeah, and there are certain personality types (I'm one of them) where that outer accountability is absolutely essential, right? There are some people who are just like, nope, I got this. They don't even tell anyone they're doing it, and then boom, I've got a novel, or boom, I ran a marathon, or whatever it is. That's not most people, right?

Many, many people benefit from having that accountability and really that person who's really invested in what you're doing, not just like, oh, text me once a week and check on it. That's not enough. Then you're like, that person doesn't really care if I do it or not.

But when you are an example to the rest of the group and you've gotta report in or you've gotta show up on a call to me and I have to be able to say, Laurel did great in Goal Getter School. Everyone should join Goal Getter School, right? And if you don't do that, then other people, it has an impact on other people.

Laurel: It really does. I talk to my friend every other week and even just me showing her how much I've gotten done reminds her that just sauntering off on her own isn't cutting it for her. It's frustrating for her.

Sue: Yeah, a lot of people avoid tackling their goals because it's uncomfortable, right? You're gonna acutely feel uncomfortable during the period of time where you're doing something that's outside of your comfort zone.

But they underestimate how much chronic discomfort they're causing themselves by not doing what they know they want to do. You're gonna be uncomfortable either way. Do you want the result at the end or do you wanna look at it and say, man, I probably could have done something amazing here.

Laurel: Just that whole thing of getting over the resistance, the mountain that you kind of have to get into. As soon as you're over that, then you're into the flow. But you need these tools to help you get over that mountain top, that first thing that you're facing. Once you're into the flow and this thing matters so much to you, and like you said, when you're done and you're holding this in your hand, it's just like, my goodness, I did this.

Sue: And you did it, Laurel! You accomplished everything you set out to accomplish, and you created systems and you learned from the way you set this up, what you might want to change next time. Now you can finish your cozy and now you can take the next steps on the toxins book a little at a time. You got Undercurrents underway. You've done an amazing amount of work without killing yourself in the process.

Laurel: Another project came up. I had submitted a short story on climate fiction a couple of years ago and made it close to the top. It didn't quite make it in the cut. That guy came back up and it's just like, well, I know from this experience that something has to be set aside for a short while, because my brain can't do that and honoring that instead of trying to put it on top, and then not doing a good job at it. I honored that I can only do two things at once or, you know, cycle in two things, that are serious and heavy for my brain to work on. I honored that and it's like, okay, I'm gonna take two weeks here and slow the roll on something else, but I'm gonna focus on it and get it done.

Sue: I remember that now. That was a great flex and pivot so that it was something important and time-bound came up and it's like, okay, this is a good reason to move my goals around a little bit. A lot of us will try to move the goals around just to avoid discomfort. That is completely different, right? That's avoidance. That's completely different than liking your reasons for making an adjustment.

Laurel: Being honest about those, and it's like, okay well this does, but that thing doesn't have a deadline. That's another thing — deadline. This has a deadline. I do not wanna keep postponing that forever, but as you said, this is something that actually really matters to me.

Sue: Beautiful. Is there any other last little tidbits that you want to share? And then I'll ask you to tell us just about your future projects.

Laurel: I think that's it. I will say this: this whole process I've projected onto other things going on in my life, like things to fix on my house. That's the thing where I brought my tools in one day. I did measuring a different day. I did this, you know, nailing it up the third day and it was just like, well that worked because I had been avoiding it for months. For months. So it's like, oh, good this works for fixing my house.

Sue: These are transferable skills, people. I love it. So tell us what you're working on now and into the future. What's on your short-term horizon here now?

Laurel: In the near future I was working on revisions on that short story this morning and really diving in deep and I intend to submit it next week. I'm giving myself a couple more, about another week to work on it. Then I realized I had to write the chapter on gardens — toxic chemicals and gardens. Draft it, not have it polished before I wrote the two or three blogs on it, because I needed to do the research first. I've just published the first blog of it and I'll roll with the next two later. Once the short story is gone, then I can dive back into Undercurrents, which really is a work from my heart. I needed these other things out of the way so I could get there.

Sue: Well, Laurel, it was an absolute pleasure having you in Goal Getter School, and it's a pleasure having you in the Happily Ever Author Club now. Anne and Rachelle and I, we just absolutely feed off seeing writers like yourself bring their projects into fruition that are really close to their hearts and that are important for the world.

Laurel: Thank you so much. The three of you have transformed my writing approach so much. I just am so grateful to have found you.

Sue: Oh, thank you. It's a real love fest over here. We love it so much. Well, Laurel, best of luck with all your writing projects, and thanks for being on the podcast.

Laurel: Take care.

Sue: That's our interview for today. I hope you got some gems that will help you reach your goals. If you want to learn more about Goal Getter School and maybe even apply for the Fall 2023 cohort visit https://www.pagesandplatforms.com/goalgetter