What comes to mind when you think of the word, “commit”? Set a timer for five minutes and join us for this week’s edition of the Five Minute Friday link-up!
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This week’s Five Minute Friday writing prompt is: COMMIT
(Okay, I don’t usually comment about the photo I use, but this one was just too perfect. After choosing the prompt for this week, I went to Unsplash like I always do to look for a graphic. I typed “commit” into the search and this image was one of the handful that appeared in the search results. I mean, how could I not use it? Plus: the photo was taken at Boulders Beach in South Africa, a place I have visited several times. I couldn’t resist.)
Setting my timer for five minutes, and . . . GO.Â
This past weekend, I had the privilege of going away with five other writer friends for a working writer’s retreat. This is the fifth year I’ve been able to go, and let me just tell you, it is the most productive writing time I have all year.
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After I got home, it occurred to me that I had several reasons why I could’ve stayed home. I could’ve said no, declined the invitation, and stayed home to attend to numerous other responsibilities. But each woman who showed up had one thing in common: We all decided to commit.
We’re all busy, we all have families, we all have countless other things we could’ve been doing. But we made our writing a priority and said no to the other demands of life for 72 hours.
If you have the bandwidth, I encourage you to consider doing the same. I realize it’s not possible for everyone. But maybe it is possible for you, and you’re just making excuses.
Find a handful of friends, pool your money together, and rent a house. Pack your own breakfast food, drinks, and snacks, and divide up the remaining meal prep responsibilities. Promise not to talk to each other except during meal time and at night, put your head down, and do the work.
The difference between those people who have great ideas and those who get them done is the willingness to commit.
As Nike says, just do it.
You may be pleasantly surprised by the results.
STOP.
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Join the link-up with your own five-minute freewrite below, then visit your link-up neighbor to read their post and leave an encouraging comment:Â
I hate to talk about this stuff,
hope all who reads it understands,
but, Jesus, this is really rough,
and I commit myself unto Your hands.
Please help me, Lord, through all this mess,
please hold me from the brink,
’cause if I’m honest I’ll confess
that there are times I think
that I’m not up to the task
that You’ve set me here,
that I can’t do that which You ask,
writing through my fear.
Please hold me close and help me through
the things I can still do for You.
I love this idea of a writing retreat. I wish that some of us lived closer together because getting together with other members of this group would be so much fun and would inspire production in many of us.
I had thoughts along these lines of why we don’t get things done is because we don’t commit to them but when I sat down to write that is not what came out! Your post reminded me of it, LOL, and now I want to go edit mine (but I won’t!). Thanks for sharing.
So true.