A couple of years ago, a friend recommended this book and it's been on my shelf ever since. But it too the rather unbecoming meltdown earlier this week, to get me to start reading it. Monday's post should have been a dead giveaway, right? But it was Wednesday's decision paralysis that was the final push. 

Let's just say that the concept is not mind-blowing new. But that's the case with pretty much any self-help book. The point for reading any of these, though, is to find that one nugget of gold that reminds you of exactly what you need at the moment you most need it. 

From Goodreads:
The One Thing explains the success habit to overcome the six lies that block our success, beat the seven thieves that steal time, and leverage the laws of purpose, priority, and productivity.

Last week I mentioned jumping into a new  writing project while waiting for the next round of edits to come in. Yesterday, that email came in and with it, a panic attack. What direction do I go now?

Story 1 which I've been working on for several years, have a strong emotional connection with (it's loosely based on a family friend), and spent the past month thinking about little else while I was rewriting. 

Or Story 2 which is fun and different from anything else I've written and fits with the current market. It still lives in my brain where it's shiny and perfect and not tainted yet by my fumbling attempts at setting it to paper.

It shouldn't be a difficult decision. And yet ... I've spent the better part of the last two days paralyzed over what to do. 

Why? Because one is a shorter path to the desired result of having a manuscript to submit while the other allows more time to meander and avoid that next step in the journey. What if story 2 is more marketable than story 1? What if, after all that additional work, story 1 still isn't quite good enough? What if ... 

But at some point, a decision has to be made. Sure, you can abort mission, turn around and take an entirely different path. That new path will, inevitably, lead you to yet another fork.

Self-doubt is a heavy stone to carry on that journey. Failure, however, is a boulder that will crush you. For me, failure is leaving behind a trail of unfinished projects. For another writer, it could be something else entirely.

There are no guarantees what the view will be at the end of any of those paths. Publishing is certainly not the easiest road any of us could have chosen to take. But, as a friend reminded me, "you need to honor the investment." For me, that means following Story 1 to the end of its path and, even if the view at the end isn't what I'd hoped, at least I didn't leave an unfinished heap along the way.

Yesterday I had one of those "what the heck am I doing" moments ... you know that moment when you suddenly realize you have no idea what to tackle next because you're in the middle of too many things. And it's just too overwhelming to sort, so you do nothing or start something completely different because you can't decide. Yeah ... that!

Perfect example, crochet projects. This is just the immediate clump of projects -- there are three different creatures in progress in that pile. There's also a shawl and a blanket that are in bags tucked behind the couch. As well as a pretty impressive stash of yarn scraps that I'm turning into small blankets to take to an animal shelter. And I'd be remiss not to mention the bag of new yarn I bought to make the most adorable pair of socks that's on the floor next to the ottoman in the picture.

Then there's reading. I've started three tree books in the past couple of weeks (on top of the two I started several months ago and still haven't finished); I'm toggling between a couple of audio books because neither is grabbing my attention fully; and I've got two different e-books going (one for a contest and one because I was having a hard time getting into the contest book and oh look, I clicked on a different cover). 

And the decluttering effort which goes something like this: Start in one room, make a pile of things to get rid of, go to another room to get a bag for the things that need to be dumped from room one and get distracted with something in that room.

Oh, oh ... browser tabs!!!!! Holy cow, how many browser tabs can one person open!!! 

I've turned into a seriously over-caffeinated squirrel.  

I'm going to try an experiment for the rest of the week ... pick ONE thing to read/listen to, ONE crochet project and put all the others away where I won't see them and get distracted. Obviously I can't hide parts of the house (although wouldn't that be amazing!!) so I'm picking ONE task. And ONE hour to look through open browser tabs and close as many as I get through. Maybe by taking away the shiny distractions, my squirrel brain will be able to settle enough to finally finish ONE thing!

Stay tuned ... squirrel!!!!!!!!!!!!