Dreamers Dream and Dieters Diet. It’s a hard truth for some, but it’s a truism nonetheless.
I’ve said before, Dreamers Dream and Writers Write, or Dreamers Dream and Doers Do. Yes, you can dream all you want but until you write, until you do, no new story is formed.
Same principles and process in dieting. This is why I say dieting and writing have a lot in common.
First, Desire is important. If you don’t really want to write a book or lose weight you clearly never will. So desire is essential. But is it enough? No it is not. To borrow a scientific phrase, desire is necessary but not sufficient.
Whether you want to consider desire and dreaming the same thing is up to you. But I think a case can be made that they’re different. Desire is a want. Dreaming is the creation of structures for the want. Desire is aspiration. Dreaming is inspiration.
Second then, for me, is the Dream. It’s conceiving, birthing ideas about what a book, or what we in a mirror, look like. But is dreaming enough? No it is not. This is thinking about writing, thinking about dieting, thinking about doing. But dreaming involves no action. The world has no lack of dreamers. It’s doers, whether writing or dieting, we need.
Third is Decision. Our desire is so strong, our dream so compelling, that we must, we absolutely must decide to take action. No decision? We keep dreaming but never achieving. No, now we decide. We begin. But beginning, difficult though it is for many, is not enough either. Multitudes begin a marathon but few finish the race. We need something else.
Fourth, Drive is both the engine and transmission wrapped in one ongoing resolve. It’s commitment to one’s decision, hazards be hanged and come what may. Drive brooks no slacking off, no dalliance, no cheating, nothing short of being totally in the zone. Drive is based upon our own sense of honor. We have the desire. We dream of success. We decide to take action. We now drive to the finish line because we cannot abide anything less.
Fifth, Doing is the all-important final ingredient. We don’t just begin we continue. We’re not involved in an act but acting. We get the job done, day in and day out. We stick by the stuff.
Writing and dieting, I think, are amazingly similar, at least in terms of process. We Desire, then Dream, and finally if we reach down inside ourselves we Decide. And oh then there’s that undeniable Drive to Do.
Here’s the final secret: The more we Do the more it feeds our Drive to keep Doing.
That’s the writing process for me. That’s dieting for me. No question the process is work, but the good news is the process works.
© Rex M. Rogers – All Rights Reserved, 2012
*This blog may be reproduced in whole or in part with a full attribution statement. Contact Rex or read more commentary on current issues and events at www.rexmrogers.com or follow him at www.twitter.com/RexMRogers.