Do you get overwhelmed by problems in your writing life? Do you feel that there are few solutions and many more problems, and you don’t really know what to do to solve your problems? If you do, believe me, you’re not alone. Many writers are overwhelmed by problems and difficulties. The writing life is plagued with problems and the more we difficulty we have coping with and finding solutions to our problems, the less successful we will be as writers. Also, when we are overwhelmed by problems, we tend to have a negative mindset. We tend to be overcome by these problems, and we tend to engage in a lot of negative self-talk. This can be a recipe for disaster for a successful, productive, and fulfilling writing life. So, we all have to learn to problem solve, and we can all become better problem-solvers. First, we have to make sure that negative thoughts don’t enter our minds all the time. For instance, don’t keep telling yourself that this solution won’t work or that nothing will ever change in your writing life. Instead, develop a positive attitude towards your problems and see what happens. If you go into this process with a negative attitude and negative self-thoughts, you will probably not be successful. Here are a few tips to develop a positive attitude as opposed to a negative one.

• Practise having a positive attitude as much as possible. This is not easy for many writers to achieve because beginning writers tends to be very uncertain all the time. But some of the habits that you are making now can affect your whole life. So, take the time to really develop a positive and realistic attitude. This will really help you to develop positive self-talk as well over time which will in turn help you to achieve your writing goals.
• Make friends with that inner voice of yours, and be kind to it. Writers all too readily criticize themselves. That little inner voice inside of them has very little to say that is positive during a writer’s life. And this could cause a lot of problems in the future because being negative is a habit that is instilled in writers and that will follow them throughout their whole writing career, if they are not careful.
• Practice saying positive affirmations to as often as possible. By practising positive affirmations, writers could get beyond the negativity that they are feeling. A few positive things that you can say are: I know I can do this; I am capable; I am bright; I can have great writing partners. These positive affirmations will help you to achieve your writing goals much more readily.
• Believe that you can accomplish whatever you want, even if you have to fake it at first. Sometimes, it is best to keep your thoughts positive, even if you don’t know the exact outcomes of your actions. Your thoughts can affect whether or not you achieve your goals. And the more positive your thoughts are, the more capable of achieving your goals you will feel.

So, set your writing goals high and believe that you’ll achieve them. If you believe that you can and you are positive about your writing goals, you will most likely achieve them. By following the four tips above writers could use positive self-talk to achieve their writing goals. Try it! Irene S. Roth