Progress: It's More of a Drip than a Deluge
Newsletter Issue #58
I’m pursuing my certification in coaching nonfiction this year because … why not? I love educating myself, and there was a limited-time offer I couldn’t refuse. And if there’s anything I love more than educating myself, it’s a limited-time offer. Anyway, I’m finding that coaching nonfiction is much different than coaching fiction or memoir, and I’m loving it. And I love the idea that I’ll soon be a book coaching triple threat. :)
The certification program includes required reading, and I’m working my way through the list. One of the books we were assigned to read is Atomic Habits by James Clear. I was excited about this because this book was already on my to-read list, and so I was happy to have an excuse to buy it and to push it to the top of the list.
I’m only two chapters in, and I’m loving this book. I read a lot of nonfiction—mostly history and writing craft books. I used to read a lot of self-help and how-to. I’m of the mind that one can learn how to do anything by reading. I’ve read books that taught me to:
Replace the wax ring in a leaky toilet base all by myself. This is much harder than it sounds—it involved taking the toilet apart, hefting the whole shebang out into my front yard like the Okie I am, and reassembling it.
Make a bed with hospital corners. I checked this book out in 4th grade, which answers the question, “How do I tell you I’m a nerd without telling you I’m a nerd?”
“Win” my divorce. This isn’t as Game of Thrones as it sounds—it mostly told me to pick myself up off the bathroom floor and be the resilient woman I know I can be.
But I haven’t loved a lot of how-to books in recent years. They often seem repetitive, with very little actionable content—9 chapters explaining why I need to do the thing I obviously already know I need to do, or I wouldn’t have bought the book, and only 1 chapter or so telling me how to actually do the thing.
I’m only two chapters into Atomic Habits, but it already feels different and is making me think about goals and progress toward my goals in a different way.
I wanted to share a theory James Clear writes about in Chapter 2, and that is latent or hidden progress. What he means is we often get discouraged and give up because we don’t see progress, but just because we don’t see it, that doesn’t mean it isn’t happening. It doesn’t mean we aren’t getting anywhere.
I first applied this to the goal my friend Paulla and I have to be able to do the sit-to-stand test with a perfect score of 10 by the end of 2025. I’ve been stuck at about a 7.5, which is discouraging, but after reading Clear’s Chapter 2, I felt encouraged. I’m doing all the things I need to do to reach a perfect score—squats, strengthening my core, etc.—and according to Clear’s theory of latent progress, I’m making unseen progress. If I keep doing the things, one day I’ll suddenly reach a score of 8, 9, 10, seemingly out of nowhere. This makes sense.
Then I extended this idea to other things. Think about it—how often does it seem that an actor becomes an overnight success? There really isn’t such a thing as an overnight success. The truth is, according to something I once heard Penn Badgley say, that actor has probably been working at their craft for 7 years or more before they become an “overnight success.”
It’s the same with writing. I don’t know about you, but it often feels like I’m getting nowhere. I’m still querying the book I started writing a dozen years ago and finished writing nearly four years ago. But I’m still querying, and I’m still writing, and I’m still submitting and publishing my work. I’m making progress, but it’s not big progress. It’s the little baby steps of progess that will eventually lead to bigger progress. Then, suddenly, and seemingly out of nowhere, I’ll be a novelist with a book on the shelves of my local bookstore. Only you and I will know how many years and how much work it really took me to get there.
I found this encouraging, and I hope you do too.
XOXO
Leanne
“Close the door. Write with no one looking over your shoulder. Don’t try to figure out what other people want to hear from you; figure out what you have to say. It’s the one and only thing you have to offer.”
—Barbara Kingsolver
SOME THINGS FOR READERS
The Ghost Coat
(Catherine Lacey for Granta)
First Bird: Making meaning in the New Year
(Tove Danovich for Orion)
SOME THINGS FOR WRITERS
Don’t Write Every Day: 3 Things to Do Instead to Finish Your Book
(Allison K. Williams for Jane Friedman)
Why You Should Aim for 100 Rejections a Year
(Kim Liao for Literary Hub)
SOMETHING TO UPLIFT AND EMPOWER YOU
Leanne Phillips
Writer | Book Coach | Editor
leannephillips.com
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Somehow you always seem to post a relevant article on what I happen to be lamenting on giving me the perfect read right when I need it most! Thank you!