I have said for years at the Rebel course that “people will do more for others than they will for themselves”.  What I mean by that is that if it comes to letting yourself down then never mind, but if you have committed to doing something to someone else you are more likely to follow through.

I came face to face with my own advice today in the course I have started.  It asked me to make a commitment to writing a screen play.  It had some specific text to copy out and sign, and then it hit me with the killer sentence

I knew that in order to gain the leverage needed to get myself to follow through, to build the motivation, I had to make a commitment to someone other than me, and I thought who better than you!

So here is my commitment:

“I, Alan Donegan, am committed to becoming a screen writer.  By Friday the 19th of April 2019 I will have written a complete screen play and, by so doing, will prove to myself I have what it takes to be a writer. Nothing will hold me back from achieving my goal – I will laugh in the faces of the gods of procrastination and laziness and I will write every day!!”

Please will you help keep me accountable?  If I don’t get it done?  If I don’t email you by that date then please give me some internet abuse!  By Friday the 19th of April I will do a post whether I am successful or not and I would love you to keep me accountable and check on the progress and give me encouragement??

I have decided that I have three main goals by that date that really excite me:

1. Write a complete screen play
2. Conduct a table read of my script in Los Angeles
3. Submit my script to the Final Draft script writing contest

I think I can achieve all these things. They are all within my control, but it still scares me!

Writing this post, committing to you I am going to do something that I have no idea how to do is scary.  I felt nervous writing this (yes I’m human after all!)  My biggest fears about this are:
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• What if I am not good enough!?!? I know that the only way to know is to have a go but it still scares me!  I wrote a whole blog post about the only way to know here
• What if I don’t get it done?  I am committing to doing it without knowing how to do it and this scares me.  The control freak inside is screaming, “You aren’t ready to commit!  You don’t know what you are doing! WAIT!”
• I don’t know if I am even going to enjoy it!  What if I start writing and then don’t enjoy it.  What if I get halfway through and think, “This is shit” and want to give up? How do I know if I am even going to enjoy it!

I know they are silly fears.  I know I should just get on with it but that doesn’t make them any less real!  The demons seem to appear when you start something new.

So here I am diving in and getting going.  I am going to write you a report each week about how I am getting on and how I am progressing towards my goals.

I would love it if you held me accountable and left me comments or texted me abuse please.  It would really help to keep me going!

This is going to be an interesting experiment.

Let me know what you think.

Alan
Screen Writer in Training

PS if you want to get the email in April telling you whether I have done it or not then sign up for the updates below!