Something my wife said yesterday struck a chord with me.

Sometimes it’s good to remember things, like memories of loved ones.  And sometimes, it’s better to let things go. Letting things go is something I have trouble with.

I have a tendency, two actually, which get in my way more often than not. The first is my tendency to cling to, obsess over, and beat myself up over my perceived failures. I won’t go into all the things I’ve considered myself a failure at, but the most relevant one is I consider a day where I haven’t written anything as a failure on my part.

My second tendency is to over-think things a lot of the time, rather than be in the moment. Which, when it comes to my writing, means I can get fixated on whether or not a line makes sense in the greater scheme of the story or if I’m contradicting what I’ve said before. So much so that can’t move past the line that’s causing the issue.

As you might imagine, it becomes very easy for these two to feed off each other and leave me in a spiral where nothing is getting done because I’m too busy thinking about how it should be done. Britt calls it analysis-paralysis and, although she uses it in a different context, I think that’s pretty apt.

Now while the second of these, toned down a little, can actually be useful (see what I said previously about re-drafting and continuity), the first one isn’t really helpful unless I transition from blaming myself for my mistakes to learning from and using them.

I’d like to think that if I could let these worries go, if I could simply allow myself to be in the moment, then I could get a more done and consequently, be happier with myself.

PS. I know that “Let It Go” might have been more appropriate as a title here, but I’m more inclined to make a Beatles reference than a Disney one so…..