Researching Material for our Upcoming Novel

Deadlines. We all make them. We all sometimes miss them. We all need them. And many of us dread them.

What’s worse, deadlines are relentless. The more successful I am, the more they pile up around me. As a writer, my to-do’s include regular blogs, tweets, Facebook posts, newsletters, publicty events for my forthcoming book, podcast interviews, chapters to write for our upcoming novel, and reviews of other people’s books. Deadlines are a daily part of my life.

Apparently, the term “deadline” was first used in prison camps during the American Civil War, referring to a physical line beyond which prisoners were shot. With that as the historical context, no wonder the term fills us with dread.

Like many of you, when I’m faced with what looks like an impossible deadline, there’s sometimes a loud voice in my head that yells, “this will never work,” “don’t take this on,” or “there’s not nearly enough time.”

If I listen to that negative self-talk, I will almost certainly not step into the opportunity, nor complete the task on time.

But in my experience, simply applying a forced shut-down of my self-talk usually doesn’t change my attitude about the task, nor my ability to succeed.

The web is replete with advice about how to meet deadlines: stay organized, don’t procrastinate, break the task into smaller pieces — that sort of thing.

These are all good pieces of advice, but following them has not provided a fail-safe approach to successfully meeting the many deadlines in my life. Sometimes I write as though I’m in the kind of fully energized and focused “flow” that Csíkszentmihályi wrote about back in the 1970s — and meeting deadlines seems easy. Other times, I fail miserably, missing even the most reasonable targets.

Csíkszentmihályi gave me the language to describe the energized, focused experience. But until recently, I was unable to understand the phenomenon. I did notice, ironically, that the “flow” experiences often seemed to occur when I was very calm, and not particularly focused on organizing or breaking the project into pieces. In fact, my complete absorption felt more like letting go of any explicit control of the process.

So here’s what I’m beginning to learn is the single most important factor for ensuring the successful and timely completion of my projects — over and over again:

The universe is a powerful source of creativity and energy, and I’m able to tap into that power.

No, this is not magical hocus pocus.

And it’s not religion, although the Bible does express the connectedness of all life in Ephesians 4:4: “There is one body and one Spirit…” Buddhism similarly holds that everything and everyone is interdependently related. Things and events don’t have an absolute independent being outside of the universal network of interrelatedness. And Taoism embraces practices that offer a way to unite people all over the world in a form of shared consciousness.

I don’t discount any of these sources of spiritual wisdom, but the basis for my belief that I can access the power of the universe to stay on course and complete my tasks in a timely manner is actually also scientific. Quantum physics is now confirming what many ancient religious and philosophical texts have said for thousands of years — that we are all connected through a universal consciousness.

In other words, whether I look at it from a scientific or spiritual standpoint, we’re all connected, and abundant creativity and energy are available to us all.

The eminent physician and New York Times best selling author Dr. Larry Dossey calls it the “One Mind.”

Dossey’s premise is that all of our minds are part of an infinite, collective dimension of One Mind. And through this One Mind, we share a consciousness with the universe and with every other being. His earlier books have also provided strong evidence supporting non-local causality.

I contrast the “One Mind” with my “small mind,” the latter being the focus of much of the popular advice for meeting deadlines, like controlling my self-talk, staying organized, not procrastinating, and breaking the task into smaller pieces. They are all good bits of advice, but they do little to access the vast power and creative potential available to me.

I feel like I may have personally experienced the One Mind over and over again, without knowing how to name it. And the best thing is that I’m already a part of it. It’s not something I have to work on creating. I just have to become aware of it and get out of the way.

As I noted above, as a writer I face many deadlines, both other- and self-imposed. Have I ever missed a deadline? You bet. But I’m beginning to notice that when I fail, it’s usually because I’ve relied on my small mind to make things happen, and the stress of trying to force the process has led to serious writing blocks, rather than “flow.”

This week, I’m beginning to interview guests for my upcoming podcast season Becoming Who You Truly Are. Dr. Larry Dossey has agreed to be one of my guests. Earlier today, I caught myself nervously organizing my notes to prepare for my conversation with him. He’s a best-selling author and a world-reknowned physician, after all. Then I remembered my tenuous new secret for success, which I cherish but still too easily let slip away. Instead of attempting to control the process, my intention is to focus on being present in the interview with Dr. Larry, in order to access the One Mind with him and with our listeners.