Six Month Review

Well, here we are. Right smack dab in the middle. Today marks six months of consistently publishing a story every Monday of this year. So, I thought it might be fun to share some things we’ve learned along with things we need to work on, and goals for the rest of the year.

I’ve never attempted to do a recap like this in any area of my life, and I have to say, after writing it out, I found it profoundly beneficial. I highly recommend it.

Let’s go!

What we’ve learned…

What I set out to accomplish with these stories is to push myself to think beyond the noticeable qualities we learn from our dogs, like “unconditional love” or “being present,” and to get deeper into underlying meanings and how those meanings can benefit and show up in our own lives. Thinking of dogs this way has been challenging, but mostly, it's been very rewarding.

Constantly viewing dogs through a filter of what they’re teaching me has changed my relationship with myself. It requires looking inward and endlessly challenging and questioning what I think and why I think it. I’ve learned to be curious and always ask questions, such as “Is this something I assumed or was told? Is this something I know to be true, and if so, is it still true? And how do I feel about this now?”

I’ve learned to shed what no longer serves me.

Hopefully, I’ve been successful in doing the same for some of you. I’ve purposefully withheld sharing the direct point in some stories to provoke thinking, i.e. (Calm, Ready, No Longer Afraid) while in others, I wanted to be as direct and to the point as possible, i.e. (How Dogs Outrun Self Doubt,) while always keeping a comical or suspenseful storyline.

I’ve learned to strive for consistency, not for results.

Some stories work, and some don’t. Making sure every story is perfect has been far from my goal. Consistency is the name of the game. The results of said consistency are nothing more than data to evaluate and determine what needs to be adjusted to achieve the desired results.

Things in need of improvement…

Now, with the results of our consistent efforts in hand, let’s examine some areas for improvement.

Marketing.

Getting the word out. Plain and simple. It doesn’t matter how good the stories are if the target audience doesn’t know they exist. Some writers are extremely good or “seasoned” at marketing their work, while others, like myself, are as green as they come. In the past, it felt egotistical to promote my work, but I’ve recently discovered that it’s more egotistical not to.

I’ve enjoyed the writing process so much more since I altered my mindset in the following areas:

Not over-identifying with the vocation of it. 

Once I share it, it no longer belongs to me. 

Being open to criticism and opposing views.

Nobody really cares.

As all the pros know, if you don’t share it, you don’t grow. And we’re allowed to be wrong or change our perspectives and views.

Just do your best work, put it out in the world, and get the hell on with it. Let the chips fall where they may.

Clarifying the message…

This is a constant work in progress and should never end. Because it’s impossible to judge the arch of my writing's improvement through a microscope, I took a bird' s-eye view.

Reading my first story and then my twentieth, I saw a fractional increase in the overall readability of the stories. I started to notice my trends and a more clarified voice. The jump from one to twenty was enough to see a small but marginal gain.

I also see why certain choices were made in some of the stories but have no idea why I made certain choices in others, which leads us to the next discovery we’re working on.

Going from good to great…

Some of the stories I consider to be fairly good (which is still a weird thing to say about myself), but after reading them back, I noticed areas where I knew that if I had given them more time and perhaps more space, they had the potential to be great. Of course, by great, I just mean great to me, which is the only one who matters.

Some of my favorites…

Thanks To Good Ole' Walt

Red Belly Water Snakes

Rogers Ferdinand

(Rogers Ferdinand was the most fun I’ve ever had writing. It came straight out of the idea warehouse on aisle “I got no freaking clue, but damn this is fun,” and I do have plans for more of him in the future.)

I plan to work stories out more, especially ones I think deserve more life. But determining which stories are worthy of improvement and which ones, no matter how in love with them I am, just aren’t worthy of making the cut will require more practice. I guess I’m learning how to “kill my babies.”

The next rule will seem to contradict the previous, but it will help avoid perfectionism, not making something the best it can be.

The 80% rule…

I want to say I heard this from Donald Miller, but I’m not sure. The idea is to be 80% complete with everything we do. Striving for 100% means you’ll be tinkering with it forever. The only exception is maybe cooking chicken, the rest, 80%, will do.

80% is perfect because it’s almost always enough, so the job, the point, or the project reaches a point where the difference in the results it fetches wouldn’t be noticeable, whether 100% or not.

It also helps eliminate perfectionism, at least for me.

Things we’re planning for the rest of 2024…

We’re working on an e-book and hope to complete it by the year's end.

We’re also working on a “Thirty Days With Your Dog” workbook, which will consist of you and your dog(s) doing one activity a day, followed by a journal prompt to help you find the lessons you’ve learned. We plan to create a private community page (probably a private Facebook page or membership page on the Dirty Blue Heeler website) for those taking part to share and join along, building our community of Healers. So be on the lookout for those.

We plan to keep up with the dirty stories every Monday. I’ve thought about changing the delivery of the stories to Tuesdays, but I thought Mondays were fitting so it could be something non-work-related to digest before the week kicks in. Feel free to shoot us an email with the day you’d prefer, and if there seems to be a more popular day, we’re happy to adjust.

Being the six month review, we would love to hear from you! Any favorite stories? Any stories that resonated with you? Any topics you would like us to touch on? Feel free to leave in the comments below or shoot us an email dirt@dirtyblueheeler.com

Now, to you…

I would like to take this opportunity to express our most sincere appreciation and gratitude to each and every one of you, our readers. You have provided us with awesome inspiration to keep working.  Hopefully, our stories have been beneficial in some way and are worth the time it takes to read them. We genuinely know how precious your time is, and just the thought of you sacrificing a few minutes to read our silly stories truly means the world. For that, we can’t thank you enough.

We have so much more we can’t wait to share, and we look forward to the weeks, months, and years ahead.

Our deepest thanks,

Johnson, Dirt & Mud.

PS:  Celebrate the small wins in your life and be proud of what you’ve accomplished. You matter and your work matters. Give yourself permission to not be perfect. Focus on the 80%. You got this.

Stay Dirty!