7 money lessons from NaNoWriMo

Last month, I decided to participate in NaNoWriMo. For those of you who don’t know, NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month. It’s a month long “contest” to write a 50,000 word novel in just those 30 days. It can be the crappiest novel ever written, making 50 Shades of Gray look like a Shakespearean masterpiece, but the point is just to write. Get your ideas on metaphorical or literal paper.  And if you win, you get a cool looking badge like this:

That’s right. I won! I actually finished my novel on November 28 after a marathon day of writing approximately 7000 words. I went into the contest having already written about 9100 words but in the spirit of being honest, I wrote 50,000 on top of that. And then some which brought my grand total to around 61,000 words. I still have a long way to go but at least the framework is there. I have a place to start.

Which feels really, really good.

Of course this got me thinking about how completing NaNo was really no different than paying down debt or getting your finances on track. While the end goal is different, the process is really the same.

• Make a commitment. I tried for years (seriously, years. Like 4 of them) to participate in NaNo. But it was always a half-hearted attempt. Since my heart wasn’t in it, the end result was nonexistent. This year, though, I decided to go for it. All in. No holds barred. And I won! I made a commitment to myself that I would finish Money application: When it comes to taking control of your finances, you need to do the same. One day, you just decide “today’s the day” and you never look back.
• Announce it publicly. This is essential. You need to tell people what you’re doing. I did this with NaNo when I announced it in a post and on Facebook. By telling my readers, friends, and family what I was doing, it made it real instead of some intangible concept just floating around in the air. Money application: Tell people that you’re working on getting your financial act together. By doing this, by saying it out loud (or in writing. Whatever works), it brings the goal to life. And it needs to be a living, breathing thing in order for you to keep putting energy into it.
• Have a schedule and a plan. I worked on my NaNo novel diligently, almost every day, for 28 days. Even if I only wrote 200 words, I worked on it daily and at roughly the same time. In fact, I made it an appointment in my calendar and only left open two tabs on my laptop—Write or Die and the Google Drive version of the book. That way, when I sat down to write, the first thing I saw was my tools to do so. Money application: Fill out a spreadsheet or use Planwise or Ready for Zero or some other tool to map out your budget, debt, income and everything else related to your finances. Schedule a regular time to review your money, your goals, and your plan. Make it conspicuous so that you don’t forget.
• Be accountable. I’ve found that if I hold myself accountable to others, I’m much more successful. By making sure that I have to report my progress, I work even harder because I don’t want to look like a failure. For NaNo, I did this in 3 ways: I tracked my progress on DMS’s sidebar, I regularly posted in a couple of Facebook groups, and I talked about it with my husband every night. It worked to because I eventually got into a competition with myself (and maybe some others. Sorry, others) to keep pushing to do more than the day before. Money application: Find a friend or family member or close co-worker to talk to about your progress. Start an accountability blog. Join a support group. Use an app. Figure out what method works best for you to report on your progress so that you don’t have an easy way to forget what you’re doing and to maintain your momentum.
• Find support. Without people supporting you, it’s almost impossible to achieve a goal. Everyone needs a strong support system in place, particularly on those days where you might spend 8 hours writing and you need someone to feed your kid or walk your dog or remind you to eat. When I was working on my NaNo novel, my husband, friends, and writing partners were an amazing source of support. Having them in my corner made me realize that, even on the hard days, I could keep going. I would not have made it through the month without them. Money application: Create a support system of people who won’t encourage you to overspend, who don’t mind trying inexpensive or free forms of entertainment, and who will pick you up when you fall (or feel like you’re falling). It’s important, too, that these people aren’t all judgy and rude. Mainly because those people suck at supporting others.
• Establish an end goal. My end goal for NaNo was to write at least 50,000 words above what I had written (okay, fine. NaNo rules established my goal for me). Having that concrete goal gave me something to strive for, something to stake my flag in when I finished. Knowing what I was working towards enabled me to keep my sights set on that achievement. Had I just said “hey, I’m going to write a book”, I probably wouldn’t have done what I did. But having that specific, clearly defined end point? Made all the difference. Money application:Decide what your concrete goals are. For instance, are you paying off credit cards? Student loans? Saving for a house? Plastic surgery? You need to think about what you’re working for because in the moments when you don’t want to do it anymore, that’s the thing that’ll keep you going (Side note: I’m not sure how I feel about making goals time sensitive. There are pros and cons for each. Maybe I’ll delve into that in a separate post).
• Understand that once the work is over, the real work begins. Now that the novel is written, the real work begins. I need to edit it, rewrite certain sections, have friends read it and make suggestions, edit it again, and then try to find an agent while also researching self-publishing options. That’s a shit ton of things to do and I don’t know how to do half of them. But I’ll work to learn it. I’ll research and read and ask questions all because my ultimate goal is having a published book and I will not stop until that happens.  Money application: Paying off debt or getting your finances organized is just the first step. It’s an important step but it’s only the first one. Once that’s done, then you have to work hard to make sure that you’ve learned from your mistakes and you maintain what you’ve put in place. And that is often more difficult than paying off debt.

Finishing NaNo this year has been one of the greatest feelings ever. All of a sudden, I have this momentum built up that makes me feel like I can achieve anything (I suppose that this is what runners feel like when they complete a marathon but I’ll never know that feeling. I don’t run. Not even when chased).  And if you’re in the midst of trying to finish something that seems too hard or unattainable, I assure you it’s not. You can do anything you want if you stop making excuses, commit to the goal, and work really hard.

That’s what I had to do.