Reflect, Reset, Renew

Newsletter #87

How Motivation and Micro-steps Can Change Your Life

If anyone has seen me in the past six weeks, they can tell you that I am exhausted. This start of the school year has been rough. For much of September I’ve felt overwhelmed, extra tired, kind of grumpy, and plain old BLAH. I let myself be that way for a couple weeks. Call it radical acceptance of my circumstances and experiences. (Lots of chocolate was consumed!)

Of course I knew at some point, things would need to change. So about a week ago I took the time to reflect. What was going well? What do I want to change? What can I let go of? What’s next for me?

I thought back to other times in my life when I needed some motivation and decided to create a habit tracker for the remainder of the calendar year. There are six tasks on this tracker: the things that would make me so much happier if they got done but that my mind has made out to be bigger than they are.

My rules are simple:

• do the thing for only 5 minutes and I can mark an X in the box

• don’t skip anything for more than two consecutive days

For me, I know that if I start a task, that’s all that’s needed to get going, so the 5-minute threshold is low on purpose. I could do all 6 tasks in a day, even if I have only 30 minutes. Five minutes matters.

The second rule is about momentum. I don’t have to do anything every single day. But if I work on most things on most days, I will see progress.

Micro-steps work wonders for me. After only a few days, I’m now in a much better mood, feel more energetic, and am making meaningful progress toward my goals and more importantly, sense of peace and fulfillment.

2024 Beach Lane Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division

Book Report: SOURGRASS

Written by Hope Lim

Illustrated by Shahrzad Maydani

I love the way this sweet story about friendship, memories, promises, and hope invites readers to slow down, enjoy the warm, soft art work, and linger over the words that create a reflective mood. As good friends do, May and Sofia partake in tea parties, share giggles, play in the fields full of sourgrass. But when May moves away, Sofia is left without her bestie, finding other ways to occupy her time with books, drawing, and writing letters to May. She patiently awaits a response and remembers how special sourgrass was to them and still plays a key role in bringing comfort through memories and hope. The author Hope uses just enough words to evoke a wistful mood and the illustrator Shahrzad’s blending of colors with chalk pastels brings out feelings of warmth and love in the beautiful outdoor setting. There are two adorable animal friends throughout the book whose actions reflect the relationship that Sofia and May have, and it’s such a treat to observe their story page after page.

Themes: friendship, love, hopes and dreams, memories

Discussion Ideas:

1. What are ways both the author and illustrator show how Sofia feels after May moves away?

2. How does the sourgrass symbolize the girls’ feelings and their friendship?

Mentor Text For:

• time transitional phrases

• making inferences

• writing a narrative of what happens after this story ends or using spot illustrations to create stories based on that art

• strong verbs

Link to Teacher Resources: Activity Booklet

Buy the book for a special friend!

Disclosure: I am an affiliate of Bookshop.org and will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase.

I find the illustrations in this book fascinating to study the individual strokes of the pastels and color combinations, but mostly I’m simply moved by the overall peaceful, beautiful, and heartwarming artwork. There is movement and joy in each spread, with explorations of colors that change from beginning to end to set the mood and such fun details that add depth to the story that is not even mentioned in the words.

Weekly Progress Report

This is a section for “stuff I did” that relates to my writing career. I believe in celebrating all wins, big and small alike.

• completed and sent out SF/South October newsletter

• updated website with waitlist form for an event

• attended a Regional Team meeting

• created an agenda for conference panel presentation

• developed slides for conference panel presentation

• co-worked with a writing friend at a cafe

• revised biography

• emailed people regarding legal documents

• started a doc to brainstorm 2026 events

• critiqued an author’s note

Sending you courage and grace in all you choose to do,

Susan