Splash Pond

Choose one or more of the prompts below and have fun splashing around! The more you practise self-compassion and cultivate positivity towards your writing, the stronger your writing resilience will become.

1. Keep a "resilience journal" for one week—record daily evidence of your strength and persistence.

2. Write a letter of encouragement to yourself for times when writing feels difficult.

3. Create a "past victories" list—challenges you've overcome and obstacles you've navigated.

4. Practice the "best friend test"—speak to yourself the way you'd comfort a struggling friend.

5. Design a "bounce-back ritual" for recovering from disappointing writing days.

1. Write about your current writing challenges from the perspective of yourself ten years from now.

2. Describe your biggest writing problem as if it were someone else's interesting puzzle to solve.

3. List five ways your current struggles might actually be preparing you for future success.

4. Write about what you'd tell a graduate student facing the exact same challenges you're facing.

5. Practice "zooming out"—write about your writing stress from a cosmic or historical perspective.

1. Try the "feeling weather report"—describe your writing emotions as weather that will pass.

2. Practice "emotional first aid" after difficult writing sessions—what would help you recover?

3. Write about your writing fears as if they were characters in a story you could rewrite.

4. Create a "comfort kit" of things that help you feel better after writing setbacks.

5. Practice "future self meditation"—imagine how your future self would handle current challenges.

1. Write about why your research matters using only personal, emotional language.

2. Connect your current project to your childhood dreams and interests.

3. List ten ways your writing could make life better for real people.

4. Write a "mission statement" for your writing that focuses on service rather than success.

5. Create a vision board or collage representing what you hope your writing will accomplish.

1. Brainstorm five completely different approaches to your current writing challenge.

2. Practice "plan B thinking"—what would you do if your main writing strategy stopped working?

3. Write the same idea in three different formats and see what new insights emerge.

4. Try "constraint creativity"—work within artificial limitations and notice what develops.

5. Practice "pivot exercises"—quickly shift between different aspects of your project.

Do you have a Splash Pond experiment to share? We’d love to hear about it! Email your ideas for splashing with Resilience to writespace@helensword.com.