Spring may have not started blossoming where you are but in central Florida, a beautiful new green covers the landscape, signaling the end  of a season and the start of vibrant life again.

It’s also the time year when Florida farmers plant seeds for the first of at least two harvests each year. If they don’t spring into action, they’ll spend the harvest season eating fast food. This month, we’re going to spring into action as well, beginning today by planting seeds. No, not the ones that grow cucumbers and corn, but rather seeds that grow your success emotionally and as a writer.

I’m writing this blog post from the MBT Deep Thinkers Retreat in beautiful Destin, FL. Writers from all over the country have descended upon a house two blocks from the ocean in order to plant their own seeds of writing success.  Here we laugh and cry, rejoice and share victories. It’s been a great time.

As I sit scanning a room full of novelists cramming every bit of useful information into their already overflowing craniums, I realize that a few farming principles might be applied to these writers… and you.

1)   You only reap IF you plant seeds of success in your life.

These writers allowed Susie and Rachel to plow up the fallow ground of their stories. Then each one of them planted seeds that will one day produce the fruit of their labor. They’re planning for success when they could have easily have stayed home and watched TV movies.

2)   You only reap WHAT you plant.

If a farmer plants apple seeds, he’s not going to harvest yellow squash. It’s the same with you. You can’t get to where you want to go in life by planting seeds of non-success. Seeds like doubt, insecurity and inhibition planted in the soil of your soul will absolutely NOT produce success in your life.

3)   You only reap AFTER you plant.

It’s absolutely impossible to harvest a crop before you plant the seeds. Those seeds have to germinate and grow. Only then can you harvest the fruit of your labor. When farmers plow up the ground and plant seeds, they go outside the next morning to find what appears nothing has happened. The next day is more of the same… dirt. Finally, one morning the farmer gets up, goes outside and his entire field is green. Beautiful, healthy new life stretches upward toward the sun. Did that happen over night? Of course not, but if the farmer didn’t know things were happening under the surface, he may think it did happen in one twelve-hour period.

It’s the same with your writing and for every dream you have in life. You need to plant seeds. The soil of your emotions may be a bit depleted or perhaps fallow. So plow up that fallow ground so you can have rich soil to plant your seeds. That’s the important first step to living your dream.

Invest in yourself. Take the time to remove the rocks and emotional debris so that the seeds will fall in fertile ground. Next week we’ll discuss the next step.

So, how does your ground look? Are you planting seeds? Email me and let me know. I’d love to hear from you at reba@mybooktherapy.com.

Reba J. Hoffman is the MBT Member Care Coach. She has a PhD in clinical counseling and is the founder and president of New Hope Institute of Counseling. Reba uses her gift of encouragement to help writers overcome negative emotions so they can live their dream of being a writer. Her works appear in publications such as Running for the Woman’s Soul by Road Runner Sports and The Good Fight by Donna Hicken. She is the author of My Book Therapy’s Dare to Dream, a Writer’s Journal.