The Power of a Daily Writing Habit
I have always been amazed by those people who can consistently turn out high-quality content to their readers that is thoughtful, engaging, and always has a few insights that make the article invaluable.
For myself, I move between a lush and abundant jungle of ideas and a barren desert with miles and miles of nothing. This constant see-sawing has often left me frustrated and even more so when I read posts by people who are touting the benefits of smashing keys and just embracing the journey. In my less charitable moments, I could be found at my computer yelling, “of course, if I want to write crap! But you’re not writing crap, are you?” (Not one of my better moments, but indicates the level of frustration I had reached.)
Come to find out, they are right. If you want to maintain a flow of ideas, to train your brain to look for writing ideas in everything you encounter, you have to write every day.
You also have to embrace the idea that not everything that comes off your fingertips is going to be dripping with insight. You have to embrace the fact that you are looking sometimes for nothing more than progress. You have to embrace that not everything will be perfectly baked and constructed. That by having your thoughts down on paper, you invite the reader to see a little bit more of who you are and better yet, invite a bit of themselves into the story.
When I started writing years and years ago (and mostly to myself and my trash can), I would come up with brilliant ideas that in the writing process would become overcooked mush that I couldn’t bear to share. So into the trash can they would go along with the other seemingly random ideas that had crossed my mind.
Then an interesting thing started to happen. Those “random” ideas were ideas that I was starting to read about. Ideas that were gaining momentum and validation. Ideas that I could have put my own personal flair too but was too scared to do.
So when I committed to making writing a habit to more than just my beloved journal, I committed to writing every day here on Medium about whatever struck my fancy. It could be from a research article that I read from work, a book I was reading, or a conversation I had. It didn’t matter. The goal was just to write and write often.
Central to the writing habit is that you have to not care what others think of your writing. Your goal here is not to show up for them, but to show up for yourself. To show yourself that yes, you can commit to something that your heart desires so deeply, that your fingertips literally tingle from when you think of writing those previous words.
For a person who has a Ph.D. in people-pleasing, this was probably one of the hardest things to overcome. To not care about other’s opinions of my writing felt like sacrilege and I often imagined the pagan goddess of writing lighting my keyboard on fire for daring to even think about writing something that wasn’t going to be amazing, deep, profound, and a game-changer for anyone who read it.
A month later, I am building a strong habit of daily writing. Even on days when I am exhausted from a long day of work (like today), the pull of opening up a new story and writing about an idea that comes to mind is irresistible. It is just something I have to do or otherwise, I don’t feel I can go to sleep.
Committing to writing every day has also had an interesting side benefit. It has gotten me out of my own way and removed barriers that I would have otherwise thrown in my way — having the perfect tools, templates, approaches. A range of barriers that I didn’t need to start writing, but justified me not writing.
Now I am finally at that point where I can adopt strategies that will further enhance my writing, not act as a roadblock. I can also further evolve my writing habit and in ways that aren’t going to be overwhelming. I won’t have to be fighting to try and write consistently AND learn how to set up my blog AND use a technique that is new. I can just take the small, daily baby step of writing.
