Day 15: 30 day Mid-point Check-In
I've been finding it really hard to build a consistent writing habit. I enjoy writing, and it's always been a part of my life in some capacity. In a professional sense, writing comms, proposals, documents and ghost-writing leadership emails have always been part of my roles. In a creative and cathartic sense, writing creative stories, articles and novels have always been a way for me to wind down and process my thoughts. Upon leaving my corporate role to focus on creative writing (especially when it became crunch time to complete and edit a novel I've been chipping away at for 2 years) the mole-hills became mountains and I was unable to move the needle.
My confidence waned, I filled my time with other pursuits. I worried about finances and made plans to secure income and jobs for the future. I didn't give myself a chance to dive into the creative space by being more disciplined and committing to a stricter daily schedule. I allowed myself to write when I felt 'inspired', when I was 'in the mood' and when I felt the urgency of making progress. I fell into the trap of approaching the work like a nice-to-do. While it is definitely nice to do, I've been missing the opportunity to ship more work by failing to make dedicated time for it.
So in order to attempt to build a consistent habit and overcome the barriers caused by mood, motivation and schedules, I committed myself to a 30 day writing challenge. The goal is to write and post a piece of writing on any topic for 30 days.
Why 30 days of writing?
These are the mental factors I wanted to overcome
Reason #1: Overcome perfectionism. I write a variety of things on a daily basis. Descriptions and scenes from my day, descriptions of my favourite foods, memories from my childhood and short stories describing characters of my imagination. I deconstruct books and podcasts that I've finished. Many of these words never saw the light of day (or glow of the net), because I deem them not "good enough", or don't finish them.
Reason #2: Overcome fear of judgement. Similar to the first reason, I don't always know what I want to write about, and if it will be well received. So to avoid the pressure of making a decision, I let my fear of judgement stop me from posting something online. I realised the stakes are low, so it's okay for me to write about mindfulness one day, and my pet peeves the next. I'm learning to find and respect my voice.
Reason #3: Organise my thoughts. When I wasn't prioritising the work of writing, and being disciplined about posting one complete article a day, I would start pieces and stop. This left me with a lot of incomplete pieces which I'd tell myself "I'd come back to later". I never did and it's taught me to just do it then and there.
To wrestle these self limiting thoughts, I put together some parameters for these 30 days.
Non negotiable 2 hour daily writing time
Post one item daily
Edit less; Just write and review at the end
Just post it!
Each day I can feel the resistance to work becoming less. Whether it's helping me to build a habit, I'm not sure. However the consistency and structure of having this goal gives me some peace of mind and it's allowing me to explore different types of writing and topics.
I think it'll be a while before I come to any sort of solid conclusion, but I would love to hear how others overcome challenges to their goals and creative pursuits.
