My 3-Step Process to Keep Writing When I’m Stressed Out (Works Every Time)
On a deadline? Struggling with revision? Ready to give up?
I hear you.
It is SO easy to just take a weensy break, maybe check email, the day’s almost over anyway, and I can start fresh again in the morning. But no — I am a professional writer, and my livelihood depends on getting the work done.
So I step back, de-stress, and continue working with this 3-step method.
Step 1: Surrender to guidance.
I have no religious affiliation, but I learned long ago to surrender to guidance from that which is greater than me.
And it is such a relief. I don’t have to take this burden on myself. I am not in control. I am only struggling to create an illusion to control.
But however much I try to control my work, the ultimate outcome is not decided by me. I don’t have to pray or meditate — although sometimes I do both.
I simply change my mindset.
It’s that easy. I flip the switch from transmit to receive. I think to myself: I surrender to guidance. What is my next step here?
Step 2: Physically step away.
Then I stand up and go outside, or I just walk into the next room.
This is not a break. This is not giving up. But I do completely step away from the writing and do some small errand. Something that requires a physical change in location.
Countless times I’ve been stuck on a turn of phrase or a new idea, and as soon as I walk downstairs for a snack or outside to the mailbox — BAM — the idea pops in my head and I’m running back to the computer.
Step 3: Say, “This is good enough to be getting on with.”
This became my mantra years ago. There are more stately ones: Perfect is the enemy of good. Progress, not perfection. But they all boil down to the same idea: Perfection is an illusion.
Too often I create my own stress by obsessing over the same few lines, trying to make them better, trying to make them perfect.
After steps 1 and 2, after I’ve surrendered control of the outcome, after I’ve physically stood up and changed my physical environment, I come back to what I’ve written, what I’ve probably rewritten hundreds of times, and I say to myself:
“This is good enough to be getting on with.”
And then I get on with it.
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