Don’t Think of Writing More Articles but Focus on Creating a Writing Habit!
A lot of articles motivate you to write more articles, but I’m here to tell you to change your focus on building the habit of writing. Read this article only if you want to really write more every day.
Every day I come across at least ten articles that tell you to write more articles. There are articles that tell how much a writer earned, writing the number of articles they wrote and the number of hours they spent writing. And you end up reading so many of these and end up spending so much time reading those articles too. At the end of it, they also overwhelm you. they sometimes make you feel less as if you haven’t done enough or aren’t writing enough.
Stop spending so much time on these articles. These articles are good in the way that they motivate you to write on that day and also inform you about the level of writing that is happening around you. And perhaps the most important or most useful thing, these articles can tell you is to have a high target or goal in your mind with concerns to your writing. But rarely do they tell you how to achieve that. They will tell give you the numbers and might tell you something to motivate you. But research has shown that motivation can only help you so much after that you do need a habit of writing.
So if you are a beginner or even an amateur you try to keep up with the targets for a day or two or maybe even a week and then you lose track of it. In a way, it can be said you run out of steam. And it always starts with just one break day, a day where you have failed to write the story or article and that leads to a chain reaction.
And unless you are already a pro, you are not able to get back into the same rhythm. And then one day you read those articles again and once again you have fueled yourself up and you try to attempt the near-impossible feats.
Very few of the writers who attempt the challenges succeed. because writing is a serious business. It requires tremendous willpower for someone who has never attempted it before and the failure to do so can be demotivating.
It becomes a sort of cycle for many people and why it’s not good for you is because it creates a habit of dropping things midway.
But all of this is bound to happen and hence even if you have failed in some of these challenges then firstly I’m here to tell you that it’s okay. And now it’s time to break that cycle and try a different approach.
I will compare this to a situation where a high school basketball player who plays basketball at the school level is thrown into a game of NBA. The poor chap is so tired by the first quarter that he doesn’t have the energy or muscle or stamina to help him support throughout the game. This is bound to happen because he is not in habit of playing such intense games.
The player needs to be conditioned and in good physical shape and have the stamina to be able to play in those games. and once he has become a pro then even if gets injured he is still able to brave through the game.
I have failed at these writing challenges too and it used to bother me until I saw what I was doing wrong. Writing an article every day say for 100 days first required me to sit and write for 100 days. If I had not done this before it was going to be very challenging for me and that’s exactly what happened to me. On top of that, I used to deride myself for failing to do so like many of you must have done as well.
But then luckily, I had a moment of epiphany and I said to myself how do I expect to write for hours every day if I don’t even have the habit of writing every day for a few minutes.
So I changed my focus and first I created the habit of writing. The point was to simply sit and write.
My focus has since then been not to produce articles or stories but simply to sit and write. My focus is to create a habit of writing for long hours. My habit is to write every day. My habit it to just show up and put words on paper, whether they make sense or not is purely secondary.
This is a game plan that has been working for me. And it has allowed me to write with a certain ease and has also nourished my creativity. It also gives me a sense of accomplishment of writing something every day. and most importantly there is no pressure.
Its about removing the ‘have to’s and replacing them with ‘want to’s.
Whenever there is a ‘have to’ involved then it becomes a task and that takes the fun out of things. All these challenges turn into a ‘have to’ at some point. The reason I write is that I love to share and I have something to say and I want to express that to a lot of people. So when I nurture my want I flow freely and come up with things and ideas that make sense to me.
Now even before I sat down to write this article I wrote for an hour. I wrote about random things and I also wrote some new ideas and then it occurred to me that I should write an article about how this focus on building a habit of writing changed me and made me more productive.
I have nothing against the writing challenges, they are fun only when you are capable of doing them. So now they are fun because I have the habit of writing. It's like playing Ice Hockey. If you can’t skate properly you can’t be good at ice hockey. Being a good skater just makes it easier and more fun to play ice hockey. So learn to skate well before you get down to play ice hockey.
Summary -
- Don’t spend too many articles on productivity, instead invest that time in building your habit of writing.
- Focus on building a writing habit.
- Start with a few minutes, but do it every day.
- Turn the “have to” into “want to”.
Read a book.
Read a little.
Read every day.
Then Write about it.
