Crafting Your Story
New to Writing? How to Not Worry About Unimportant Things
Make Every Word Count, Not Every Worry
What kind of questions do you ask yourself when you begin a new practice or a new activity?
For example, when I started my writing journey, my internal dialogue used to be…
Why are my articles so short?
How frequently should I post?
If I write about this topic, what will people think?
Am I writing things that are trendy enough for people to enjoy reading?
How can I trick readers to read and engage more with my articles?
Have I used enough complicated words to in this article to make me look smart?
I’ve seen a similar pattern in other practices such as my daily walks, meditation and yoga practice.
At the beginning of any new practice, I’d complicate a simple process. Get bogged down and stop showing up.
Now, after 8 months of daily publishing, when I look back, I find my internal dialogue completely overhauled.
Thanks to my consistency, I know these were trivial questions.
I was asking them either because I was afraid, wanted to avoid the hard work or I was too judgemental of my own actions.
I wanted my actions, my strategies, and my processes to be perfect right from the start.
I was being unrealistic and didn’t know how to deal with such dialogues.
If you’re starting out and find yourself stuck in similar situations, here are my 2 cents👇🏾
The imaginary pressure to write a daily article dropped when I stopped writing for the sake of money or followers.
While my end goal is to earn money, I trick my brain by lying to it.
It’s a lot of work. But it’s worth it.
Just learning to manage my emotions, sitting with my craft and familiarizing myself with it, helps me ease into new habits.
It stops me from worrying about the trivial and focus on the important.
I’ve gone from struggling to write one article a day to now wanting to write 2 or even 3.
So the next time, you are ready to throw in the towel, ask yourself what’s the real reason behind it. Are you allocating a lot of energy towards trivial things?
If so, what can you do to fix it?
