What I’ve Learned from a Year of Daily Writing
A few years ago I started blogging every day. Then I stopped to focus my energy on launching Praxis (so I told myself). My productivity and happiness began to lag so I started daily blogging again. Then I stopped again because I wanted to take the time to write more long-form pieces (so I told myself). My productivity and happiness began to lag again so I started again.
The first stint was six months of unbroken daily blogging. The second stint, after a six-month hiatus, was a year of unbroken daily blogging. I just started up again after less than a month off because I couldn’t stand it any longer.
A few of the more valuable things I’ve learned from the practice of daily blogging…
Selfishness
Seems like it would be impossible to have something to write every day. In fact, it almost feels arrogant to try. The voices inside began to mock, “Oh sure, everyone really wants to hear what you have to say every single day!” If I get stuck asking what everyone (or anyone) else wants I’ll never produce anything. Not happiness either.
I shut out the voices by reminding myself that I write because it changes me. I don’t write as a mission to the world or a gift to humanity or a calling card for business or to impress my wife (lord knows that doesn’t work) or to prove my point to anyone. I write for me. I write because doing so every day makes me more of the person I want to be.
Self-Knowledge
Writing for me might overcome the internal objection to posting my ideas daily, but it doesn’t solve the need for content. Every day blogging means I’ve got to have something I want to say every day. It’s not as hard as you might imagine.
I think everyone has plenty to say. Most of us just don’t know what’s in our own heads until we’re forced to get it out. How many thoughts go through your head every day? Brain researchers claim upwards of 50,000, plus all the things you dream. You make observations, form theories, develop insights, and share many of them in conversation. You just don’t know it.
Writing every day has taught me more about myself and what ideas are bouncing around in the attic of my skull than any practice I can imagine by forcing me to give them voice.
Killing the Critic
Something weird happened when I started writing every day. My capacity for lazy criticism damn-near dried up. When I read articles or watched movies I rarely found myself tossing out unbacked claims like, “That was lame”, or, “What a weak argument”.
The casual signaling of disapproval that passes for commentary is a brain-rotting, happiness-and-creativity-killing habit. I was good at it. Daily writing put wrench in my call-outs.
This happened for two reasons. First, I need content! Watching a movie I don’t like and sharing my reaction in a simple Facebook post declaring, “Meh” is like washing your hands with the last liter of water in the canteen while crossing the desert. I need fuel to feed the daily writing and my brain just processed an entire two-hour spectacle full of ideas and implications. Surely there is something in there that can be turned into a post!
The second reason the critic in me got neutered was simply perspective, or if you wish, empathy. I know what it means to create something and ship it out to the world, how many or few they may be. It’s hard. It’s brutal some days. And everything I create is not my best stuff. But the pride I feel when I churn out a post on a bad day, even if I know it’s a weak post, is amazing. When I see other people create I can’t help but internally cast a knowing nod their way. Who cares about the flaws? They’re doing something. Plus, if they’re like me, they’re probably already…
On to the Next One
I don’t have comments enabled on my blog. I don’t read the comments on Medium or other outlets where my stuff is published. I rarely read or engage Facebook comments on my articles.
Before you think I’m a total condescending jerk let me just say it’s not you, it’s me.
I have nothing against comments or commenters. I love that people want to engage some of the ideas I produce. But I’m a pretty weak-willed person in many ways. It’s hard enough to blog every day as it is, without the backward-looking draw of yesterday’s work. If I get caught up reading comments I will not be able to do it dispassionately. It’s my writing, so it’s close to me. I’ll become vested in the outcome of the conversation, which is like being vested in Sisyphus getting that boulder to stay up there.
It also runs the risk of getting me hooked on the quick dopamine hit of a “like” or positive comment, which is the beginning of the end if I want to maintain my goal of writing for me.
I’ve learned to immediately distance myself mentally from my writing the minute I click “publish”. Blog for the day is done. Great. Let’s move on. What’s on the agenda?
This practice has been so necessary for my mental health it’s hard to overemphasize it.
Not only that, when you don’t treat your writing as so precious it deserves a week of fawning after completion it frees you up to produce lots of other things and allows you to improve as a creator much faster. If I’m totally wrapped up in the fate of yesterday’s piece it will be harder for me to see its flaws and improve. Or, worse yet, I might become overwhelmed and embarrassed by its flaws and never want to write again.
Instead, I tell myself to shut up and ship it. Don’t look back, look ahead.
OK I’m done. See you tomorrow.
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Isaac Morehouse is the founder and CEO of Praxis. His company’s mission and his life mission is to help people awaken their dreams and live free.
