Tuesday, March 25, 2014

Ten Minutes a Day



Last year I was able to do some amazing things.  I went to a Wayne Dyer seminar in Maui, complete with a whale watching tour.  At that seminar he mentioned a writer’s workshop to be held later in the year in Denver that I also attended.  I started, for a brief while, to see and feel myself as a writer.  I had 16 chapter “preview” copies of my book made up.  I started to believe I could get it done, and I felt that my writing was improving.

The Denver workshop was in April.  The last time I wrote anything was September 15th… over six months ago.  Six months without writing anything.  I have many excuses, #1 being the NFL Football season.  It takes time to run four fantasy football teams, you know!  But it runs deeper than that.  My confidence level is pretty low when it comes to writing, which leads to procrastination.  Any time you do anything artistic and share it with the public you open yourself up to scrutiny and become vulnerable.  Making music, painting, taking photos, writing… once you throw it out there it opens you up for critique.  And I can be my own worst critic.  Sometimes doing nothing just seems easier and a body at rest tends to stay there.

I recently read an article called “The Seinfeld Strategy” by James Clear.  Mainly it caught my eye because of the Seinfeld reference, but I loved the advice held within.  Write every day, don’t be attached to the results.  Make an X on your calendar every day you write and don’t break the chain.

Right after reading that article, I read the book “I was blind but now I see” by James Altucher.  In it, he talks about setting small daily goals in four categories: emotional, mental, physical & spiritual.  He mentions the website www.TDP.me to track it daily, very similar to “The Seinfeld Strategy”.

“Writing a book” can seem like an insurmountable task.  “Write ten minutes a day” doesn’t seem that hard.  The trick is to make your goals doable.  “Work out two hours every day” might scare you into inaction & burnout, whereas “do twenty pushups a day” wouldn’t.  And once you get started you’ll often do more.  Set tasks that you feel you can realistically accomplish.

So I’m starting a new chain today – the “write ten minutes a day” chain.  I’m planning on posting whatever I write every day as well, good or bad.  The more I write, the better I’ll get.  I learned music and finance by studying, practicing, meeting with others and keeping with it over a period of years because I felt called to do it.  Now I feel pretty confident in both those areas, but there were certainly moments of self doubt at first.  The same thing will happen here.  Eventually, writing will become a habit. 


I welcome your thoughts…

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