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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