#188 Predictable pathways

5 dead-simple steps to start writing – even if you’ve tried everything:

1. Set aside dedicated time tomorrow morning. From now on, this is your dedicated time every day.
2. Start with a Tiny Trust Builder; something that makes it easy for you to show up consistently. Write for one minute. Write one sentence. Write one word. If it feels hard to do every day, think smaller.
3. First build the habit, then build skill. Right now, you’re building a daily writing habit, not a “daily masterpiece” habit. That comes later.
4. If step 3 feels hard: write something bad on purpose.
5. If step 4 feels hard and you don’t feel motivated to write: write anyway. You don’t need motivation to write. You’re a writer. So you write.

Good luck!

We all have the ability to decide what’s good for us when we take the time to reflect on it.

But we also overestimate our ability to decide what’s good for us in the moment.

Which means that we all need to be saved from ourselves.

How?

By deciding in advance.

I’m going to write, because I decided in advance that that’s good for me – even if in the moment, I’d rather do something else.

I’m going to eat those vegetables, because I decided in advance that that’s good for me – even if in the moment, I’d rather eat those fries.

If you made a plan to write every day, write today.

Don’t think. Write.

Because the decision has already been made.

And now is not the time to negotiate.

To know what you’re going to write, you have to begin writing.

Similarly, to know why you’re writing, you have to begin writing.

The lure towards writing is what sets you in motion.

And so it goes for drawing. Singing. Building. Entrepreneurship. Creating. Meeting friends. Lovers. Life partners.

The act itself is what reveals both the purpose and the shape.