#384 Why you don’t need a how-to program

You don’t need a better system, a habit, or even motivation to write today day.

If deep down you now you want to be a writer, you just need to show up and write today.

If you do that often enough, the habit, the system, and the motivation will come.

835 days ago, I started writing three pages of stream-of-consciousness journaling every day.

It’s my one habit where I haven’t missed a single day, but not because I’m afraid I would quit if I skipped a day (I’ve built up enough self-trust and elastic discipline by now).

Not because I derive so much creative and therapeutic benefit from it either (I do, but skipping a day here and there wouldn’t diminish that benefit).

None of that would warrant my hardliner habit approach to journaling, my friend. You know I’m more of an elastic discipline guy.

The real reason I never miss a journaling day is that it was the first habit I ever managed to stick to consistently.

Because of that, it reminds me that I can change my beliefs, habits, and identity, no matter how hard it seems.

It reminds me that, on that momentous day in 2021, my identity started shifting from eternal quitter to consistent go-getter.

It reminds me that actions overrule thoughts.

In other words: Journaling daily has become a beacon of self-trust.

And I’ll be eternally grateful for the day I decided to take a pen and put it on the paper.

I hope you have such a beacon of self-trust in your life.

And if not, I hope you’ll find or create one soon.

P.S. Maybe you already have a beacon of trust, but you’re not aware of it.

After all, the specific activity doesn’t matter.

You could go for a walk every day. Play the guitar. Learn a new phrase in a new language. Do one pushup.

Anything that reminds you of the fact that you, too, can do things aligned with who you want to be.

P.P.S I’m curious… If you have a beacon of self-trust, what is it? Let me know by replying to this Insight!

If writing and creating every day were as vital to my survival as drinking water, ingesting food, and bonding… What would life look like?

Biologically, all behavior is driven by pain, pleasure, and the triggers and habits that come from repeated reaction to those stimuli.

So I eat because I want to escape the pain of hunger – or heartbreak, sadness, and frustration.

I connect with others because I’m neurologically hardwired to feel pleasure when bonding… and pain and deprivation when I’m abandoned.

Similarly, I write because I want to escape the frustration of not being able to put into words an insight.

I also write because I enjoy the rush resulting from finding the words that convey what I want to say.

I write because I love the tingling in my back and neck when I combine those words into sentences with just the right rhythm, just the right cadence capturing the meaning, context, emotion of what I want to say…

I write because writing wrests the essence from the whirlwind of thoughts and emotions racing through my mind and body.

I write because when when I write, I feel that at last, I can make sense of life.

And the more meaning I find, the more likely I am to write.