#444 You could – but you don’t have to

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!

The trick to successful habit-building: make daily practice easy.

We often do the opposite: we make weekly practice hard.

If I tell myself I’m going to post one long blog post every week, I’ll find a million reasons not to write for the first six days until I have no choice but to write.

But if I tell myself I will post daily, the longest I can procrastinate is… 12 hours?

And after a week, I’ve practiced my publishing habit 7 times.

So it goes for meditation, yoga, running, and any skill or habit.

Make the daily practice easy.

Experience can make you better at performing an activity but also blind you from what you could do differently (and better).

Sometimes, the only way to innovate, see, and be free, is to take your experience goggles off.

When the best story in the world has already been written… why do I write?

Because writing is not a choice – and neither is telling stories.

Because stories are never finished.

Because the best stories in the world are written over and over again.

Because a story well-told depends on who you’re telling it to.

Because we all tell the same stories anyway, but that one little change, that one new interpretation can make the difference between touching someone or missing the mark.

But what IS the best story in the world?

I don’t know.

I do know they don’t have to be very elaborate to have impact:

For sale: baby shoes, never worn.

Ernest Hemingway

When someone, sometime, stumbled upon six words that can evoke so much… How can I NOT continue my own search for stories and the words to tell them?

P.S.: Credits to Jony Mitchell for writing the best song in the world.

P.P.S: Extra credits for singing the most heartfelt version even after suffering a stroke and having to relearn to talk and sing.

P.P.P.S.: Credits to The Tallest Man on Earth for showing that a new interpretation can make even the best song in the world reach new heights, and providing the inspiration for this post.