What I've Learned After Writing for One Month
/Today marks the end of my first full month in this 2022 Writing Challenge of blogging everyday! I thought I'd celebrate by sharing 10 things I’ve learned from consistently writing for one month.
I started the month determined to maintain this commitment. No excuse would keep me from fulfilling my goal of hitting 'publish' everyday. I've started many self-imposed challenges and failed to maintain them, but I decided that was the past and that I CAN do this. So far so good.
Setting the bar low doesn't mean I won't go past it. When I set out to write everyday I knew I needed clear guidelines and a low bar. That way, if (and more likely, when) challenges arose that might cause me to say, "Ah, this is too much work for me to get done today," I'd already have an excuse not to fall into that trap. So I told myself that I could hit ‘publish’ with only three things: A title, one sentence minimum for the blog itself, and a picture that could or could not be related to the subject of the blog. However, brevity is not my strong suit. I may challenge myself later by giving myself a word count limit. But for now I'm gonna ride this train of verbosity and see where it takes me.
It's much easier to write (and edit) in the morning. My typical process is spending 30-60 minutes on writing, editing, and posting every day, and most often it occurs before 11am. On days where I've found myself writing in the afternoon, it is much harder to complete. Some days I've written the draft in the morning but don't edit or post until the afternoon and that I find even more challenging.
I have no shortage of ideas. One of the truths about creativity is that "there's always more where that came from." One of my intentions with this project is to prove to myself that all those times I've told myself, "I just don't have anything to write about," I was actually blocking myself from creating out of fear that it wouldn't be "good." After a month of consistently writing, I'm able to see that there's always something to write about. Now that I have a place to capture them, ideas come to me daily.
Reusing content is my friend. I've created so much in the past, that in a pinch, I can build on something I wrote or created before. The cool part is, hardly anyone notices. I love when people I follow re-post good content because I've often either missed it, forgotten about it, or get something new out of it.
Having a system for completing this task each day is essential. My process is a simple one that works for me. I start my day with writing some pages by hand. I'm a big fan of morning pages as outlines in The Artist's Way and have done those religiously for many years. I usually don't write the blog there, but it clears my head and helps me to start my day. Then I open 750words.com and type. I usually have some topic that I've picked out the night before, but other times, I get inspired by something I experienced in the morning, like with this post. If I can make the post short enough, I'll sometimes write two posts in one day. I'll then copy the text into a draft blog post and edit in the blog itself. I either find a picture on my phone or take one, upload it and then hit publish. For accountability, I'll post it in my stories on Instagram and sometimes write about it in a post on the platform. After 30 days, I've got the flow down!
There's such a great reward in seeing myself maintain my commitment. At the yoga studio I practice at they've been running a challenge since January. Every time I take a class, I get to put a sticker next to my name on the wall. It's this little hit of dopamine that my brain just loves. It's the same for me when I hit ‘publish’ everyday and put the blog out into the world. I've started to gain more confidence in myself and damn that feels good.
Goal-reaching is contagious. Maintaining this commitment has helped me to maintain other commitments, too. As I mentioned above, I've been also doing a daily yoga practice (which I've done everyday since January, with the understandable exception of the day I had to go to the emergency vet). Another commitment I made this year is to be sober. I committed to "Dry January" and I'm ready to keep it up for February, too. Seeing myself keep this commitment has given me the strength to do what for years I felt impossible.
Clarity on the goal (and why) is key. Though I have a multi-step process of writing on 750words.com (which has this neat bar at the top where you can see your streaks), I'm clear that if that doesn't happen, I haven't broken my writing challenge. The challenge is to post a blog everyday. So if I don't keep my streak on 750words.com or post about it on Instagram, it's okay. I only need to publish a blog, with a title, a sentence, and a picture. Knowing that helps me to show up. I'm also clear about why I'm doing this. I want to improve my writing and editing skills and I want to inspire other people to live their lives on the upward spiral. Of course it's nice to get engagement, of course I'd love for it to lead to things like a book deal or an interview on a podcast, but that's not why I'm doing it. I try to remember that why every time I write because it fuels my fire to get it done.
Things only get done when time is set aside for them. Scheduling is a game-changer. I know every evening when in my day I'm going to write this blog and I structure my mornings around it. Instead of having to find the time to write, I create the time to write.
Completion is more important than quality. Again, my goal is to publish a blog, not publish a “good” blog. returning back to that clarity is one thing that keeps me going.
I’d love to know:
Are there any personal challenges that you are committed to or would like to commit to?
Which of these learnings above could help you, and how?
I always love hearing about your journey and what you’ve been learning too!
