(Personal Note- I have borrowed this post from a website called Write to Done-you can visit it for more daily writing articles at (http://www.writetodone.com)
Stay tuned for more writing by me, coming soon!
Posted: 04 May
2012 04:00 AM PDT
You know the
deal: If you want to get better at writing, you need to write.
Preferably daily.
Preferably at the same time every day.
But uuuuuugh.
What if you’re just not motivated to write every day? What if you can’t
discipline yourself? What if you tried for a few days then completely ran out
of juice and sat around eating cookies instead?
Every writer
struggles with this. “I just don’t have any motivation today,” we say, all sad
and desolate, as if we’d completely run out and had no idea where to get more.
This may be
because we don’t stock up properly.
Motivation doesn’t
come from within. It comes from your secret stash.
What Do You Get
Out Of It?
I was reading a
book on how to develop habits, and one critical point caught my eye. This book
argues that one of the reasons we fail to develop “good” habits and keep up our
“bad” ones is because our bad habits offer us a better reward.
Here’s an
example: Let’s say you decide you need more physical exercise every day (a good
habit) and want to quit eating junk food (a bad habit).
It’s easier to
start exercising every day if you pick the same time to do it. You decide you’re
going to go for a run at 7:00 am every morning. No excuses.
Meanwhile, you
decide that you’re going to get rid of all your chips and stock up on healthy
carrot sticks instead. Now you won’t be tempted.
Fantastic, right?
But after a few
days, you have a rotten day at work and you sleep poorly. You wake up with a
bit of a headache, and your shins hurt from those three days of diligent
running. You’re tired. Cranky. Meh.
Anyone who’s ever
tried to rejigger their health habits knows what happens next: You skip your
run and somewhere around noon, you find yourself at the snack machine pounding
at the glass to make that Snickers bar drop down.
What went wrong?
Eating junk food
(your bad habit) is rewarding. You get a tasty rush of sugar. You feel
satisfied. You feel content. You were stressed out, you got some good stuff,
and now you feel better.
Running (your good
habit) didn’t come with a reward. You got up early, you ran, you worked hard
that day, and then you . . . come home, take a shower, sleep, and do it all the
next day.
Where’s the fun
in that?
We tell ourselves
that there IS a reward for running – in a few months, we’ll be in better shape.
But honestly, that’s not much good. We need motivation so we act NOW.
Which brings us
back to writing.
What’s Missing
From Your Daily Writing?
You have a
long-term goal for your writing. For many of you reading this blog, you want to
have your novel published one day. For some of you, you just might want to
finish that book. Whatever your motivation, it’s long-term motivation.
It’s not
something you can accomplish in a day of writing.
Since that’s the
case, your mind starts wondering why it’s doing this daily writing thing. It’s
hard. It’s tiring. Some days, it’s grueling – a real chore you’re starting to
hate. And it doesn’t seem to have any immediate reward.
You’re just going
to keep doing this painful daily writing forever and never going to get
anything out of it.
That’s lousy
motivation.
Long-term goals
are great, and you should keep moving toward them. The ultimate reward of
achieving your dream is going to be amazing.
But right now,
you’re not sitting down to write a whole book. You’re sitting down to write for
an hour. One hour. That’s it. And you need a reward for doing that.
You need
motivation. Here’s the problem:
Your Motivation
Isn’t Internal.
Motivation isn’t
some magic force that you either have one day or you don’t. You provide
yourself with motivation.
People often make
the mistake of thinking motivation is inherent in the act – if we write, we’ll
feel good. That’s true to a degree, but while it feels satisfying to write, it’s
also difficult do do every day.
And many days,
the satisfaction of having written that day is just too intangible a motivation
to convince you to sit down and write the next and the next and the next.
So give yourself
a motivation you can touch.
Your motivation
can be small, and it should be intensely personal. Let’s say that you enjoy
fine wine. After you write (not during; after), pour yourself a glass of the
good stuff. Not that boxed stuff on top of the fridge; that’s just disgusting.
This is special,
just-for-you, reward-for-writing wine.
Not a drinker? (I
suppose some writers aren’t…) Alright. Maybe you fancy a truffle from that
chocolate place you don’t often indulge in because come on, what do you need
with fancy chocolate?
Maybe your motivation
is a walk in the cool night air, all by yourself. Maybe it’s freshly-squeezed
orange juice. Maybe it’s an episode of your favorite TV show.
It’s anything you
want it to be.
Well, okay.
Within reason. There are a few rules:
The Motivation
Reward Rules
There are only
three rules for your motivation:
1.
It
has to be personal. If
this isn’t something you really want, you won’t want to work for it. Don’t
decide to do the glass of wine if you could care less about the glass of wine.
Choose a reward that works for you, something you really desire,
guilt-free.
2.
It
has to be something you can enjoy immediately after writing. This is crucial, because you want to attach your reward
firmly to your effort and build association. Your mind will subconsciously connect
those two together. It’ll start thinking, “Well, I don’t want to write, but I
really do want to go watch the next episode of House, so let’s get this over
with.”
3.
It
has to be something you won’t do otherwise.
If you make your reward something you indulge in all the time, it won’t be
special. It won’t be a motivator. Sure, you could have that fine glass of
Shiraz after you write – or you could have a glass without writing, just like
you did yesterday. Useless. Your reward can be something you used to do
intermittently, but once you decide on it as a reward, don’t do it at any other
time than post-writing.
That’s it.
Here’s the
interesting part: After you’ve used this reward motivator technique for a
couple of months, your mind will automatically associate writing in the “good”
part of your brain rather than the “painful, dreary, daily slogging to be
avoided” part.
That means you’ll
start getting the impulse to write even when you know perfectly well it’s not
possible to have the reward. Even when you’re out of wine or it’s raining too
hard to go for a walk, you’ll still feel motivated, because your mind won’t be
thinking of writing as difficult.
It’ll think of
writing as rewarding.
Which is all the
motivation you need.
So tell me: What
do you think your motivation will be? What small thing can you give yourself as
a reward for writing? And if you already use this technique, what reward works
for you?
Preferring a lovely glass of fine
Shiraz for her after-writing reward, James Chartrand of Men with Pens
devotes her time to teaching students at Damn Fine Words, the best online
writing course for business owners yet. Get on the newsletter today!
