Photo Credit: FreeWine
Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going. ~Jim Ryun
So much of our life is made up of habits. Little habits, though they may seems inconsequential, can be life-changing. If you want to be an excellent writer (no matter what type of writing you do) you must shape your habits so that they are helping you to reach your goals.
Now, the thing about habits is that they take lots of training and discipline before they become actual habits. Here is where triggers come in.
I hadn’t really thought about it before, but I was reading 10 Steps to Create the Habit of Writing over at Write to Done and Leo mentioned having a trigger as a way of getting in the habit of writing each day.
As I thought about when I write each day, it occurred to me that it is usually at night, after my children go to sleep. I think just the habit of putting them to bed (and sometimes, getting a cup of chai) settles my tired brain enough to sit and write. Anytime before then wouldn’t really work as well because I would be thinking about all that I needed to do that day. Night time is quiet and peaceful and therefore, a perfect time for my writing.
Your trigger could be anything. The idea is to find something that definitely happens everyday and then to associate writing with it. Leo compared this with his former habit of smoking upon getting up in the morning. He had to change the association by switching it to exercising when he wakes up in order to kick the smoking habit.
Habits are extremely powerful. If you begin to write whenever you wake up, or just after you put the children to sleep at night, or right when you come in from your morning jog, you will begin to build your habit of writing also. It will become just as automatic as the habit you associate it with.
However, like I said above, the key is to associate it with another habit that you do everyday without trying. Don’t begin by deciding to start exercising everyday and writing and then put them together. Chances are that you won’t stick to it. Pick something that you already do everyday, and attach it to that. So, if you already have the habit of exercising each day and if that time slot works for you, you could hook the two together. Wake up, exercise and write.
Just think about your life, your energy/creativity cycles and schedule and work with it, instead of against it.
Do you have a writing trigger? Something that helps you to know that it’s time to settle down to write?
