The BEST Way to Practice Writing
Writing is one of those skills that many wish they had, but very few actually practice and refine. Whether you are just writing on the side or you call yourself a professional, the best way to get better at anything is to practice consistently, so why would writing be any different?
When developing a writing practice, consistency is going to be the biggest form of resistance. If the first time you sit down to write is after reading this blog post, then what about tomorrow? Maybe you are a parent with a full-time job and time never seems to be on your side. Prioritizing time for yourself is the first way to make a habit of showing up as your best in the world. A writing practice could be the very habit that brings out the best in you.
Hack the Habit
You will find a ton of reasons why you don’t have time to write if you don’t make it part of your routine. Scheduling time to write does not remove the resistance of actually putting pen to paper. So hack the habit. Morning pages, popularized by Julia Cameron and introduced in this blog post, are meant to be a habitual writing practice. If you are unfamiliar, morning pages are three pages of longhand, stream-of-consciousness writing done every morning. To build the habit of writing for your book or your website, start by clearing your mental clutter with morning pages. You will find that since you are in the mode of writing, it is easy to just continue.
Try these Prompts
If you have been struggling with getting through all three pages, try the following prompts to get started. Interested in more prompts? Go to this blog post on prompts for morning pages. The simplest way to get through morning pages is to ask yourself the hard questions and answer with radical honesty. The following prompts were meant to insight a level of discomfort because through discomfort we learn the most about ourselves.
Prompt 1: What is one problem you have right now and what have you learned from it?
Prompt 2: Set a timer for 10 minutes. Write statements of gratitude until the timer goes off.
Prompt 3: What is something you have been avoiding? Why?
If the stream of consciousness or prompted journaling does not suit you, bullet journaling is a great way to use journaling for habit tracking. For more information on bullet journaling, click here.
Final Thoughts
The act of writing is easy. Communicating the thought or idea accurately is the hard part and to get better you must practice articulating your thoughts. Journaling is a great way to build the habit of accurately communicating what’s most important to your inner being. If you want to practice writing, start by doing it every day and the easiest way to build a habit is to incorporate it into your routine. A habit like journaling is going to require you to make better choices thus fueling your personal development. If you only have time to journal for 30 minutes in the mornings, do that instead of scrolling social media and catching up on other people’s lives.
