3 great reasons to write regularly
There are so many good reasons to build a regular writing practice. Here are three of the biggest motivations for committing to creating your own writing habit.
If you commit to writing every day, even if it's just for ten minutes, it's as if you're keeping the door to your creativity propped open all the time. ⠀
⠀
Your writing will be top of mind for you at all times, you'll have more ideas, you'll be more aware of connections, and you'll be available for inspiration whenever it strikes. You're keeping your instrument in tune and ready to play at any time.⠀By doing this, you ensure that when you do get a longer stretch of time to write, you can make the most of that time. Otherwise, if you only find time to write once a month, even if you’re able to create a stretch of several hours that can be dedicated exclusively to writing, you may find yourself sitting there frozen with writers’ block. After all, if you wanted to take up running, you wouldn’t expect to be able to not run at all for four weeks, then run several miles in one day, then return to not running for several weeks, and then do a long trail run a month later. When we’re taking on something like running, we understand that we have to get into condition and build from a base of doing little but often. Writing is no different.
The benefit is that, when you write every day, you’ll find ideas, phrases and new connections between what you’ve already written, will pop into your head unbidden at various points throughout the rest of the day. So although you’re only specifically directing ten minutes of your time towards writing each day, those ten minutes prime you to be thinking about your writing all day long. If you pair your ten minutes a day habit with committing to capturing each new idea throughout the course of the day, by taking a quick note, you’ll be getting the benefit of your writing brain’s attention pretty much 24/7.
⠀
That's a pretty good return for ten minutes of your time every day, no?⠀For me, this is the biggest single reason to write every day, but there are a couple of others. One interesting one is that it’s a sneaky way to defeat perfectionism.
If you’re writing something short every day, you are likely to put a LOT less pressure on yourself for each individual piece to be perfect. By contrast, if you push yourself to write a single chapter (or even blog post) a month, your Inner Critic is much more likely to crush it under the weight of too many expectations.
Taking this pressure off can be surprisingly powerful. And of course, the more time you can dedicate to a regular writing practice, the more you can also build in time to review, revise and edit what you’ve already written. You can’t edit a blank page - the only real way to write anything good is to start with a shitty first draft and gradually, over time, iterate, cut and polish it until it’s infinitely better than your initial notes and half-formed thoughts.
And finally, if you write publicly - in blog posts, social media posts, newsletters etc. - one of the biggest benefits is that, over time, you build trust with your audience. ⠀
If you do what you say you're going to do, when you say you're going to do it, time after time after time, people begin to trust you. ⠀⠀
And if you're sharing your writing, you're sharing your heart and mind - so people don't just get the chance to start trusting you, they start getting to know you too. If you're building a business online, you'll know how important it is for people to know, like and trust you. Writing regularly is one of the best ways of building that trust - and unlike launches and funnels and pitching partnerships, it's gloriously simple and depends only on you.⠀Not only are you building trust with your existing audience, but by writing regularly you will build your audience (and this audience can become, over time, the author platform you need to launch your book).