Getting back into the habit of things is significantly on my mind of late as I try to restart writing after 6 months off. I ended the month with nearly 15,000 words, which is pretty good for a cold start, considering I didn’t really write the first week of August and it’s been as aforementioned 6 months of no writing at all – not to mention the fact that I had covid in there too, and am still having to spend significant portions of each week napping as I sloooooowwwwwllyyyyyyyyyyyyy* recover from chronic burnout.
* Patience may be a virtue but it’s my least favourite one 😛
I was chatting to someone last week though about writing, and they were talking about how hard it is to get motivated sometimes, even though it’s a thing they really want to do, and I was like YEP. THIS IS A THING.
It’s so much a Thing, in fact, that one of the two sentences I have in the back of my diary on the same page as where I colour in my little “I wrote for 15 minutes” boxes is, “The more we need something, the more resistance you’re doing to feel.”
I don’t mean ‘resistance’ as in that morally icky feeling you get when you’re doing something you know you shouldn’t be, or the ‘urgh I have to do this but I get no joy from doing so’ kind of feeling that comes with doing the Regular Chores Of Humanning.
I mean like the whole, I REALLY REALLY REALLY WANT TO DO THIS THING AAAANNNNNNDDDD oh look somehow I just spent three hours NOT doing the thing. >.<
To some extent I think this is just a Thing People With ADHD Live With (it’s called executive dysfunction, fwiw) but ALSO I think it’s something that EVERYONE experiences at least to some degree.
It’s worse for me when I’m tired, and sometimes I just have to let go of the desire to DO THE THING and acknowledge that my brain needs rest. (It’s harder to be creative when you’re exhausted, which is why Self Actualisation is at the top of the needs hierarchy, something you can really only concern yourself with once your basis needs for food, shelter, water, rest, companionship, belonging are met – which is why the mythos of the Tortured Artiste is garbage.)
BUT ALSO sometimes there is just… inherent resistance. Like the quote says, sometimes there’s just this tangible force you have to push through when it’s something you’re called to do. Like, people hear ‘calling’ and are like OH THAT MUST BE THE THING THAT COMES EASIEST when actually nope, not necessarily the case at all.
IDK. It fits with my worldview to say that, if there is a Thing or Things you are Called to do, then there is also a force that is invested in making sure you Don’t Do The Thing/s.
The only thing that works for me is clear and sustained visualisation, the kind used by top athletes to improve their game. Why do I want to do this thing? Where will it get me in the long term? What does that look like? Feel like? How will I feel if I DON’T do the thing? How will I feel if I do?
There’s been research published to show that we think of our future selves the same way we think of other people – someone distinct to our current present self, a different person, an Other. So I find that the more I sink into that visualisation, particularly the feeling aspect, if I can actually catch a corner of the specific feeling somewhere in my body whether that’s the negative or positive, that helps. It reminds me why it’s worth pushing through the small, specific annoyance of having to Start The Thing *now*, because – in my case – it will allow me to avoid a whole *bunch* of annoyances in the future.
My life will feel better the more I write, in very tangible ways, so I have to overcome the annoyance and inertia of not writing every time I sit down to write (every dang time, I resent this so much) if I want that future benefit. Imagining that future benefit in vivid detail helps.
…And on a more prosaic level, imagining how I’m going to feel in the morning having to get up at 6:30am for an early morning Day Job Thing makes it a lot more motivating to actually pack up and go to bed for the night now, at 10pm, even though I’d much rather stay up another hour and chill :’D
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