I struggle to write these posts each week. They take me around 6 hours to research, write and edit. And each week I try to convince myself that I can skip a post. After all, nobody is forcing me to write weekly articles about things that I thought were interesting or confusing. And nobody will care if I suddenly stop.
And I procrastinate, I put off sitting down and writing. As of right now, I have delayed starting to write this post for two days. I knew what the post would be about on Tuesday, I had meant to finish the first draft on Saturday. It is Sunday night as I write this, and I have just now forced myself to start getting something down on paper.
Writing is hard. Dorothy Parker said it best, ‘I hate writing, I love having written.’ This is true for me. Finding the words to put down on paper takes effort. Making the writing a joy to read is harder still. But the most difficult part is always sitting down to start the process.
Hello Resistance
Steven Pressfield authored an extraordinary book, The War of Art. In it he describes the feeling of disquiet and apprehension artists, writers, entrepreneurs, and sportspeople wrestle with in order to do the work that matters. He calls that those moments when you would rather watch 12 episodes of anything on TV than doing creative work, resistance.
And resistance is exactly the right word for that feeling. It isn’t an overwhelming feeling of dread that you must overcome. It’s a subtle threat just below the surface. The feeling that you’re not good enough. That when you sit down to work, nothing will happen. That you are putting a huge amount into work into something that won’t deliver any value, or that you don’t have what it takes to succeed. And along with the low hum of insecurity comes an persuasive voice with a creative streak. This is the voice that will give you every idea under the sun of what you should do instead of that one thing you know you should be doing. The voice will suggest you tidy your desk, wash the dishes, watch just 30 minutes of TV, masturbate, do online shopping, or listen to music while standing in front of the mirror, dreaming you’re a rock star. That’s resistance.
And, like any resistance movement, it’s aim isn’t to overwhelm you, but to sabotage your efforts at starting, at doing the work that matters. Resistance is insidious. It deflects you from putting in the hours that will allow you to get better, to find your voice, to breakthrough a plateau, to take a chance, to change your life.
Resistance is subversive – it’s you obstructing yourself
Resistance uses your memories against you. It reminds you of all the times you tried and failed. Resistance stirs up moments where you weren’t good enough, where you thought you’d fallen short. It reminds you that all the effort won’t go anywhere. It earnestly asks you, ‘why bother?’ And then it compares you to everybody else you can think of, noting how far behind everyone else you are. How all the clever ideas have already been had. Reminding you that you’re too old, too ugly, too untalented, too slow – picking insecurities out of a top hat like an endless stream of white bunnies.
And then it gives you a solution that will allow you to avoid those negative feelings. Resistance knows your weaknesses, and it will tempt you with anything that might not make you feel that subtle sense of insecurity. It’s usually something superficial pleasure that has a dopamine kick. Go for a walk and get a coffee, check Twitter or Instagram, check your emails, watch just one YouTube clip. And when you’re suitably distracted, and you the discomfort has been deflected, you temporarily feel better, but you’re no closer to starting to write that novel, or finishing that painting, or breaking that record.
5 things I do to overcome resistance
I am not particularly good at dealing with resistance, but I know what works for me – sometimes. These five strategies help me battle that fear of sitting down and getting started.
Don’t break the chain method
This ‘method’ is incorrectly attributed to Jerry Seinfeld. Jerry in an AMA said he never actually did this doesn’t know why he was credited with inventing ‘breaking the chain’. So, as the legend goes, Jerry Seinfeld had a calendar in his apartment, and every day that he wrote a joke, he would put a red X on his calendar for that day. After a week he had a chain of X’s. The aim became to not break the chain.
Even if Jerry didn’t invent or use this strategy, it still works. And the strategy works because the goal becomes crossing off another day, and keeping the momentum going, not having to sit down and write another joke. Keeping the chain going is somehow easier than the idea of breaking the chain and having to start a new chain from scratch. We have a completion bias – a compulsion to complete tasks we’ve started.
Set easy goals
When it comes to writing I set myself a small goal each day. I have no excuse not to get my words down each night, because the hurdle I must jump over is so pathetically low. 500 words, that’s what I have to write each night. And once I’m done, I’m allowed to go to bed, read or watch TV. But not before my 500 words aren’t down.
And often, I write quite a bit more than the 500 words. But I have no expectations to go beyond the 500. Using this strategy, I have written the first draft of a novel, I’m currently 70,000 words into the second draft. I have written more than 50 posts on this site, most of which are longer than 1,000 words.
Small steps get you there.
Routine helps
This one is simple. I try to start writing at around 21:00 and finish around 22:00, 22:30 each night. I don’t have to be anywhere else. That is my writing time. My kids are asleep, and my wife knows I’m getting my words down, and I have the space to do the work.
On a side note, if you’re interested in how some of the most creative people in history divided their day to make space for their creative work – this is pretty cool.
Adopt the label
I have many lables; father, son, marketing person, awesome husband, but one of the labels I’m most proud of owning ‘writer’. And the only reason I can call myself a writer is because I write. I write every day. If I didn’t write, I wouldn’t be a writer. So, if I want to keep being a writer, I have to do that one thing – write.
Simple.
Do it because you have to
I write because I’m compelled to. I have a strange love/hate relationship with the act of writing. However, writing is something I’ve repeatedly circled back to. It keeps pulling me in. So, I’ve decided to stop fighting it.
Most entrepreneurs I know start businesses because they are unemployable. They have issues with authority and bureaucracy. They have to start businesses, there is nothing else they can do.
Many believe Edmund Hillary said, when asked why he climbed Everest, ‘because it is there’. In fact, George Leigh Mallory, said it 30 years earlier before making his failed attempt at the summit. However, the line, ‘because it is there,’ captures the sentiment. People who suffer for an outcome that seems impossibly far away, with no guarantees that they’ll make it do it because they have to. The fact that the challenge is there is enough.
Bonus hack to overcome resistance
Just do it. Sit down, shut up and get on with it. Stop reading this and get on with the thing you’re putting off doing. It is amazing how much time we spend finding things to do that are close to the thing we should be doing but aren’t quite the thing.
Every single writer I have ever met has told me, if you want to write, you actually have to write.
About a decade ago I was spending a lot of time running long distance. I was trying to get my times down and spent hours researching ways to get faster. I looked at my stride, my form, my training regime, my running shoes and nothing seemed to be helping. And then one day an instructor looked me square in the face and told me, “If you want to run faster, you have to run faster.”
Genius.