‘There’s a secret that real writers know that wannabe writers don’t, and the secret is this: It’s not the writing part that’s hard. What’s hard is sitting down to write. What keeps us from sitting down is Resistance.’ The War of Art – Steven Pressfield.
I’m re-reading Steven Pressfield’s ‘The War of Art‘ and I’ve decided to bring a halt to all those things in my creative life that could readily be described as ‘resistance’.
At the beginning of the book, he describes his daily routine. It begins fairly gently and includes all the usual morning ‘habits’: shower, breakfast, sometimes phone calls. Surprisingly, he even reads the paper.
He describes several ‘lucky’ and sentimental items that surround him in his workspace and then around ten-thirty he begins.
The question of how much he has produced or whether or not it’s any good he shrugs off.
‘All that counts is that, for this day, for this session, I have overcome Resistance.’
In my work as a therapist, I spend quite a bit of time explaining to clients the power of negative habits and patterns. I also touch on the power of affirmations: (positive statements re-worked from negative beliefs and repeated).
And so I know this. I am very aware of the power of repetition for good as well as ill.
I am therefore determined to break some of my familiar habits/patterns which, on examination, are definitely a block to my creativity.
In their place I shall devise some more productive habits/patterns which, once established, will serve me in a more positive fashion and support my writing efforts.
This morning, for example. I had ‘planned’ to do a supermarket shop. This is a necessary but uninspiring task which I now undertake every two weeks or so.
All that it requires is a shopping list and under two hours of my time.
I imagine my thought process in scheduling it first thing in the day was to ‘get it out of the way’ as I derive no pleasure from shopping – of any kind.
The morning, when I feel refreshed (if I’ve managed to get a decent night’s sleep – more of this later!) is by far the best time of day for my writing.
I am not Steven Pressfield and so his schedule may not work for me but, I can and intend to, create my own.
I work from home as a therapist and so I will need to make my plan around this work.
It may need to be slightly revised from week to week but that doesn’t matter.
Sunday evenings I shall consult my diary for the week ahead and create my plan.
There, I have a plan.