I was talking to a friend recently about meeting deadlines and he said something that hit home:
“Just fucking write.”
No matter what your profession that same statement is relevant. Just replace “write” with whatever it is you want to do.
If you’ve ever read War of Art by Steven Pressfield or On Writing by Stephen King (both highly recommended) you know they say the same thing. Maybe with a little more tact. ;)
Sit down with a goal in place and don’t stop writing until you reach that goal.
If that means it takes you all day, so be it. If everything’s flowing and it takes 30 minutes, great. The point is to make it happen.
If you’ve always wanted to write a novel and have dragged your ass, National Novel Writing Month is coming up in November.
Leo Babauta at Write To Done has written a great blog post detailing how to get that novel written.
What do his tips boil down to?
Just fucking write.
No matter what you want to do in life you can always make an excuse not to do it.
Instead, why not make an excuse to do it?
10 years ago I remember listening to a Robert Allen audio program and he was discussing success mindset. The difference in mindset between being successful at something and being unsuccessful is subtle.
An unsuccessful person will state “I can’t achieve X.”
If we tell ourselves something is impossible it’s going to be difficult to plow past that negative statement.
A successful person, on the other hand, asks “How can I achieve X?”
See the difference?
Declare a statement and that’s that.