The Week Ahead
What do you let get in the way of doing what you really want? Maybe you tell yourself you're too young to make a difference or too old to make time, too settled to make a change or too spontaneous to make plans. Whatever it is, it's probably a story you could tell in an exciting new way. What if you wrote your own major plot twist? What if you got to write the next chapter yourself? How would you outline that narrative arc?
Perfect Running Weather
One thing you may not know about me is I lost about 100 pounds just over 10 years ago. It took almost two years and a fun combination of completely overhauling my diet and becoming a runner from scratch.
I was late to running. I wasn't an athletic kid (I was a reader and a band nerd, you do the math). I felt like there was so much I didn't know; about distance, and speed work, strength-training, even what to wear for a race.
What's funny is nobody ever asks me about any of that. But everyone asks me how I found the motivation to start, and to stick with it.
Honestly? I think we over-index on motivation. Sure, it helps to have a strong spur to your goals. Me, I wanted to get fit. That was what motivated me, at the start.
It's not hard to feel motivated to do something new. We all, at some point, want to be something better than we are.
For me, the miracle happened when I stopped asking myself if I was motivated to run on any given day. I was just trying to start a new habit, that's all. And for that, you don't need motivation. You need repetition.
I felt such utter relief when I realized that. I always used to feel so bad about myself, like there was something wrong with me that I didn't feel all perky and motivated every day.
Once I absolved myself of the need to feel motivated all the time, I found it was much easier to just do the thing. What a relief.
Running and Writing
This was about the same time I started taking myself seriously as a writer. It's when I finally committed to investing in it as a craft.
Oh, I'd been writing for most of my life. Like many of us, I'd found that writing fairly decently wasn't that hard. And I got away with that approach for a really long time.
Then I realized that I wanted to get good at it. I wanted to build that muscle, invest in that skill. I wanted to get fit as a writer.
So it should be no surprise that I approach writing and running in much the same way.
Discipline Eats Motivation For Breakfast
In both cases, I found that mere motivation wasn't enough. It's important! Vital, even. It's what gets me started. But it doesn't get me much further than that.
I think that's why so many writers bang on endlessly about sitting down to write at the same time every day, of setting a daily word count, and other annoying things like that.
Those are all just ways we trick ourselves into building a habit. Whether it's writing or running, it's the doing that matters. Because motivation will (guaranteed) fade.
The trick is to just accept that and move on. When I'm scheduled for a run and I don't feel like it — which happens all the time, mind you — I'll notice that fact. But I can't let it decide my next step.
Whether or not I feel like it just isn't material. It's data. It's an input. But it's not the deciding fact.
For me, it's the weather that makes me not want to run. Oh, it's too cold. Too windy. Too hot. Too dry. Any one of those would be enough to keep me on the couch.
So I've learned to look out the window and no matter what I see out there, say:
Look at that! Perfect running weather.
Because it usually is. Hey, I'm no hero. If it's actually raining or snowing, or below freezing, I won't force it. Then it's:
Look at that! Perfect treadmill weather.
Eventually, I started to believe it was true. Because when you're trying to build a new habit, the conditions are perfect. The right time is right now.
I put my runs on my calendar and I treat them as important, not optional. I put time for writing on my calendar and view it the same way. I'm not perfect. I don't make every date. But I make a lot of them.
And just like with running, I think I can over-index on the technical stuff. What should I write about? How long should it be? Should I follow this or that narrative framework? Should I try that killer new hack?
Those things are important. Helpful, even! But most days, they just slow me down. They don't mean a thing if I don't write a thing. So job #1 has to be getting out there, and get the dang writing done.
So let's put on our shoes and get that first mile out. The rest will come. We'll figure it out.
Rock Out
You've probably heard that it's the 50th anniversary of Schoolhouse Rocks this week. As a card-carrying member of Gen X, this is extremely relevant to my interests. My favorite was always Mr. Morton, and this cover by Skee-Lo is the absolute best. Fun fact: The video involves both running AND writing. And cats! It's got it all.
Step Out
Mild Activity is a running club in Dublin that some of my friends are involved with. They run a short distance at an easy pace, then stop for coffee and pastries and hang out. Same time every week. Now that's my kind of running club. My kind of friends. What would my writing practice look like, if it looked like that?
Peace Out
Andy Marshall is a British architectural photographer. He fought his way out of depression 20 years ago through photography, and now he travels the UK in a camper van, taking the most glorious pictures —mostly of buildings — and writing about his travels in equally glorious prose. I've followed him on social for years, and this project is really something stunning. Highly recommend.
