12 Habits to Turn You into a High-Performance Writer

According to statistics online, over eighty percent of Americans say they want to write a book, but only two percent do. I am sure that goes for many different endeavors.

Why do the vast majority talk about what they’d like to achieve, but only a few follow through? The answer lies in Henry Ford’s famous quote, “If You Always Do What You’ve Always Done, You’ll Always Get What You’ve Always Got.” Whether climbing Mount Everest or publishing a novel, it takes dedication and a change in habits to achieve any goal.

Here are twelve habits to becoming a high-performance writer:

1. Emphatically decide you want to become a successful writer. Are you willing to throw your heart and soul into your writing? Your mindset creates your entire reality. If you make up your mind to accomplish a goal no matter what happens, the odds of you achieving it rises dramatically.
2. Prepare your body. Eat well, drink lots of water, move your body and get enough sleep. These have healing qualities to nourish your mind as you prepare to become a high-performance writer.
3. Master your time. High performers have a routine. Create one for yourself. Stick to it. Block your calendar. Organize your daily schedule in blocks of time, and include one or more writing periods. Nothing else happens in your writing time block other than writing. Avoid all distractions such as social media. Turn off your phone, and do not check your email messages. Set an intention or goal for each writing block.
4. Know your reasons why. What’s motivating you to write? Fame? Or to get something off your chest? Or do you write for the sheer joy of creating? It’s essential to know why you write. Like your North Star, it will guide you when you feel lost or think of giving up.
5. Take frequent breaks. Studies show that those who take regular breaks from their work outperform those who work for hours without stopping.
6. Set your daily target. How much are you willing to write each day? Stick to it.
7. Protect your confidence. Please don't share your goals with critical people unless they are mentors. Avoid situations that might cause you to question your ability to write.
8. Master your thoughts. Your inner critic will make you feel inadequate and prevent you from accomplishing your goal. If you need to take up a meditation practice to become more conscious of your thoughts, do so. When you find your mind filled with self-defeating messages, change those thoughts to positive, affirming ones.
9. Choose how you want to show up every day. Life happens. You cannot control everything that happens to you, but you get to decide how you want to respond to what happens to you. Show up as an accomplished writer and become one.
10. Be purposeful. Determine if your activities align with your goals. Ask yourself; Is this helping me get closer to becoming a high-performance writer?
11. Read a lot. Make reading your other passion. Good writers are avid readers.
12. Make yourself accountable. Set deadlines for significant milestones — completing your first draft, publishing your book, or finding an agent or publisher. Set realistic deadlines that are not too far into the future.

Bringing It All Together

You may have been one of the eighty percent of people who say they want to write a book but have never done so. If you are struggling to finish your book, your current habits likely are not helping you achieve your goal. Saying you want to write a book is not enough.

Action must follow words. What practices will you take consistently to achieve your goal? You can decide to change in a moment, but that doesn’t mean you will. Writing your book takes work and requires a moment-to-moment commitment and a high level of intention, consciousness, and initiative. If you are serious about it, adopt the habits above and start now!

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