avatarKate Nelson

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4 Practical Ways My Trainer Is Helping Me Be A Better Writer

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There is a ton of great advice on how to be a better writer.

Stephen King, William Zinsser, Maya Angelou, Ernest Hemingway are just a few well-known modern writers that have a great deal to say on the emotional and practical elements of writing. Since they are great storytellers, their work is easy on the brain. Besides the “greats,” there is also a plethora of outstanding, undiscovered writers on Medium.

But what about those of us who struggle to get the words in our hearts out on a page? What if we love to write but suffer from deer-in-the-headlights panic? ‘Sudden loss of confidence’ failure can set back even the most tenacious of up-and-coming writers. If this is you, I understand. I, too, am a fellow struggler.

My daughter, Noelle, is a fitness trainer.

She has studied fitness, nutrition, and health for years. Cubicles and pigeonholes have never worked for her. And that gives her a unique approach to helping people. Instead of dichotomizing someone, she takes the whole person into account. She encourages a long-term perspective. Quick fixes aren’t her gig.

I know from experience her holistic methods heal.

At the beginning of the year, I determined to regain a high level of fitness. It was so easy to be motivated. I’ve done this before. About every five years, I realize I’m starting to let myself go. So, I recommitted to getting back in shape.

When I decided to up my fitness game, I also decided to up my writing game. It has encouraged and astonished me how the experiences of fitness and writing parallel.

I am determined to break the cycle by applying these four practical tips to become fitter and, at the same time, a better writer:

Keep Your Promise to Yourself

Noelle and I attended a webinar with Danielle Leslie; she said this, “Keep your promise to yourself.”

It’s easy for me to set goals. It’s easy to work the plans. My Achilles heel is when progress slows. That’s when it gets tricky; I get discouraged and depressed. It’s when I am vulnerable to losing motivation: “Why try? It doesn’t matter anyway.” I begin to procrastinate.

It isn’t as if this is a one-time experience. I’ve tried to subjugate myself with “You have to think positive thoughts.” But it is simplistic to relegate the whole experience to negative thinking when there are low times. It’s much more complicated than that. It’s cyclical, and life depends on cycles. It’s inevitable, then, that I will encounter plateau tests periodically whenever I am in hot pursuit of a dream. Maybe the downtimes are necessary to create resolve and grit.

Noelle reminds me of Danielle’s quote, “keep your promise to yourself.” Sometimes it’s the only thing that keeps me going.

It’s the impetus for many a cold morning workout. It’s the push to keep writing. Even when, especially when, I don’t feel like it. I want to be the kind of person that follows through. No matter what. Well, short of death, that is.

What I try to do is write. I may write for two weeks ‘the cat sat on the mat, that is that, not a rat.’ And it might be just the most boring and awful stuff. But I try. When I’m writing, I write. And then it’s as if the muse is convinced that I’m serious and says, ‘Okay. Okay. I’ll come.’ — Maya Angelou

Compete Against Yourself

Competitiveness is a bi-polar hallmark of our culture. It is appreciated, glorified, expected, despised, and perplexing.

It’s admirable to be competitive if you are an athlete. Not commendable as a homemaker. It’s good to be ambitious as a business executive. It’s a negative trait if you want to outdo your friends.

I’d love to tell you I’m not a competitive person. I’d be a liar if I did. I want to win.

As I was comparing myself to a friend recently, my unhealthy competitiveness reared its ugly head. I told my daughter this, along with the accompanying shame I feel at being a jealous butt. “You only have to compete against yourself, Mom. Quit comparing yourself.” I’ve heard this before. I’ve said it before. This time, it finally came home.

Unhealthy competitiveness is a lesson in futility and an excellent way to screw up relationships. It’s a lesson I want to avoid.

My new commitment, both in writing and fitness, is to compete against myself. I don’t have to contend with outside competitors. There’s always room for improvement and room for growth within me!

I win when I lose comparison and compete against myself.

Now, my only competition is me. Which means that your only competition is you — David Villa

Listen to Your Yourself

A friend once said, “Your greatest strength is your greatest weakness.” I’m highly intuitive. When I am in the low point of the confidence cycle, I doubt my inner voice. When I listen to doubt, it is my undoing. Time and again, I have said, “If only I had listened to my gut.”

There are voices all around that support or dispute our perspectives, choices, and opinions. How many times has someone questioned you on something as benign as your food preferences? “WHAAAT? Don’t you like mushrooms? What’s wrong with you?” Almost by osmosis, we begin to mistrust ourselves and look for affirmation from outside sources.

I battle this as a writer. There is a tension between what I want to say, what pulses in my heart, what jazzes me — and what I think I should write. After all, if I say what I am compelled to say, it may not be popular.

Here’s where the parallel between writing and fitness comes into play.

Some days, I don’t have the energy for a workout; this is when Noelle steps in. “Listen to yourself. Your body, heart, and mind are telling you exactly what you need. They’re telling you what to do.” Sometimes mind over matter can push through fatigue. Other times, it can’t. If I stop to listen, I know where to readjust.

It works for writing too.

When I pause and pay attention to my heart, I hear what I want to write. I move past all the external and self-imposed voices that tell me what I should or should not say. The words are purer. More authentic. They reflect the real me.

Never apologize for trusting your intuition. Your brain can play tricks, your heart can be blind, but your gut is always right. — Rachel Wolchin

Trust the Process

Writing and physical fitness may seem incongruent. The success of both hinges on these building blocks:

  • Keep your promises to yourself
  • Compete against yourself
  • Listen to yourself
  • Trust the process

The phrase, trust the process, is a concept I’ve taken for granted.

It is only recently that I’ve begun to absorb the meaning. It has its history in sports, but for me trusting the process is a foundational truth; it is transferrable to every area of life: lean on the basics when it doesn’t make sense. Eventually, the tears, tension, and toil will pan out.

The takeaway is to remember that this is a journey. After all, isn’t the whole point to become fully human?

To be fully alive, fully human, and completely awake is to be continually thrown out of the nest. To live fully is to be always in no-man’s-land, to experience each moment as completely new and fresh. To live is to be willing to die over and over again. — Pema Chodron

Thanks to Terry L. Cooper, Dr. Yildez, Terry Mansfield, Tim Denning, Graceygee, Benny Lim, Fredrick Ireland, Dew Langrial, Carly Barrett, and many, many more!

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Motivation
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