Evolving From a Whiny Writer to a Productive Content Producer.
What to do when you find yourself asking: What’s the point?
I feel that I put an enormous amount of effort into writing, self-development, and life in general. Too often I find myself whining about how pointless it is to make all this effort without seeing any ‘rewards’.
I spend a good amount of time isolating myself away from my wife, as well as leisure activities, to sit at a computer screen to write. None of these efforts so far has led to anything that most would consider a reward. This particular mindset can cause frustration which then leads to more negative thoughts. All this does is create a stalled brain and a lack of progress.
The words in this article are my way of reframing self-pitied thinking. If you ever find yourself in a similar bitter state, I hope you may find some of the perspectives helpful.
Develop self-awareness
Self-awareness has been such a key competent in my own development. I know it has been helpful for countless other individuals. Look at all the great content around being more mindful. The ability to understand your self is critical because it can help us identify what we need to work on.
How to develop more self-awareness? We can develop this skill over time by checking in with ourselves. As a writer, this skill can be improved through daily journaling.
Years ago I came across an article from Fast Company where someone was being interviewed for their career success book. This particular person had highlighted the importance of journaling in such a wonderful way. The idea has stuck with me, but I can’t locate the exact quote or person who said it. It went something like this
“It's almost impossible to write about problems in your life day after day and not do anything about them”.
I promise to link to the source if I ever come across it again.
Journaling has helped me to recognize that I’m incredibly lucky to have the problems that I have in my life. I mean look at the circumstances. I am privileged enough to have the leisure time to sit down and actually work on a craft. How dare I complain?
Meditation is another form of checking in with ourselves. If we can keep a daily practice of 10 minutes of simple meditation, we can increase our levels of self-awareness.
Mediation is the act of breathing in and out, concentrating on the breath. As you do this your mind with start to wonder. Our awareness improves during meditation as we become more mindful of our thoughts. Overtime we deepen the ability to observe our dialogue without getting sucked in.
In this way, we can learn to listen to what’s going on inside of us. This is so important because we can then catch ourselves when our inner dialogue isn’t serving us. The whole point of becoming aware of our thoughts is to improve how we talk to ourselves. Our goal should be to create a dialogue that encourages us to take better action.
Catch the bitterness bug
Whenever I find myself starting to get bogged down with bitterness I try to stop. This is easier said than done of course. When you’ve identified with a toxic inner dialogue it can be hard to disconnect.
I still do this, but it has gotten much better after developing a journaling practice. Since I’ve started journaling regularly (~3 years) I stopped with the incessant pity parties of ‘why am I not successful yet’. Instead, I am able to concentrate my thinking on how I can become more efficient.
The key shift comes when we realize how defeating negative inner dialogue can be.
There is a truth that many of us can agree on. That is not too many people to reach success by making other people feel bad for them.
The bitterness bug can skew our thinking. If you are writing content and frustrated that you aren’t getting read then you may have to take a step back. It is time to ask yourself some hard questions. The reason that efforts haven’t yielded rewards yet is the content you’ve written isn’t valuable for anyone. People buy products that help their life in some way. We all know this. It’s the same with writing, it has to provide something for the reader.
A good question to ask is “What do I like to read?”
It’s this kind of thinking that has helped me to improve what I write about. This is a much better reflection question than saying “why me” or “why is this so hard, I try too hard”. These realizations have really kicked my butt into forming better writing habits. As I bonus, I’ve become a more productive thinker.
I’ve decided that I would reframe my thought process with a couple of questions. These questions are designed to reframe a bitter defeatist mindset to something that can propel action. Try them out for yourself.
“What elements can I control?”
Ironically enough, one of the areas that I can control most is the effort I make. I can decide that the amount of effort that I put into a project is completely up to me. I use this question to identify the factors that I have a choice on. I don’t actually get to control the rewards that I get from any amount of effort. I do believe that the more effort I take the better my results will be. Especially if the effort is thought of as a discipline that can build a particular skill. In this way, the skills that I am building are problem-solving and writing.
There is no other alternative to trying. If I don’t make the effort the work never gets done. Without a completed project I have nothing to learn from. I have to deeply understand and re-enforce the idea that effort will always be needed. I will never find the validation I may be looking for without trying.
This question is a great reframe because it forces action. When life gives us lemons it’s easier to ‘say I have no sugar’ than to make lemonade. I have to admit to myself that there is no reason not to try.
“Each mistake teaches you something new about yourself. There is no failure, remember, except in no longer trying. It is the courage to continue that counts.” ― Chris Bradford, The Way of the Sword
When we focus on what we can control, we tend to put more effort into what we do.
“What are my metrics of success”
The point of asking these questions is to shift the approach from pity to production. Because when we are productive, we can finish things. The more finished products we have the more materials we have to learn from.
We know that we can control certain elements of our work. The next shift comes when we start re-assessing the rewards that we are after. When we change what we are actually chasing our whole approach can improve. At least it did for me.
It is helpful to get specific in this area because it will help you work smarter. Remember the whole goal with these questions is to move into a more productive state. For example, in this post I will be evaluating myself based on these three metrics:
1) How well I can solve my own problem
2) How efficiently I can complete the work (Time spent vs. Work Produced)
3) How excited I am to share the work with others (Evaluating Quality)
That’s it. Most of my writing is aimed at solving a problem that I’m facing in my own life. In a sense, the words on these pages are my attempts at figuring the answers to my own questions. I think about the question presented and try to come up with an answer.
My focus during the writing process is to be efficient in what I say and therefore how I think. If I spend hours upon hours trying to craft the perfect sentence then I consider the piece a failure because I’m falling into the trap of perfectionism. My version of success is finding the right balance of speed with precision. In this way, I can produce content and learn from my mistakes.
I want to be proud of how my thinking came out. If all goes well, I’ll have a perspective. Ideally, that perspective is a piece that I am actually proud to share with others. I measure success in this way because there is so much content out there. I want to feel like I’m contributing to the ether of it all. My version of quality is to be able to produce work that I want others to read. This really comes to light in the editing process.
That’s how I measure.
In Summary
The point I am trying to make is that whenever you are feeling like giving up. Or like you aren’t sure what the point is. Try to remember to pause and reframe. Reframe why you are making the effort in the first place. Think about what you can learn from doing itself.
You should be questioning the things you are doing. Especially if the thing you are doing is pulling valuable time away from your life.
The reality is everyone is trying hard. There are a lot of us working our tails off trying to reach our goals. But goals are hard, as they should be.
Imagine if our biggest dreams came easy to us. We would never feel the satisfaction of seeing them through. If it were easy everyone would be doing it. This is a cliché, but sometimes clichés exist because of the truth behind them.