How I Motivate Myself To Write When Life Happens and Keeps on Happening

Dancing Elephants Book Project: Motivation

Work, family, friendships, weddings, illnesses, summer time and vacations sometimes take precedence over writing especially when writing is more of a hobby and not a full-time thing.

When life happens and there is this tendency to put things off in the hopes of getting to it later and before you know it, the motivation and the passion to do what once gave you so much joy is gone with the wind.

These last few months have not been easy because I have been juggling work, life, and a sick family member. There have been days when I have woken up and fallen asleep — the day a blur crammed with one meeting after another, appointments, and deadlines.

Meanwhile at the back of my mind lurks the all too familiar feeling of guilt that I haven’t gotten to the articles I was supposed to work on but didn't because life got in the way.

It got to a point where I felt conflicted. How do I manage everything and all the emotions that go with them and still find the time and the right mindset to do what I love to do?

For this, I asked myself 2 questions:

• What gives you great joy and pleasure?
• What do you need to do in order to maintain it despite life happening?

My answer to the first question is writing and to the second question is to write.

Writing coach and best-selling author Nina Amir offers some helpful tips for writing when life gets challenging. But before she does that she first shares a quote to remind writers that excuses just don’t cut it:

“ Saying “life got in the way” sounds a lot like “the dog ate my homework” — Nina Amir

3 ways I utilize Nina Amir’s tips to write when life happens:

Commit to writing at least 15 minutes a day: Earlier, when I used to hear other writers talk about writing with a timer I used to scoff at the idea because I wondered what the point of writing under pressure was.

But Nina clearly explains the benefit of at least 15 minutes of writing a day in the following excerpt: “By committing to writing even for a short amount of time, you stay tapped into your project. You retain the continuity of the work, and you maintain your writing habit. Will you get as much done in that amount of time compared to writing for an hour? Probably not, but you’d be amazed at how many words or pages you can produce when under the pressure of time.”

Be flexible to fit in your writing whenever the opportunity presents itself: I feel I am most productive when I write in the early mornings but then again I love to sleep so I sometimes find myself putting off writing till later for when I have a few free hours which may or may not happen according to plan.

Nina advises writers to be flexible enough to be able to fit in writing as opportunities present themselves during the day: “You can write during a lunch break, before bed, or first thing in the morning. You can write on the bus or train during your commute or while your child is at gymnastics or taking a nap. If you are determined to write — no matter what — you can find a time and place to fit writing into your day — I know because I’ve done it.”

Schedule make-up days: For those of us who live in the Northeast, make-up days are quite common at the end of the school year for the school days lost due to bad weather. In the same way, it is not always possible to stick to a writing schedule every day and it is a good idea to assign make-up days for the work pending from those missed days.

For example, I will be traveling and have a few ongoing projects that need my attention but they will have to wait until I have reached my destination and gotten over my jet lag.

For such scenarios, Nina suggests setting aside a few make-up days to catch up on the writing that didn’t happen due to stuff happening: “Schedule make-up days all month long if you are taking the WNFIN Challenge. Or tack them on to the end of the month, so you can make up lost time and meet your deadline. Use those days to knock out the words required to finish your book in 30 days.”

Perhaps the most important point is not getting stressed about not being able to write because of x,y, or z reasons but figuring out a strategy that is both practical and doable. In other words, we can go with the flow instead of fighting it which can result in giving up when things don’t go according to plan.

References:

writenonfictionnow.com — https://writenonfictionnow.com/write-even-when-life-gets-way/

Thank you Dancing Elephant Press Editors Lady Dr. Gabriella Korosi. Vidya Sury, Collecting Smiles and Sharing Randomly