I Don’t Feel Like Writing Right Now

But I’m doing it anyway!

I’m tired. Slightly bored. I don’t even know what I want to write about. This article is likely going to turn out to be a shitpost, but it’s January 6th and I haven’t published anything in a while.

On top of that, the last article I published about how you should stop writing Twitter threads turned out to be wrong. While I do still find Twitter threads vaguely annoying, I have been alerted to the fact that I’ve been wrong thinking that they’re ephemeral and therefore not a good use of time.

Apparently Kjell Vandevyvere’s threads are still driving traffic to his website, even though he hasn’t resurfaced some of them by retweeting.

So I was wrong. I’ve been wanting to say that.

Assume the Posture. Do the Work. Get Inspired.

Wasn’t sure where to put this screenshot. Thought it was going to fit somewhere in this piece. That didn’t work out.

So I’m just going to put this here:

My 3 Words for 2022: Move. Write. Love.

Leading up to New Year’s Eve, I asked Twitter what rituals and traditions other people have for the new year.

It was inspired by this post (see below). I love the idea of a Happy Calendar. (Not enough to do this myself, apparently. But my journaling habit serves a similar function in some ways. Still think this is a great idea though.)

My favorite reply to this question on Twitter came from LegendaryDenise, who introduced me to Chris Brogan’s yearly 3 words ritual.

Instead of a new year resolution, every year he chooses 3 words to to help guide his choices and actions for the upcoming year.

He started this ritual in 2006 with the words Ask. Do. Share. Since then, it’s become a big deal and thousands of people “working their way through the ritual and planning their year based on their own three words.”

What’s the Point of Having 3 Words for the Year?

The idea is that your 3 words (not 1, not 4) should guide every decision you make and project you work on for the year.

It simplifies things. Keeps you focused on what’s important. If you’re not sure whether or not you should say yes to something, you can ask, “Well, does this align with my three words?”

According to Brogan, it has to be exactly 3 words. Keep it simple, don’t try to make a statement. His example is Publish the Book, which wastes 1 of your 3 words with “the.”

Other examples: Grow my audience. Go to bed.

Even though I should probably go to bed earlier, those three words are not going to help guide my decisions about anything unrelated to my terrible sleep schedule.

You Must Choose Exactly 3 Words. No more, no less.

According to Brogan, choosing your 3 words for the year is some sort of ritual. It’s unclear to me what that ritual looks like — Do you light candles? Meditate with your hand on a dictionary? — but the idea is to keep them in focus throughout the entire year.

Say them every day. Use them as a mantra. Post them on your mirror.

Write them on your arm with a sharpie.

For some reason — my theory is that it’s because 3 is a magic number — choosing more than 3 words doesn’t work. Fewer (less?) than 3 words also doesn’t work. It has to be exactly 3 words.

Although he can’t explain why, Brogan reports that after more than a decade of doing the #my3words thing he has discovered that choosing more than 3 words dilutes the magic of this ritual.

In 2007, he chose 4 words. That was a “less successful year,” whereas 2006 (when he started this) was one of his best years ever. Then in 2020 he “cheated” and created a portmanteau for one of his words, which IMO is basically the same as choosing 4 words.

We all know what happened in 2020.

How I Chose My 3 Words (Move. Write. Love.)

I’m grateful to LegendaryDenise for introducing me to the idea.

Especially grateful that she followed up more than a week after the original Twitter conversation, because I’d totally forgotten about it until she reappeared in my Twitter notifications on January 5th:

When she first told me about this process, I was intrigued but immediately filed it away in my brain as something to think about later. Which means I forgot and didn’t think about it again.

But when Denise told me she finally picked her 3 words, I decided to choose mine on the spot. Move. Write. Love.

Move — to get unstuck

I’ve been feeling stuck lately. I have also been appallingly sedentary and since I upgraded to Jess version 3.9 in December I’ve got one year to get in “the best shape of my life” in order to live up to some bullshit I claimed I intended to do in my online dating profile several years ago.

The word also reminds me that I want to move to a new home, because I’m not happy where I am. I know that moving to a new place isn’t going to magically solve all my problems, but my living situation is keeping me on the struggle bus. I do not enjoy the struggle bus. No one is driving and I’m pretty sure it’s heading straight for a cliff. With a brick wall at the bottom.

Write — this is self-explanatory

Last year, I set a goal to publish one new Medium article per month. This was both a success and a failure, depending on how you look at it. I published 2x the number of articles I was planning, but also took a 5 month hiatus from publishing. In the spring, I joined the Ship30for30 writing challenge and managed to publish for 28 or 29 straight days before I fell off the ship.

Even though I didn’t quite succeed at either of these writing goals, I achieved far more than I thought I would. This was motivating. I’ve got 1 year of writing online under my belt. Only 9 more years of consistent work until I achieve overnight success.

So far, my write focus is going well. See the title of this post: I didn’t feel like writing, but I’m doing it anyway. Nobody is going to read this, but that’s fine. We’ve all got 10,000 pages of garbage inside of us. This is probably 5 of mine.

Love — in all the ways

While this is a subtle reminder to myself that I am single and ready to date (so I should probably put in a bit more effort here than I have been thus far), it applies to more aspects of my life than just romantic relationships.

We can and do love in a variety of ways. I love my friends and family dearly. I also love my colleagues, Twitter friends, and mentors. It may seem weird to say I love you on a work call, but I’ve totally done it.

The 8 Greek words for love:

• Philia: Affectionate (platonic) love between friends or family members. This is the love you have for your oldest and closest friends.
• Pragma: Enduring or practical love, grounded in commitment. When that new relationship energy wears off, romantic relationships turn into this.
• Storge: Familiar love, as between family members. Or lifelong friends. Different from philia in that it involves blood ties and early memories.
• Eros: Passionate, romantic love. This is generally what we think of when we talk about love. But it’s only one piece of the bigger picture.
• Ludus: This is the feeling you have when you’re crushing on someone. It’s playful, fun, and flirty. Having a crush is a lovely, specific feeling.
• Mania: Obsessive love* as seen in codependent relationships or overly attached behavior. Of the 8 types on the list, this one tends to be toxic.
• Philautia: Self love, which is a big one. If you don’t love yourself, you’re incapable of truly loving anyone else. Loving yourself is hard.*
• Agape: Selfless, spiritual, unconditional love. The kind you feel for all living things, with no expectations. It’s universal loving-kindness.

*But you are amazing and you deserve it, beautiful reader. Be kind to yourself. **…okay maybe I don’t want to double down on all the types of love.

Motivated but Still Not Where I Want to Be Yet

I love the fact that I’ve been feeling so motivated to publish. I have 76 drafts sitting in Medium waiting to be finished. 416 published responses. I’ve been spending a lot of time reading and commenting on other people’s work.

Move. Write. Love.

I’ll end this with another quote from Jay Acunzo:

As creators, we have a tendency to want to feel a sense of inspiration or flow first, THEN start the work. In reality, inspiration and flow are found by doing the work. We want to create the enironment conducive to doing GREAT work instead of ANY work, when really, doing ANY work might just solve our problems. After all, momentum is the issue. Not brilliance. So solve the actual problem.

This is hard.

Yep. Momentum is hard. But inertia can work for you or against you. An object in motion stays in motion, an object at rest stays at rest.

If you’re not moving, it’s a heavy lift to get momentum going.

But once you start, inertia will eventually work in your favor.

The best way to groove is start grooving. The stuff around our work is out of our control. So what can we control? Whether or not we roll up our sleeves, cram on that hardhat, and slap down a bad draft. That’s it. That’s the entire job.

So, here it is. I’ve slapped down a bad draft. Go me!

Perhaps I shouldn’t publish it, but I’m sick of looking at the few headlines I have in my (published) stories section. So here’s something new.

The process of writing this was more grind than fun, but it did get better once I started. So if you’re feeling stuck, just start. See how it feels.

Also, share your 3 words in the comments!

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(To everyone who read the whole thing, I should probably pay YOU.)