In Praise of Wimpy Goals
Whatever it takes, you know?
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In graduate school, a professor asked me if I had a “writing practice.” We were sitting in an attic office with acute angles and a low ceiling. I had no idea what he was talking about.
“Do you have a routine?” he asked. “A daily time allotment or word count goal? Pomodoro? Anything?”
My writing life was once more benevolently ruled by whimsy, inspiration, and desire. (Now I have a kid.) Despite the fact that much has been written and opined about how creative people can structure their work days and optimize their habits for productivity and success, I hadn’t ever thought about “a writing practice.” I wrote when I wanted to which was, you know, sometimes.
Our attic office meeting was the end of that.
So began the era of “wimpy goals.” I would write 250 words a day, six days a week. I had a chart to which I adhered stickers, because nothing says accomplishment like a gold star.
And here was the beauty of the wimpy goal: On days I didn’t feel like writing, I wrote 250 words. Sometimes I never hit a groove; when I reached the word count, I stopped. I gave myself a modest little pat: Hey, I showed up. And then I could watch an episode or take a jog or make pesto or drink iced tea or read a novel and at least know I wasn’t procrastinating. I’d tried.
But what happened more often is that the wimpy goal was a mind trick to overcome my initial resistance. Once my ass was in the chair, Newton’s first law took over, and I usually surpassed my wimpy goal. I found flow.
“Show up, show up, show up, and after a while the muse shows up, too,” wrote Isabel Allende.
Gretchen Rubin, author of The Happiness Project: Or, Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun, extols the creative value of the bite-sized goal:
We tend to overestimate what we can do in a short period, and underestimate what we can do over a long period, provided we work slowly and consistently. Anthony Trollope, the 19th-century writer who managed to be a prolific novelist while also revolutionizing the British postal system, observed, “A small daily task, if it be really daily, will beat the labors of a spasmodic Hercules.” Over the long run, the unglamorous habit of frequency fosters both productivity and creativity.
The competence of amassing gold stars on a chart or Xs on a spreadsheet begins to build confidence, which in turn, helps you overcome fear and resistance:
“You see yourself do the work,” Rubin writes, “which shows you that you can do the work.”
And you can do the work 250 words at a time. Remember E.L. Doctorow quoted by Anne Lamott in the essential Bird by Bird:
“Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can see only as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.”
You may not want to drive to the doctor’s office or the post office or your mean old Aunt Lou’s after nightfall, but you know you can. And if you’re a writer, Allende says, you must:
The notion that I do my work here, now, like this, even when I do not feel like it, and especially when I do not feel like it, is very important. Because lots and lots of people are creative when they feel like it, but you are only going to become a professional if you do it when you don’t feel like it. And that emotional waiver is why this is your work and not your hobby.
Accountability helps; community buoys the writer’s solitary heart. Turn your chart into a private Google spreadsheet. Invite your writer friends. Give them a column. Make it rain “Xs.”