Summary

Writing daily for personal growth rather than client work leads to increased discipline, improved self-expression, and a more effortless flow of ideas.

Abstract

The article discusses the personal benefits of writing daily beyond the scope of client work. The author emphasizes the development of discipline, as writing for oneself requires a different level of commitment compared to writing for a client where immediate payment is involved. The process of maintaining a daily writing habit is challenging, especially when motivation wanes, but the author suggests using the "Don't Break the Chain" method to visually track progress and maintain consistency. Regular writing enhances one's ability to articulate thoughts and emotions, making it easier to express complex ideas clearly. Over time, the act of writing becomes less daunting, allowing for the creation of longer, more engaging pieces without constant self-monitoring. The author also notes that as the habit solidifies, ideas seem to flow more freely, reducing the need for extensive brainstorming and enriching the content creation process.

Opinions

The author believes that writing for oneself is akin to an investment with long-term returns, unlike client work which offers immediate compensation.
Consistency in writing is seen as a significant challenge, but it is also a defining factor in achieving success.
The "Don't Break the Chain" method is recommended as a motivational tool to maintain a daily writing habit.
The author suggests that the discipline developed from daily writing can help overcome periods of low motivation and prevent abandoning the craft.
Improvement in writing is linked to the ability to express what's in one's head more effectively, which is a skill that develops over time with practice.
Writing longer pieces becomes more manageable as one's skill in self-expression improves, reducing the focus on word count and enhancing the writing process.
The author expresses admiration for fiction writers' ability to create engaging stories, indicating a desire to develop such a skill.
The author observes that with a consistent writing practice, ideas for content come more naturally and frequently, streamlining the creative process.

The benefits you get from writing everyday that is not building an audience.

Before now, I only wrote when I had writing jobs. Still, you cannot compare the benefits of writing for a client to writing for yourself.

Sometime in March, I decided I was going to get more serious about publishing my own content every day on either Medium or Linkedin. Instead of just focusing on Clients’ work.

When I started doing it, it wasn’t so hard to keep up because I was excited about the whole idea of writing my own content and putting myself out there.

Weeks went by, and it became very hard. I started to see how difficult consistency was. Some nights, I would have to force myself to create my own content after working all day.

The first benefit I noticed was discipline: It wasn’t as hard as finishing and submitting clients’ work because the contract was there, and you’re sure that after you turn in the work, you would get paid.

With a 3–4 days deadline, you stretch the work and laze around for some time, and when it’s a day before the deadline, you do the job, submit, and get paid.

Writing for yourself isn’t the same. It takes complete discipline. It’s more like an investment where you don’t see your returns immediately, but you have to wait for later in the future before you start to get attention, and your audience starts to grow.

We all get to a point where the motivation wears off, and we have to recreate our motivation and keep going. I’ve been there so many times. Where I don’t feel like writing at all, but staying at that point for too long can be dangerous because it’s likely that you would never go back to your craft again.

When you eventually do, you would feel like you’ve lost the skill and move on to another thing.

When you now move on to the next thing, it would happen again, and you would relive the entire process

I was listening to a Podcast from Ayodeji Awosika, where he spoke about the tipping point where everyone gets to, and they feel like what they are doing doesn’t make sense anymore. He spoke further and said, that point is what defines you.

If you can keep going after that, you would succeed.

There are some fun tricks you can do when you feel like not writing or doing the daily routines that would help you in the long-run. Have you heard of “Don’t Break the Chain rule?”

What it entails is: For every day you write, you tick it on your calendar. Your only job is not to break the chain.

The more you do it, the exciting it gets. It leaves physical evidence of your progress. It is very useful because any day you don’t complete your task and you break the chain. You would feel miserable because you’ve spoilt your chain.

“Just keep at it and the chain will grow longer every day. You’ll like seeing that chain, especially when you get a few weeks under your belt. Your only job is to not break the chain.”

Keep at it for a while, and you wouldn’t need to use the chain anymore. It would become a habit.

You get better at expressing what’s in your head. I’m sure I’m not the only one who struggles with this. Where you would feel something or have something in your head, but expressing it would be difficult as hell.

It can be very frustrating because you know what you feel, you know how it is in your head, but it becomes a problem when it’s time to explain it.

Writing is simply putting down your thoughts in the most logical way possible. The best writers are the ones that can paint a picture with their words for you to understand.

The more you write, the more you get closer to becoming that person. You start to see pictures clearly. Finding the right words for feelings and thoughts in your head becomes easier.

And that’s when you know you’re improving.

Writing longer pieces would no longer look impossible.

Because you can now put things to word better, you wouldn’t keep looking at the word count on the left corner every minute to see how many words you’ve hit.

This happens to me a lot. After every sentence, I would look at the word count to see how many words I’m on. It took me forever to get to 1000words. I couldn’t put down my points easily because I wasn’t yet good at expressing myself.

I admire people who write fiction because of how they can come up with all sorts of stories that keep you glued for hours.

It’s a skill that I wouldn’t mind having.

Lastly, the more days you write, the easier ideas come to you. Without ideas, we wouldn’t have anything to say.

These days, I can just be watching a movie or doing something completely unrelated, and content ideas would start popping up. It’s nice because all the brainstorming and searching for content reduces drastically.

Ideas come freely now. It hasn’t even been up to 3 months since I started putting out content every day and decided not to break the chain. But the benefits have been in excess.

I wonder how it would be a year from now.