Building Habits

When I was younger, I had some issues when it came to communicating in
general. Maybe part of it was the fact that I was the youngest of four kids
and I had trouble communicating with other people.The interesting thing is
that I was never much of a reader. I always liked stories but I never read a
lot.There is something that is really powerful about a story and about
writing. If you have something to say and you get people hooked onto your
story, you can get them to go on a journey and you can teach and entertain
them. It is also a creative practice that has really low barriers of entry.
You can just grab a piece of paper and start constructing. It doesn't even
need that. It can be a much simpler thing. I mean find the ingredients.The
thing about writing that I like is the construction part about it. It is like
designing a puzzle, putting it together and taking it apart again to show to
your friends. But, the thing that motivates me the most to write is its
effects on me. The benefits and the therapeutic nature of it. The calmness of
it. There is something awesome about sitting with a blank page and seeing what
happens when you start typing and letting go and being free with it. Not being
scared about what is going to come out when you start typing.In May last year,
I had become fed up with myself. I was never getting the things done that I
wanted to. My to-do list would always have numerous do items and I was stuck
in a rut. I had trouble doing any creative work after work hours. I couldn't
even write a few lines of code. I had been wanting to start blogging again and
I couldn't even get myself to publish a post.I tried to force myself to blog
everyday for a month. That was helpful to get over the post anxiety part about
it. But, I found that if I sat in a WordPress drafts window without any idea
what I wanted to talk about, it made it all that much harder.I had heard a
podcast where someone mentioned "Morning Pages." At this point, I didn't know
if I heard the proper definition of Morning Pages, where this person was
talking about how they just write 3 pages every morning with no distractions.I
set out to try it out and I found that a paper and a pen was not the tool for
me. I think that I had trouble reading my own handwriting and I think that was
a big determinant. I liked the idea of being able to go back and see what are
in these writings.So, I set out to get an app for my Mac that would allow me
to write in full screen so I wouldn't see any shit on my computer.Then I
started writing. I had the idea of a page goal or a word count. But, I thought
to myself that if I missed it or I thought that I would not make it. I might
not write. So, the goal was to just write and to see what happens.The first
week was hard but there was some good use of it. The idea of morning pages is
to just start writing. So, some of the stuff you start out with at the top of
your document is some strange stuff. "My head hurts and I want sour patch
kids." But, then at some point for me, there is always a switch during the
writing time where the goodies come out.There are always the days when you
don't talk about many other things than the sour patch kids.I kept trying and
I kept showing up. Everyday at 6am. Every holiday at 6am. I took a vacation
and wrote everyday but not at 6am. I had to give myself a break.Day by day it
got easier and day by day was when the morning interesting things would come
out of me. It was an amazing transformation. There was a point where I
couldn't write, and now I couldn't stop. Even if I decided to write at night
and try to write a blog post, the well was always flowing with ideas and with
movement.


You'll only receive email when they publish something new.

More from John Siwicki
All posts