The Greatest Enemy of Your Writing Practice Is Getting in Your Way
How to stop it from holding you back.
Starting anything new is hard. But being consistent once you’ve started is no picnic, either. You know the internal battles you must wage to get yourself to do the thing you want to do. It’s ridiculous. And it’s human.
As a writer, I’ve found a lot of strength in Stephen Pressfield’s approach to simply writing every day, no matter what. This has helped me understand that I can’t wait for inspiration to strike, I need to act first. I credit my daily writing practice to this little piece of wisdom.
But, there’s always something lingering in the shadows waiting to tear my practice apart. If I let my guard down, I know it will.
What is this beast? It’s external validation. And it comes in the form of claps, likes, shares, and comments. If you’re not careful, it will destroy your practice.
Unfortunately, we can’t simply ignore this mischievous entity. We need to interact with it occasionally because it provides us with useful information. The question is, how do we work with it productively so that it doesn’t ruin everything?
We love to be validated
We’re social creatures and therefore we care about what other people think of us…
