“First, forget inspiration. Habit is more dependable. Habit will sustain you whether you’re inspired or not.” ~ Octavia Butler
Wait, what? Forget inspiration??
What about muses whispering in a writer’s ear? Daydreaming while staring out the window while at work? Walking through the park? Listening to music, for crying out loud?
I don’t think Ms. Butler means writers are never inspired. We just can’t depend upon inspiration because, well, it’s not dependable. But habit is. And one can learn how to become a habit-driven writer.
Yesterday we learned about how developing a writing streak can help boost momentum. Once a streak has begun, the brain wishes for it to continue. If continued long enough, a streak will develop into a habit, because according to the results of a Google search, a habit is a “settled or regular tendency or practice, especially one that is hard to give up.”
What are some things you do every day that you don’t even have to think about? Things that would be hard for you to give up, such as brushing your teeth? These are habits.
How Habits Work
In order to become a habit-driven writer, we need to understand a bit more about how habits work and how we can develop them. I hope to explain this without getting into too deep into psychological mumbo jumbo.
Habits are automatic actions. Every habit has a definitive loop. It begins with a trigger or cue that sets off the behavior, and the behavior develops into a routine that reaps a reward. In short, a habit equals Trigger>Behavior>Reward. Pretty simple.
A trigger initiates a response. For example, when your alarm clock rings, blares, or buzzes, you respond by either (a) getting out of bed, or (b) muttering something that might have gotten your mouth washed out when you were ten. That response to the trigger is your behavior. As for the reward, you either get the satisfaction of rising as soon as the clock goes off and launch the beginning of a pleasant, productive day or, depending upon whether you hit the snooze button or turned the alarm completely off, the start of a stressed-filled I-can’t-believe-I’m-going-to-be-late-again day. Yes, some behaviors can cause consequences rather than rewards.
But let’s back up a bit. Triggers can be set off by deliberate actions (such as setting an alarm) or by cues. Some cues are abstract, subconscious even. For example, a cue can be a location or even a time of day. It’s morning. Time to make coffee. Time of day isn’t exactly a specific trigger, but times and locations can initiate or “cue” triggers, such as the craving for coffee, food, or, if you’re a smoker, a cigarette.
Even actions can cue a trigger. When you brush your teeth, it can cue a trigger to floss. The behavior that follows, flossing, brings a reward of (hopefully) less time spent in the dental chair as well as fresh breath. We enjoy the rewards, so we continue the behavior and sometimes set specific triggers in place (such as an alarm) in order to keep the streak going.
Developing the Habit of Writing
In order for habit to sustain our writing, we must first develop it. We must work toward becoming a habit-driven writer. It’s a lot like Goal>Motivation used in fiction.
The reward (motivation) of a writing habit (goal) can be developed by planning triggers. For instance, if we set a writing time, a writing place, a writing method (computer or notepad), and we make a consistent effort to write whenever we’re at the scheduled time and specified place, then our subconscious will cue us to sit down (trigger) and write (behavior) so we can obtain our reward.
Developing habits can be challenging when we first start. Our minds are resistant to change. In fact, we may have other (bad) habits that must be swept out of the way to make room for better ones. We are currently content to sip coffee and daydream, waiting for that elusive sliver of inspiration to slip past us so we can snag it and put it to work. Change is hard. Our motivation must be stronger than our desire to keep the status quo. This is the Conflict element of our writer’s life scene.
So, how do we do it? How do we push past our resistance to change and embrace our new, habit-driven life?
Realize that resistance to change, to replacing our bad habits with good ones, truly is futile. Change, just like Obi-Wan Kenobi, is our only hope. If we always do what we’ve always done, then we’ll always be where we’ve always been. If you’re currently a productive writer who continually publishes quality work, then you can stay the way you are. You’re already a habit-driven writer, and you’re likely already reaping the rewards.
But if you’re struggling, longing to reap the rewards of the habit-driven writing life, then you must first determine what it is you want from this change, this new habit. What will motivate you to stick with it? To set triggers and follow through with those triggers by taking actions/behaviors and streaking those actions/behaviors together until it is more psychologically painful to skip a writing date than to keep it?
What do you want? What do you really, really want?
Make a list of rewards you wish to receive by becoming a habit-driven writer.
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