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What inspires you to write?
What makes your creative juices flow?
Is it the aroma of fresh coffee at Starbucks—the low din of background voices, the cushy chairs and the soft music that rev you up?
Or is it a fresh page in a new notebook or writing journal?
How about sitting on a deck overlooking a beautiful mountain view?
Now for the reality smack down:
How much more, or better, do you write while drinking overpriced coffee sitting in a plushy chair than you do at home? (BTW, when did Starbucks last clean that chair? Just saying.)
And when you break open that Amazon package containing your new Moleskin or Papyrus journal, do you suddenly become inspired to write?
Do you have time to wait for your next vacation to take in that mountain view and start your novel? Or the blog post you’ve been ruminating about for months?
Dear ones, I deliver this message to myself as much as I do to you, when I say:
Don’t tell me you can’t get inspired.
No coffee shop, notebook or mountaintop is going to do the writing for us.
So how do we get inspired?
Good question. For starters, I believe inspiration is a loaded word. It’s loaded because it’s wrapped up in thoughts and feelings. Thoughts and feelings are not reliable. Thoughts and feelings don’t get the job done. So let’s set our thoughts and feelings aside for the moment.
Remember the old Nike slogan “just do it”? It’s totally brilliant in its simplicity. But here’s the catch. Have you heard of the 5 Second Rule created by Mel Robbins? She introduced it in a TEDx talk called How to Stop Screwing Yourself Over, which has been viewed more than 11 million times. Here’s Mel’s one-liner definition of the 5 second rule:
If you have an impulse to act on a goal, you must physically move within 5 seconds or your brain will kill the idea.
But I propose we must take the 5 Second Rule even further. We must ELIMINATE the 5 seconds that your brain (thoughts and feelings) might take to screw you over! If I’m chin-deep in a pint of Ben & Jerry’s Chunky Monkey no 5 second rule will trigger an impulse to take action!
So how do we do that? How do we stop the procrastination, the excuses and the inertia from insuring we never achieve our goals?
The only method with a reliable track that leads to success with ANY GOAL is—da da ta da!!!
Form good habits
Boring, huh?
There’s no secret sauce here, I’m afraid. Habits are created over time. After a while you don’t question them, just like you don’t question why you brush your teeth. Set yourself up with a habit or routine, schedule it in your calendar, assign it high importance, and make it a top priority EVERY DAY.
Habits and routines can make you succeed at just about anything. Yes, talent and inspiration have their place, but they’re elusive. And so what if you don’t become THE BEST? You’ll get better, that’s for dang sure.
If you have a burning desire to write, keep at it. Even when you’ve got nothing to say or you’re certain your own words suck. Do it anyway. Make a commitment to yourself to write every day. Take a lesson from Jerry Seinfeld and don’t break the chain.
Google “don’t break the chain” and you’ll find dozens of articles, apps and calendars. The premise is simple. Get a calendar. Mark a big red “X” over every day that you perform your habit. After a few days you’ll see a chain emerge; your job is to not break the chain. (BTW, Seinfeld has been quoted as saying this is the dumbest non-idea that was not his, but he gets the credit for popularizing it).
One more thing. Make certain when you choose a habit that it’s do-able. Write for 15 minutes a day. Exercise for 10 minutes a day. Practice piano for 20 minutes a day. Do 3 Duolingo lessons a day. You get the idea.
Tools to Help You Form Habits
750 Words
750 Words is an online tool to help you make a habit of writing. And it’s exactly what it says: you use it to write 750 words a day. 750 words began as a free site but it now costs $5 to join after using it for 30 days.
Its creator, Buster Benson, calculated that 750 words is approximately the length of three pages. He was influenced to create this tool by a book called The Artist’s Way that was popular in the 90s. The Artist’s Way recommended using “morning pages” to spark creativity—to get ideas out of your head and written down first thing in the morning when your brain is fresh.
For me it doesn’t matter what time of day you write or practice a habit, just do it daily.
Apps
There are a gazillion to choose from but the apps below repeatedly appear on top ten lists of apps for forming good habits. It’s a matter of preference: how many functions and widgets you need, whether you want an app that’s free, etc. Again, the word of the day here is uncomplicated—pick one you find easy to use that you can stick with.
Habit Bull
Habit Bull is a free app available on both iOS and Android. It bills itself as based on Seinfeld’s productivity secret, as well as the book The Power of Habit. You can use it to form habits and goals, and track your progress. It provides an array of categories such as Health & Fitness, Sleep, and Money. It’s got a good FAQ section for getting the most out of the app.
Strides
Strides is available for free in the App Store and you can also download it to your computer. On iOS it has a nicely laid out dashboard and uses cute little icons for popular habits like Exercise, Sleep, and Journal. Or you can name your own goals.
Productive
Productive is free on iOS. I like that it separates goals into morning, evening, and do any time. The free version is limited and you need to upgrade to the premium version if you want to receive reminders or track stats. The premium version is currently $3.99.
Momentum Habit Tracker
Also billed as based on Seinfeld’s productivity secret, the Momentum Habit Tracker is an app available only for iOS. It, too, allows you to choose from several categories of daily habits, or you can create your own. The free version limits you to three habits a day. I didn’t find this app very intuitive on my iPad but perhaps the experience is different on an iPhone. I’d give it a try since it’s often near the top of those top-10 lists.
The Miracle Morning
Mr. Groovy uses Hal Elrod’s Miracle Morning as his tool for forming good habits. While I’m still in REM sleep he’s up at 5:30am, reading, writing, and working out. Miracle Morning has been a game changer for him.
Based on a book by the same name, the premise of Miracle Morning is to develop a morning routine that packs the most important daily activities into your schedule before 8am. You start the day with winning!
You can find a condensed, 6-minute Miracle Morning routine on Hal Elrod’s website along with information on all his books, podcast, and videos of his keynote speaking engagements. He built an empire built up a series of individual books tailored specifically to realtors, salespeople, college students, entrepreneurs, etc. His Miracle Morning for Writers has glowing reviews on Amazon.
TED Talk Lists
9 Interesting TED Talks on Breaking Bad Habits & Forming Better Ones
This list includes gems from Matt Cutts, Dean Ornish, and seven others. It covers a range of topics for building good habits, and starts off with Judson Brewer’s A Simple Way to Break a Habit.
6 TED Talks That Will Change the Way You Think About Productivity
I haven’t viewed any of these talks yet but I’m excited to see Tim Urban made the list with his Inside the Mind of a Master Procrastinator. Tim is the brains behind a popular website I recently learned of called Wait But Why.
Final Thoughts
After telling you repeatedly you don’t need to be inspired to write, I want to share with you what actually inspired me to write this post.
Check out this photo:
If I added this to a collection of photos of sandy beaches, glorious rainbows, and brilliant sunsets, and asked you which view inspires you the most—you wouldn’t choose this view of paint buckets, would you?
Well, someone has.
Our friend Jillian from Montana Money Adventures faces this view of paint buckets when she sits down to write. How do I know this? Recently Mr. Groovy and I made a trip to Montana and were fortunate enough to get an invite to Jillian’s home. As she gave us a tour, she pointed out her “writing chair” that tickled me to no end. Jillian settles down in that chair with a cup of grocery store tea, and her laptop, and she writes away. She creates most of her posts and the content for her new classes sitting in that chair with that view.
You might wonder why Jillian chose that view and the answer is very uncomplicated. Opposite those buckets is a small corner of Jillian’s basement just big enough to fit her armchair. It’s a place where her five young children cannot see mommy if she tucks in her legs and feet. That spot gives her privacy and quiet time.
When I looked at those buckets it was as if a blivet knocked me over the head! (You can take the girl out of Brooklyn but you can’t take Brooklyn out of the girl.) Jillian doesn’t need a perfect atmosphere, a mountain view (although she’s minutes away from spectacular views), or Starbucks coffee to write. She developed the habit of writing! All she needs is a space where ten little feet, hands, and eyes won’t find her. It’s pure genius!
But I’ll let you in on a little secret. Some days, even tucked away in that corner of the basement, Jillian can’t avoid detection. One of her kids might tenaciously seek her out and then, whoops, there goes the writing. And so I wondered—what does Jillian do when she gets interrupted one too many times, and the frustration builds?
And then I stumbled upon the answer. Also tucked away in the corner of Jillian’s basement is her secret. It’s stashed away in her bathroom cabinet and brought out only when she needs the big guns.
I swear, I wasn’t snooping.
Make sure to check out Mr. Groovy’s post 10 Unusual Signs You’re Kicking Butt Financially (recently featured on Rockstar Finance) which includes photos of our Montana trip. Also, don’t miss Jillian’s starring role as Guest Picker on this episode of Talking Trash With Mr. Groovy. And finally, please let me know the creative ways you’ve come up with to form good habits in the comments.
I’ve yet to make writing a solid habit. Time to make it a priority. Thanks for all the resources, Mrs. G!
You’re welcome, Amy. You’ve got a lot going on but I’m sure you can do it! You’ve been pretty consistent with posting.
Focusing on why I am doing anything and being conscious in my actions keeps me inspired. I always wake up the next day proud that I accomplished something to set me up for a better future when I stay motivated.
Like a lot of things in life it takes time to develop healthy habits but you start to feel better once you do. This makes it easier to get inspired the next time around because you have trained yourself to just get going.
Waking up inspired is awesome! I’m still working on that.
The why is so important. If you lose focus of the why you find yourself wasting time on things that are not important — I know I do.
Thanks for your comment!
Habits really do make the person. It’s not rocket science but it’s something that gets forgotten time to time. I purchased an ebook online before, it’s called Mini Habits. The key was just to start out with a habit that is so simple to do, you literally cannot fail.
The author gave an example of setting a daily goal to do 1 pushup. The hardest part of any activity is always starting. But once you started, you find that it is easier to continue. So most people always end up doing more than 1 pushup. After time once you’ve built up the momentum, you can do more easily! This Mini Habits method may sound funny, but I always find it very effective!
Thanks for the book recommendation — I’ll check it out! I love the idea of mini habits. Mr. G is a great example. It took him 2 years to do one muscle-up. After that, within a year’s time he got up to 9. He was shooting for 10 but so what that he didn’t make it! He also figured out that dropping some weight was key to getting that first one. So he ended up establishing another habit — kicked the sugar and bread.
I totally need some habit work right now! What a great post with so many ideas and things to try. It doesn’t surprise me that Jillian has this thing down – (and I love the paint buckets…) Looks a lot like home! I’m going to check a few of these out and pick one. No excuses to not give it a go!
Thanks, Vicki. I’ve no doubt that when you make up your mind to do something, you do it. But boy, you’ve had a lot going on the last few months! Just living in a temporary space makes it difficult to have routines.
What a wonderful post! And just what I needed. Habit forming is something I am obsessed with, yet fail in so often. But I know the power of it: I have tried to fit more exercise into my life forever, but I always struggle with it. But there is one solid habit that I do have – that’s taking my dog to the park most mornings. Piggybacking running onto this activity is as close as I have ever gotten to success with any kind of truly routine workout. I always think about this and try to figure out how to piggyback onto other established habits. Forming new ones is hard. But it is the answer to everything, I believe it!
Thank you, Linda! I really did write this as much for myself as for our readers because I’m not always great with forming new habits either. But I’ve come to the conclusion that if I don’t form the habit, I really don’t want it badly enough. Otherwise, I’d do it.
Piggybacking is a good strategy. Thinking “if I do this I might as well do that” without making it a big deal could work.
A fellow attendee at Chautauqua mentioned Miracle Morning and said how much it has helped him. I am definitely in a rut and need to make some new, better habits, especially when it comes to my writing. I guess I always thought that there was something wrong with me since I just could never seem super inspired to write. It’s good to know that it isn’t just me and that I need to stop waiting for the perfect moment. Just start and the rest will take care of itself.
So great to talk with you the other night. That might have been the most epic brewery phone call that has ever happened. And I just about died when I saw Make Smarter Decisions dressed as you guys at the costume party. Hope to meet the “real” Mr & Mrs Groovy one of these days.
It’s rare that I find a moment that feels perfect when I write. Just start and the rest will take care of itself — exactly!
That call was so zany! I knew y’all were drinking (ha ha) but had no idea you were in a brewery. I saved the group photo so the next time we talk with Fritz he can match the names with the faces for us. Vicki and her husband were a hoot. I really thank you and everyone else for making us feel like we participated just a little in FinCon17. We already have tickets and hotel reservations for ’18!
I like these cerebral posts! I’m very guilty of waiting for writing to happen on my blog. My good habits are all used up with teaching and my Master’s class (the writing I *have* to do). I’m much more loosey goosey on the blog. It’s not ideal at all. But if I want to kickstart the process for myself, I go outside and think in silence. No podcasts, no music, nada.
Wait, what??? Did the infamous Penny just call me cerebral? I’ll have to save this comment for posterity. Thank you.
I wonder how you have anything left to write at all with teaching and your Master’s class — not to mention spending time with Mr. P and HP.
I can think while listening to podcasts because once I get an idea, my brain goes its own way and the podcast stream fades to background noise. Music with lyrics throws me off. Silently, I’m reciting the words and I can’t think at all.
Hey Mrs. Groovy! Thanks for all of the great resources and information. I love watching Ted talks and will have to check some of those out.
The #1 thing that keeps me writing is reading other people’s blog posts. I’m so grateful for the wisdom and inspiration that people share (thank you!) and appreciate all of the time and energy that it takes to write a post.
The habit of regularly reading PF posts is a great support for building so many other good habits.
Awww, thanks Mrs. G! I agree with you about the wisdom others in the PF community share (thank you, too!). The support system from building friendships is a big plus too.
Snoopin’ on Ms Jillian? Tsk tsk. Great post, with some useful tools to build those positive habits!
Thanks, Fritz!
First there was Snoop Dogg. Now there’s Snoop Cat. I know, pretty corny.
I’m trying to establish good habits after vacation. It’s tough with so much going on, but I’m getting the hang of it….
It’s so easy to fall back into your every day routines if you aren’t careful.
Vacation and travel can be real traps. We tend to go the “to heck with it” route when it comes to our normal routines.
It sounds like you’re getting a handle on things, Erik. I’m already thinking about the upcoming holidays and how the holiday meals kill the diet.
Haha, the Costco Kirkland brand too! Frugal!
I second Mrs PP, I like taking walks. When my legs are moving, my brain is moving.
I never caught on to the expensive notebook fad. I can spend $35 on nice paper and pens but it’s not going to make my ideas any better!
I’m stealing a post I read on Rockstar Finance, it mentioned creativity coming from limitations because you are forced to work with what you got instead of everything that pollutes the process. I think that’s brilliant!
I like that idea about limitations. If you have too many options you can end up doing nothing.
I’m looking forward to that post. Speaking of Rockstar Finance, congratulations on your rockstar post today!
LOL, what a lovely view.
I like using the EpicWin app, although it’s fallen by the wayside recently. The idea is that as you complete tasks, your RPG like avatar gains strength, intelligence, spirit, stamina, etc. So cleaning the bathroom is a feat of stamina, which is how I see it anyway. You get points and travel a path. Basically, it turns your life into a role playing game.
I agree with you about cleaning the bathroom. Mr. Groovy is waiting for the day a robot can do it (and not just the floor, like the Rumba).
I never heard of EpicWin but it looks like a lot of fun for those who like games.
” (BTW, when did Starbucks last clean that chair? Just saying.)”
I’m SO glad I’m not the only one who thinks about that! 🙂 Habit is SO important. Just do it. No matter if you want to or not. The inspiration will follow. 🙂
You’re one of the few people who know why clean furniture has been on my mind lately, Laurie!
Right, inspiration will follow especially when you see results.
Very true. I think too often it’s easier to buy things that we think will make us motivated and productive. But we don’t realize we have these things within us already, and the temptation to buy “enabling” objects just makes us poorer. I personally get a lot of inspiration from taking walks. They’re totally free and clear my mind.
I agree about walking, Mrs. PP. And I’ve fallen victim to buying things I think will motivate me too. Then I just have another piece of junk lying around the house. I mean really, how many fitness bands do I need? I was going to buy an entire set, including the door anchor, but then I had a stern talk with myself.
If I waited until I really felt like working out, my days working out a week would go from 6 to 2…maybe. You seriously CAN’T wait for motivation. You have to create momentum, pure and simple. I think that’s why the diet and fitness industry rakes in the bucks. They know what they can get people to buy their books or products and THEN they will be motivated, my 99% of the time that’s not the case. Heck I even almost fell for that one this past weekend when I oooh and ahhhhed over the new fitbit ion. As if buying one would suddenly turn me into an ironman(woman) athlete. Nope, I’d still probably be doing the same workouts…and what’s wrong with that? Nothing. No watch will make that much of a difference. OK I know you were talking about writing, but similar parallels. 🙂
Good habits definitely apply to exercise, Tonya. You seem pretty disciplined to me. And I’m glad Mr. Groovy and I are so accustomed to walking every day that we don’t think about it.
It really annoys me how these companies (FitBit, Apple, every android manufacturer) hold out on technology. I don’t believe for one minute they actually discover ways to make improvements. No, they just wait to unroll the next model with more bells and whistles because they know an awful lot of consumers just have to have the latest phone, etc.
Thanks for commenting!
I’m currently reading The Artist Way, and just finished my morning pages. =) I really want to read Miracle Morning. I should just order it and put it in the pile. I’m actually sitting in my chair right now! Staring at those paint buckets. Although I do also wear noise-canceling headphones. =) 10 more minutes and it’s time to say good morning to the kids and get them ready for school. It was so fun to have you guys out here! We missed you at FinCon. =)
Back when I was acting, the “group think” presided over what books everyone read. The Artist’s Way was one from the 90s. Shatgi Gawain’s Creative Visualization was another one (in the 70s!) and then Living in the Light (in the 80s).
It was great seeing you in MT! I miss you and Adam and those ten little feet, hands, and eyes! Say hi to them for us.
We’ll SEE YOU at FINCON next year, if not before.