If you’re not writing as much as you’d like to, you have to ask yourself why? What’s stopping you from writing. regardless of whatever’s preventing you writing, you can in fact push past these obstacles if you really want to.
But that’s the crux: do you really want to write? If you have an excuse as to why you can’t start writing its okay. If you answered no, it just means that you really don’t want to write – writing is hard, difficult, fraught with obstacles, time-consuming and frustrating especially when your published draft doesn’t turn out as you hoped it would.
But if you answered yes, you just need to overcome the obstacles preventing you from getting started which sometimes is easier said than done.
Time
Time seems to be a big obstacle preventing you from writing. You don’t have time to write, your busy. Other priorities take precedence over your writing. You just cannot seem to find the time to sit and write out a blog post during the day, right?
The truth is that, if you really wanted to write you would find the time to do it. You can make time, it just depends on how motivated you are. The first step, is to acknowledge that other important priorities do take precedence over your writing. By doing this, you are taking huge steps towards your goal.
In fact, if I said that I didn’t have time to write a blog post I would believe it, thinking that other things are more important to me than writing. You can make time, you just have to find the time to do it. By making time for writing, or anything else your taking responsibility. And responsibility means that no-one can alter the situation but myself.
Overcoming Obstacles
Once you’ve acknowledged that you’re in control of your time and it’s not the other way around, you can start by taking action and writing more.
The thing is that you have to make writing or anything else you want to do a priority. This takes time, you don’t have to make it a top priority but you do have to set aside some time for it. If you can write at the same time every day and stick to it on a regular basis you will find that is gets easier as its become a daily routine.
When you do this, your developing a habit that sticks. It becomes easier and easier to do and not to do. On, most days I don’t go a day without writing anything. I’m constantly brainstorming ideas, writing notes to myself, hashing out ideas or writing blog posts. It’s become a routine where it become difficult to not write every day.
Give Yourself Permission
Another obstacle preventing you from starting to write or do anything is permission. From my experience it’s not something we grapple with consciously, it’s internal we often seek permission to do something from anywhere but ourselves. For instance, seeing others who are good at blogging can often be intimidating as we get held back by the idea that were not good enough so we don’t even attempt to try.
You have to learn to trust yourself and I think you have to at some point you have to let go of your need for approval. No one is going to give you permission to do something, you have to realise that you have to give yourself permission to start. On hindsight, waiting for permission is just an excuse from taking the leap and starting to write.
To overcome this hurdle, give yourself permission to start writing and stop worrying about what other people think.
Writing is an intense process. If you’re struggling to get started, try to reflect and figure out what obstacle is preventing you from starting. This will gradually help you to overcome these obstacles.