How Writing Habits Help Business Owners
Habits aren’t easy to create, but they’re important. Writing habits can be trickier than others, too, because we all come from different places with experience and skills.
Developing your voice and feeling confident about it takes time and effort. You have to show up and work on it, and it doesn’t always feel like a fun creative whirlwind. Similar to running your business, sometimes writing feels exhilarating and sometimes it kicks your butt. I totally get that because it happens to me, too, even as a seasoned writer.
What I’ve experienced, and what I’ve seen when I work with students and coaching clients, is that you need a writing habit. When you create a habit of showing up for yourself to regularly practice your writing, it not only feels better, but you tend to have fewer “this is all terrible” days, too. You learn what’s comfortable and what feels good, and it becomes easier to live with days that aren’t great because you don’t feel like every single time will be bad.
I feel it coming, it always does: “But…”
Some of the most common obstacles and challenges - what I often call the “buts” - I hear from storytellers from all walks of life are:
I’m too busy
Taking time for writing feels like a luxury
Writing isn’t as urgent as other pressing matters in my life
There’s always tomorrow, so why do I need to start today?
These are all completely legitimate concerns. We are busy, and sometimes emergencies do pop up that we have to take care of immediately, such as taking your beloved pet to the emergency room because they got into something and won’t stop throwing up. Obviously, you wouldn’t just not take care of them because you’ve scheduled writing time (even if they’ve done it more than once and you don’t feel as bad for them as you used to). But, in general, writing on a regular basis and practicing telling your story doesn’t usually present those types of high-stakes scenarios.
People have these preconceived notions about what writing “has to” look like, and most of them aren’t very good.
Things like writing for hours at a time and having to have the exact right words at every turn put so much pressure on you as a storyteller. They work totally in concert with the challenges above because the challenges present an out.
You can’t do an hour-long writing session three times this week because your brother needs you to watch your nephew. You can’t journal every day because you have to be at work all day and you’ll be too tired - you’ll get at it on the weekend.
These unfortunate notions, some that have been programmed into our minds since we were kids learning what a “real writer” is, can create barriers to even starting. Who wants to do something thinking it will be a completely uphill battle they won’t be very good at?
This is why creating a writing habit is important. I believe, and I’ve seen it with my own two eyes, that when you make a little time for writing each week, it can change your life.
It’s worth sticking with the first couple of months to build a strong, healthy habit. Here’s why.
Get Comfortable
Writing isn’t natural for a lot of people. In fact, it has a tendency to feel extremely vulnerable, especially if you’ve been in situations where you felt you didn’t have privacy to express yourself.
As you create a writing habit and write regularly, it’ll get more relaxed. You’ll get more comfortable, and it’s highly likely you’ll begin to feel more creative and excited to continue on.
Get Creative
If I had a dollar for every time someone told me they’re “just not that creative”...but seriously, it’s super common. People don’t think they can think beyond reality. Really, it just takes a desire and a little bit of practice. When you get more comfortable telling your story and it becomes a habit, the outcome can evolve into something bigger than you started with.
If the first thing you want to do is tell your story from beginning to end, and you practice doing that, it makes sense you’ll add to that goal moving forward. Maybe the next outcome is that you want to feel comfortable telling your story, or learn how to tell it in a way that makes sense for you to share it.
No matter what you do, when you have a writing habit you show up for, you’ll see progress. You’ll come up with new ways to say things and perhaps figure out how to explain the context of your story without feeling like you have to give your whole life story as background information.
Get Confident
My favorite part about writing habits is the confidence they create. There’s nothing quite like seeing someone write a story know they did that. It’s the same look of wonderment from community college and university classrooms to community centers and library group sessions to addiction treatment facilities. It’s the “I can” look, at least that’s what I call it.
Getting comfortable with your words and ideas and being able to be creative, sometimes for the first time, is an incredible feeling. It builds your confidence, which is essentially the entire goal of this book. It builds to the moment where you think to yourself: I did this and it’s good enough. I did this and it matters. I did this and I matter to the world.
What Does This Have to Do with Business Owners?
Everyone can benefit from a solid writing habit, but business owners can get a few extra kickbacks from them.
As you grow more comfortable, creative, and confident in your writing, you’ll grow in similar ways in your personal life a business.
Because most people have a complicated relationship with writing and writing habits, forming one means that you’ve already proven to yourself that you can do hard things (like Glennon Doyle says). When you face obstacles in business, you’ll be more confident that you can work through it - maybe even in writing!
Business owners are people first. Sure, we do badass things and create and manage. But at the heart of it all, we’re people who have emotions, feelings, stress, love, relationships, and everything in between. Writing gives you a safe place to be human first before anything else. Everyone needs a space like this.
This is your time to shine, business owner. I believe in you, and I hope that you believe in you, too.