Name: 7 Lies I Tell Myself that Kill My Creativity and Stop Me from Writing » Bonjour Becky
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7 Lies I Tell Myself that Kill My Creativity and Stop Me from Writing » Bonjour Becky

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Some of the links in this post may be affiliate links. Should you choose to purchase anything, a small portion of the proceeds will support me and Juno. Thanks!After 10 years of writing in other people’s voices as a corporate copywriter and freelance ghostwriter, I sometimes struggle to find my own voice (and loudly, confidently belt it out for the world to hear.)That’s part of why I started blogging again, to have fun using my own voice to write about whatever the heck I want — not just what a client wants or what will get the most clicks.But if it’s fun, why is it so f**king hard to get started? Why can’t I stop procrastinating?Because my brain likes to tell me lies. Yours, too?Here are 7 of the most common lies I tell myself to stop myself from writing, and how I shut myself up so I can put paragraphs on the page, words on the web, and ultimately stop procrastinating.This one is kind of true! But it’s also kind of liberating.I will never be fully original and that’s okay. I can still be a catchy remix. When I start to think like this, I also think of the “restaurants in NYC” analogy. There are thousands of fabulous restaurants in NYC already —and yet, new restaurants open every week. There’s room for infinite variety because people’s tastes vary infinitely. Maybe you’re someone’s new favorite restaurant (or writer.)I pay more attention to myself than anyone else does, so of course it sometimes it feels like I’m repeating myself and should stay quiet. Really, though, no one is paying more attention to me than me.(And if you are tired of hearing from me? “Close tab” is right there. I won’t take it personally.)In classic ADD fashion, I often fight boredom by overstuffing my schedule, then realize I have so many commitments that it makes me anxious. It’s a cycle brought on by my inability to sit still.When this happens, I simply remind myself that a) I signed up for all of these things, so I can also un-sign up for them and b) if writing is important to me, I’ll keep prioritizing it. “Busy” is a myth.In my opinion, this is one of the most pervasive lies we tell ourselves.I’m 29 years old, which depending on how old you are may seem incredibly young —which it is, in the grand scheme of a life I hope will extend past 90 years or so— or incredibly far away. (It still sounds “old” to me, too!) I know that realistically, I have plenty of time left to achieve my dreams. But when I see someone even younger than I am doing the things I want to do —buying a house, publishing a book, or just generally moving through the world looking ridiculously happy and confident— I am not immune to jealousy. “Oh no,” I think. “She’s so young and skinny and pretty and following her dreams!!!! I, unlike her, have wasted my youth, squandered my chances, and made success (whatever that means) a million times harder for myself than it could have been if I’d just started sooner!!” When I start to spiral like that, I take a deep breath and remind myself: I am my own competition. I have so much time. I am my own competition. I have so much time. I am my own competition. I have SO. MUCH. TIME. It’s helpful to be reminded, too, of all the amazing humans who only reached their full potential or became the person they’re now famous for becoming later in life. (Julia Child, for instance, didn’t publish her first book until age 39, and first appeared on television at age 51.) I can live a happy, fulfilling life without meeting arbitrary milestones by an arbitrary date. So can you.When I finally sit down to write after days or weeks of procrastinating, I am inevitably seized with the urge to do…absolutely everything else.The dishes. The laundry. That closet of clothes that need to be organized and donated. All of the tiny items on my to-do list I’ve been putting off indefinitely. In order to stop procrastinating, I have to remind myself that writing IS productive. Even if it doesn’t always feel that way. The act of writing helps improve the art of writing. And it counts as “real” work, just as much as the dishes do.When I start to think like this, I remind myself of this Ira Glass quote:“Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.”―&nbsp;Ira GlassAll I can do is keep writing, keep working, to close that gap. Just gotta fight my way through.The thing is, I rarely feel like it. If I only wrote when inspiration struck, I’d write maybe one personal blog post a month. I’d never stop procrastinating. That’s why I have a piece of paper taped above my desk Sharpie-scrawled with the words “The hardest part is just to start.” Once I’m in the groove, I usually feel better, and procrastination only makes it worse. Usually, the motion has to come before the emotion. I write not because I feel like it now, but because I know I’ll feel shitty later when I don’t. I give myself permission to practice in public, permission to suck. To just put something down, anything. Because if I don’t? I’ll super-regret it later.I'm a writer roaming the wild, wild west with my dog, Juno. When I'm not telling stories around the campfire, I sometimes tell them here.Sign up for occasional updates and travel tips from Becky and Juno. No spam, ever.When you shop via the following links, a small percentage supports Becky and Juno at no extra cost to you. 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Some of the links in this post may be affiliate links. Should you choose to purchase anything, a small portion of the proceeds will support me and Juno. Thanks!After 10 years of writing in other people’s voices as a corporate copywriter and freelance ghostwriter, I sometimes struggle to find my own voice (and loudly, confidently belt it out for the world to hear.)That’s part of why I started blogging again, to have fun using my own voice to write about whatever the heck I want — not just what a client wants or what will get the most clicks.But if it’s fun, why is it so f**king hard to get...

7 Lies I Tell Myself that Kill My Creativity and Stop Me from Writing » Bonjour Becky

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