Hello friend, 👋🏾
This morning I woke up to an unexpected layer of snow covering everything outside. Seven hours later, as I write this, it’s all melted, but it was a beautiful way to start the day (mostly because I didn’t have to shovel any of it). But I did take a frosty morning walk and enjoyed it all the more because of the snow.
I like to start new habits well in advance of the new year so I can beat the January rush. I don’t bother with resolutions any more because who can ever really stick to those? But tweaking my routines and improving my habits seems like a gentler way to go, and starting in December means there’s less pressure.
So far, I’ve been succeeding in going to bed early enough to wake up at 6:25am. That means I usually have enough time to get in a morning walk and meditate before starting my 8am writing session. Today, I even managed a ten minute stretching routine—completing my desired trifecta of morning activities.
Getting outside to walk more has been a goal of mine for months—years, if I’m honest—and I’ve been thinking about what the difference is between wanting to do something and actually doing it. How do you get from here to there? To the point where you are actually prioritizing your goal and taking the action steps to get it done.
Will power won’t cut it. And though deep in your heart, you really do want this thing, you are currently failing. And then, all of a sudden, one day you aren’t.
What is the difference?
I’ve been working on figuring that out for myself because there are countless times when I’ve moved from desire but inaction to consistent repeated actions and then, poof, it becomes a habit.
At the moment, I’ve broken it into these steps:
1 - Want it. Focus on the desire. Get clear on what you’re trying to accomplish.
2 - Put it out there. Speak it out loud, or at least aloud in your heart. Admit to yourself that you want this and perhaps tell someone else for accountability.
3 - Receive assistance. Once your desire is out there, you’ll start receiving aid. As Paulo Coehlo wrote, “When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it." Youtube videos and IG reels and podcast episodes and blogs and articles and documentaries will leap into your path, begging to be received. Your job is to take notes, bookmark links, journal, ruminate, talk about it. Prepare yourself.
4 - Wait for the spark and let it light the way. This is the sort of controversial part of the plan. Many times we want to do things very badly, and often try to take action, but those attempts don’t last long. (This is, of course, why the gym is crowded in January but back to normal before Valentine’s Day.)
I don’t think you can force it with willpower. I think you have to wait for the spark to light. However, the waiting doesn’t have to be passive. See steps 2 and 3.
If your desire is active and you are taking steps to receive the assistance that will come to you—the knowledge and resources to meet your goals—then you’re preparing yourself for the spark.
All the times that I’ve gone from desire to action and follow through have been precipitated by a spark that I allowed to ignite me. For example, I’d failed to complete my first novel many times. That didn’t mean my desire was low, but my actions weren’t in line with success.
Then one day, I was ready. I stopped watching all of my TV shows and started waking up earlier and writing. Poof. I finished that first novel. And many more after that. It was like a switch had flipped.
Same thing with exercising regularly, deciding not to allow shyness to hold me back, joining the climbing gym, finally going gluten-free. Until the spark lit, my steps were unsure, and I often went two steps forward, followed by two or three steps back.
For the past year, I’ve been listening to the host of the Huberman Lab podcast reiterating the benefits of sunlight in your eyes early in the morning. I’d tried it a few times, but it didn’t stick. But I was still receiving the message, along with countless others expounding on the benefits of getting outside each day for so many aspects of life.
For me, the spark caught once the weather dropped into the 30s & 40s and walking outside was not as pleasant as in warmer months. But I’m grateful, nonetheless. Because the spark lights the engine that pushes me through. And once that happens, while it still takes effort to do the hard thing, it’s not really a struggle anymore. It’s just a thing I do.
I have the gas in the tank that pushes me forward. So I’m happy to be adding habits this December, and I’ll keep thinking about how these changes actually come about in my own experience.
But I’d love to hear about yours as well! Let me know in the comments how you experience the shift from inaction to an action that becomes a habit.
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📝 Daily Journaling
Another habit I’m working on: being a more consistent journaler. I’ve kept a journal on and off since I was about six years old. Some of my notebooks have many years or even a decade between entries. Consistency is something I’d love to incorporate into my process.
One of the recent messages I received on this topic was this post, “10 Lessons From 5 Years of Doing a One-Line-A-Day Journal.”
The One-Line-a-Day Journal initially caught my eye… because I thought writing just one sentence a day would be an easier habit to keep up and a good way to remember things from everyday life that I might otherwise forget…
After completing the first year, I also started rereading my past entries each month. Reflecting in this way has helped me to gain insight into how I’ve framed my thoughts and experiences at different moments in time, and how I’ve changed the way I think about things.
This style of journal allows you to see entries from the same day over the course of multiple years, thus allowing you to track your own personal growth. Some of the benefits highlighted include putting bad days into perspective, identifying repetitive behavior, and reflecting on recurring patterns.
I immediately ordered this Some Lines A Day, 5 Year Memory Book and began using it the day it arrived. I’m extremely excited to look back on today in a year, or five years and see how I’ve changed.
🧠 Remembering what we read
Improving my memory is a thing I’m adding to my list of wants. (Universe, I’m talking to you as well.) Being able to remember more of what I read would be amazing. I’ve put together a pretty decent Second Brain using the software Notion to keep track of articles, notes, and other miscellany (and recently started using this template from Thomas Frank, which I’m enjoying).
“How to better remember what you read” from Ness Labs offers some salient tips like: actively engaging with the text the way we did in school, maybe by discussing them with someone; taking notes, especially by hand; and creating a mental map to connect new information with things you’ve learned in the past. Contextualizing what we read seems to be the key here.
💡Imaginary Worldbuilding - The Final Cohort
Imaginary Worldbuilding: Creating Fictional Worlds for Writers is open for enrollment. If you are ready to stop feeling overwhelmed and frustrated developing and fleshing out your story ideas, then this course may be for you.
The class is self-paced, but if you’d like to have a live experience, the upcoming January live online cohort will be the only one for the year.
We'll be gathering on four consecutive Saturdays starting January 13, 2024 at 12pm ET to review the course material, get feedback on worldbuilding progress, and for Q&A about story development and craft.
If you'd like to go deeper into crafting your fictional world, please join us! There are only 2 spots left.
🚀 Quick Bites
Word nerds will get a kick out of this post from Merriam-Webster on words in other languages that have no equivalent in English.
I’m a big fan of author Elodie Nowodazkij’s podcast “A self-published author's diary.” She’s started a mini-series on creating a subscription with the platform Ream as a fiction author. I enjoyed the first part and am looking forward to hearing more about her journey. Definitely recommended!
In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer. And that makes me happy. For it says that no matter how hard the world pushes against me, within me, there’s something stronger – something better, pushing right back.
— Albert Camus
🎙️ Ink & Magic Podcast episode 4: Enemies to Lovers
Join bestselling authors (and former college roommates) Ines Johnson and L. Penelope as they read and discuss the writing craft, worldbuilding, and romance of paranormal and fantasy novels.
Today's topic is one that sets our hearts racing and pages turning: the Enemies to Lovers trope. We dissect some of the most iconic enemies to lovers stories in literature and on screen and dive deep into the intoxicating dance of characters who start off at odds, only to find their hearts entwined as the story unfolds and explore why this trope captures our imaginations and keeps us hooked, from the fiery initial clashes to the eventual tender admissions of love.
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These are some great suggestions I really must come back to this. Thanks!
Walking outside is big of my list of things to do more of. Also thank you SO much for the shoutout!