Discovering perseverance

Today is post number 976. In a little under a month, I will write my 1000th post.

This is probably the most consistent thing I’ve ever done in my life. Almost every day, I’ve written this blog as a way to reach out and as a way to help manage writers’ block. I guess I’m in it for the long run.

I’m serious about this being the most consistent thing I’ve done in my life (other than things like breathing and eating). I’ve had a habit of being really excited by a new hobby or skill and doing it for a while, but not completing it. Gardening is a good example: I will start seeds of all sorts of edible plants in January through March, plant them, and then give up right around the time weeds sprout. My yields go to zero because I can’t find my plants through all the weeds. I’m not planting this year — I’m letting my raised beds go fallow with tarps on them to kill the weeds.

I wonder if my blogging will help me make more habits in my life stick. One of these is eating more healthy so I can lose weight again (Yeah, I didn’t stick to that too well) and maybe walking. I may have to set New Years’ resolutions (although I hate those). Or maybe I just keep doing the right thing.

Writing Every Day

I have been writing this blog for 21 months on nearly a daily basis, and in a few cases, more than once a day. I’ve missed a week at a time during times I was fighting depression, but for the most part I’ve stuck to this blog. It’s become part of my being, part of my definition as a writer.

Writing this blog wasn’t always part of my definition of myself. Neither, for that matter, was writing in general. What it took was a discipline of writing every day.

Writing every day is not an easy thing. First of all, one has to commit to an action that may not feel natural. I write every morning, generally between 5:30 and 6:30 AM (today is an exception; I didn’t get up at my usual 5 am because it’s a snowy weekend). I can guarantee that, at first, writing a blog first thing in the morning was not something I felt moved to do. Now, because of the scheduled habit, I write my blog almost every morning.

Writing in general wasn’t a habit at first. But after a NaNoWriMo or two, I discovered that 2000 words a day (most days; I think my average per day is more like 1500) wasn’t difficult. So I ended up with somewhere around six novels to play around with, and I’ve been writing for seven years.

Right now I’m not writing because I discovered editing time is as important as writing. So I have the goal of editing at least an hour a day, and so far I’ve been pretty successful (but I have about 5000 more words to add to Voyageurs, and this will be a bit tough. Whee.

Habits aren’t very sexy. It’s much more compelling to be that writer who does nothing but write for days, forsaking everything but coffee (or in the case of Coleridge, some prime hash), who shuns responsibility while feverishly writing. In reality, most writers are not that person, nor can they be. So writers need habits to take the slow, sure course of writing.

Although writing binges, within reason, are a good thing, because it’s fun to feel like the crazed stereotype at times.

Getting from goals to accomplishments

Sometimes I write in this blog when I don’t seem to have a lot to say. It’s not because I love to hear the sound of my “voice”, although some would argue I do. Rather, it’s to keep a routine going so I don’t lose a good habit.

Routine is what helps us develop good habits. That, and a reward for doing them, since in the short run doing what we’ve always done feels better. Habits, as unglamorous as they are, are what turn long term goals into accomplishments.

As a professor teaching positive psychology and behavioral economics, I have an interest in the whole idea of how to change habits. The behavioral economics idea behind behavior is that we’re naturally going to choose the immediate reward over the long-term benefit. There’s proof behind this; behavioral economists (including my favorite, Dr. Dan Ariely) do research to support their hypotheses, like any good professor.

I am trying out a program called Fabulous, which helps people develop good habits. It is based on behavioral economics, and Dan Ariely is one of its driving forces. The program uses environmental cues (such as putting your sneakers by the door if you’re training yourself to exercise), social cues (reminders on the app and encouragement), repetition, and rewards (praise and leveling up). I’m not necessarily going to recommend it, because membership costs $50 a year, but I think the reasoning behind it is sound, having read some of the research myself.

To go back to my blogging habit — I have writing on my daily to-do list, along with one hour of writing activities daily. I set aside some time each morning to write; my computer is my environmental cue.

And my reward? Reading the stats on my Blogger page to see people from many different countries reading this blog.