As I mentioned a few days ago, I’ve been working on establishing a writing habit in my daily life. Today marks the 10th continual day, since starting, that I’ve been writing for at least 30 minutes a day.

I figured now would be a good time to reflect on what I’ve learned so far. Above all else, what I’ve learned so far is that

Practice Works

I’ve read numerous books on skill building, including one of my all time favorites, Talent is Overrated. The book discusses how people who are excellent at what they do become excellent. The secret is: disciplined practice. Top performers (in all fields) set aside time each day to practice what they are bad at, and struggle through exercises.

Focused practice over longs periods of time builds skill. There are no shortcuts.

While I’ve always enjoyed writing casually, this has been the first time in my life that I’ve actually set aside time each day to sit down and write for a specific time frame.

Although it has only been 10 days so far, I’ve noticed that my continued practice is already making a difference. So far the difference doesn’t seem to be in my writing itself, but in my attitude towards writing.

I’ve noticed that I’ve been able to write with a much higher level of joy in the past few days than at any previous time in my life. Maybe this is just an emotional side effect of the continuous success I’ve had in sticking to my schedule for the past 10 days–but I have been enjoying writing a lot more than normal.

Furthermore, I’ve become a lot less rigid with my writing. As a perfectionist, I’ve always had problems expressing my thoughts on paper. When I would attempt to write, I’d spend long periods of time working out each sentence in my head perfectly before writing it down. This behavior tended to eat up a lot of momentum.

Since I’ve started writing daily, I’ve been able to simply type what I’m thinking, gradually refining it. This feels great. It feels like the shackles that have held me back from expressing my thoughts are beginning to loosen.

Goals

I don’t have any specific goals in regards to my writing at the moment. At least for a while, I’d like to simply continue writing for 30 minutes each day, and gradually become better at expressing my thoughts in a clear, concise, and structured way.

I’m hoping that as I practice writing more and more, it will become more natural for me, and I’ll be able to experience a greater feeling of relief and happiness while writing.