New year resolutions don’t work. This is what to do instead.

Think back to your last new year’s resolution. How did it go? Did you start a new writing habit? Are you still doing it? If you’re like 92% of people, your resolutions have melted along with January snow.

This is the scenario: December 31 of one year, we behave one way and do one thing. Then the clock ticks forward, a switch flips and suddenly we become more organized, meditate every day, exercise three times a week and lose weight while we also pitch editors and write our novels.

It’s unrealistic.

This is no way to make a change. It makes no sense because our brains don’t incorporate a change that quickly.

You need to ease into things.
You want to be able to skip a day and not feel as if you’ve failed.
You don’t want guilt and obligation to compel you forward
Instead, you want to be able to enjoy what you do.

It takes time and intention to create a new writing habit.

Research suggests it takes at least 20 days for a new action to become a habit. The more complicated the action, the longer it takes to become a regular part of your daily life. Drinking a glass of water every morning takes less time to become a new habit than sitting down to write your morning pages.

But there’s plenty you can do to rewire your neurons and help new writing habits form.

Cue and Reward Your Behavior

In The Power of Habit, Charles Duhigg suggests creating a cue that will remind you to do the thing you want to do. So if you want to run every morning, leave you running shoes where you can see them. If you want to write first thing in the morning, leave a notebook and pen by the bed or keep your computer in a place you’ll see it before you pick up your phone.

Then every time you pick up a cue and follow through on the action, reward yourself with something that motivates you to continue.

How I do it?

I leave my computer on the kitchen counter at night and put water and coffee grounds in the coffee maker. When my alarm goes off in the morning, the first thing I want is coffee, so I go to the kitchen and flip on the pot. It takes about ten minutes for coffee to brew. There I have my ten minutes of writing for the day. I take my coffee back to the computer and write a little longer before the rest of the house wakes up.

Create Accountability

According to a study by the American Society of Training and Development, people who have a system to hold themselves accountable to new habits are 95% more likely to succeed. There are two parts to this accountability. First, you must have someone to whom you report your success. Second, you must set a regular appointment with that person or group where you discuss your results and share your wins.

If you only do the first. You have a 65% chance of seeing your new habit through. If you report to someone (ideally through a writing group or mastermind), you have a 95% chance of creating your new writing habit.

How I do it?

I have a writing partner for my personal essays, non-fiction, and short stories. Each month, we send the other a piece of writing for comments. This means I commit to completing a draft. Then we meet via Skype to discuss our work.

This is also the kind of accountability I set for people when we work together one-on-one. At the end of each session, we set clear goals for our next session and a deadline for your next draft. And yes, almost every client sends it to me on time.

Make a plan

You want to write every day, you say. Wonderful. But if you don’t know what you want to write, your writing time won’t be nearly as productive.

Instead, you make a plan. You look at writing as a business. You set out your goals, decide which ones take precedence and then you work on the first, then the second, then the third until you’ve reached them all. Or you block out times during your year during which you will work on each piece of the plan.

How I do it?

I made a commitment to write a novel for NaNoWriMo and wrote 1500-2000 words every day for a month. At the end of the month, I had the rough draft of a book.

This writing schedule worked for me for one month, but there’s no way I could keep this up every day of the year. Not in addition to meeting with one-on-one clients, arranging writing retreats and running The Workshop, my private online writing mentorship group. No, if I want to do all these things, write regularly AND maintain my sanity, I needed a different plan.

When NaNoWriMo ended, I changed my writing schedule. Now, I sit with my calendar at the beginning of each week and block out specific hours for each type of project. I have hours during which I work with clients. There are times I develop new mentoring webinars and resources. Then I set hours for the week during which I work on finishing books, short stories and personal essays.

It will take time and a bit of trial and error to ease into a schedule that works best for you.

Set benchmarks

How do you know if you’re reaching your goals? Set benchmarks.

If you want to pitch ten potential stories each month, keep track of what you’re pitching and where you’re sending your pitches. At the end of each month, review your statistics and see if you’re actually pitching the amount you want. If not, create time to pitch more. If you’re pitching as much as you intended, but your pitches aren’t getting responses, then it’s time to look at your pitches and evaluate them to see why they may not be getting the responses you want.

The type of benchmark you create will change depending on the outcome you want. If you want to write more every day, you’ll choose a specific number of words or pages you want to write every month. If you want to finish writing a book, you can set deadlines for yourself to finish specific parts of the book.

How I do it?

I have a backlog of articles and essays I’ve started but haven’t yet finished. I decided this year to pull out one piece of writing from the depths of my files and finish one each month. It’s a pretty easy benchmark to monitor. Did I finish a new story or not? If yes, awesome. I do the same the following month. If I haven’t finished a new story that month, I go back and figure out why not.

HInt: If I don’t meet my benchmarks, it’s usually because I’m not taking advantage of the methods I mention above of creating and maintaining writing habits.

Add one new habit per month

We often expect WAYYYY too much of ourselves when we decide on new year resolutions. We want to lose weight, write more, drink more water, pitch new publications, write a book and what else?!?!?

Instead, focus on one small thing. Break your larger big goals into pieces and incorporate them as habits into your day one bit at a time. The more you repeat the action you want to create as a writing habit, the more you hardwire those habits into your brain until they happen almost without thinking.

How I do it?

I get up early every morning, which means if I go to sleep late, I’m too exhausted. To combat this, I realized I have to be in bed by 11 pm each night if I want to be clear-headed and productive the next day. Around 9 pm each night, I begin preparing for sleep. I shut down my computer (removing obstacles). I brush my teeth and wash my face (creating a cue). I sit and read for a bit to make a separation between myself and the busy-ness of the day (reward). When I get into bed at 11 pm, I usually fall asleep pretty quickly. If not, I listen to a meditation or read a book.  You can do whatever helps you relax enough to drop off into slumber.

Be patient with yourself

It’s easy to feel negative things about yourself and your abilities. You may find yourself in a spiral of negative thoughts about why or why not you’re not making plans and following them. This negativity doesn’t help you. It only reinforces the behavior you don’t want. Instead, focus on the positive of what you’ve done. Big or small.

How I do it?

I’ve learned to stop expecting things to change overnight.  When I’m practicing a new habit and don’t follow through perfectly one day, I recognize what I have done well and see the positive in it. If one week I sit down to write but struggle with the words so I don’t finish anything. I congratulate myself for sitting down to write in spite of the distractions. Then I keep moving forward with my plans toward my goals.

When you’re practicing a new writing habit and don’t follow through perfectly one day, let it go. See the good in what you have done instead. Removing negative talk and instead highlighting the positive habits you are doing reinforces your desire to do more. Tell yourself good stories about yourself. You deserve nothing less.

Even if you don’t fully believe in your ability now, when you work toward what you want with patience and consistency, you will soon enough.

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