How to Sustain a Consistent Writing Practice — Even When You Don’t Feel Motivated

Yesterday I published my 2,000th essay on my blog. A few weeks ago I celebrated my 5 year anniversary of daily blogging.

Recently someone in a Twitter writing community asked me

At what point in the journey did you have the least motivation? What did you do to keep going during that time?

The question of when have I felt the “least motivated” was a new spin on the question of motivation.

The question most people ask about my blogging practice is

What do you do to keep going when you don’t feel motivated?

This is a question many people also ask about my daily exercise practice, which I’ve maintained for over 9 years. So as you read this, you can substitute “workout” for “writing and shipping.”

In fact, you can substitute any daily practice because it’s all the same pattern.

The simple answer is that I don’t rely on “motivation” in my day-to-day of a practice.

Instead, I rely on my commitment.

I’ll explain.

What Is Motivation?

If I’m answering the question in a face-to-face conversation, I’ll usually respond with a question of my own:

What do you mean by motivation?

Yes, I’m that person.

Words matter.

My assumption is that most people use motivation as shorthand for “feeling like doing it.”

In other words, I suspect what they’re asking is,

How do you keep going when you don’t feel like it?

To me, that’s a different question.

Motivation Doesn’t Change. Until it Does.

Motivation is motive. It’s the reason why we do something.

In this framing, motivation is something you define at the outset. It isn’t something that ebbs and flows. There’s not a point in which I feel less or more motivated.

When I first decided to start a blog, and again when I decided to switch to a daily blogging schedule, I defined the outcome I wanted to achieve through the practice. I also wrote down a list of reasons why I wanted to take on this practice, and the values that drove my commitment.

That list of reasons and values is my “motivation.”

It’s generally a static thing, unless and until one or more things happen:

• my values change
• my desired outcome changes
• the reasons why I want the outcome no longer feel relevant
• the practice as I’m engaged with it no longer supports the original outcome or the new outcome

Motivation is not the same as “feeling like it.”

This understanding of motivation highlights an important distinction:

Whether I “feel like” writing and shipping on a given day is completely separate from the issue of my “motivation.”

Sometimes people ask me “do you ever not feel like writing?”

My answer here is clear and emphatic: yes. Often.

I also sometimes don’t feel like working out.

Commitment doesn’t let me rely on how I’m feeling in the moment. To stay in integrity I need to honor the commitment I made.

How I Keep Going When I Don’t Feel Like It

When I “don’t feel like it,” or I just don’t have it in me for whatever reason (I’m sick, or exhausted), I find the minimum viable way to honor my commitment.

That generally means publishing something — even if it sucks. The act of doing something, no matter how small, keeps me from beating myself up over not following through with my commitment.

A blog post can be a sentence. It can be a haiku. Fish around here and you’ll find some posts like that.

What’s important is to show up in some form. It sounds silly but there’s power in keeping the streak alive. It maintains a minimum viable state of momentum.