Discover the Power of Gentle Change

Writing may be about inspiration, skill, dedication, and courage, but it is also about something much more basic: habit.

When our writing isn’t going well, it isn’t always because the muse is on vacation. It’s often because we’ve fallen into bad habits and need to step back, take a look at what we’re doing, and make some changes.

Research shows that we can make significant—even sweeping—changes in our habits, if we go about it the right way. The key isn’t to grit our teeth, beat our resistance into submission, and use our superhero willpower to change ourselves. Rather, it is to go gently, lean into our resistance, and make small changes, one at a time.

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On the Tiny Buddha blog, Stephen Guise writes about his desire to get into shape. Unable to stick to the exercise plan he’d set up, he decided to set a goal of doing one push-up a day. That’s right. One single push-up. It may seem ridiculous to make such a little change in behavior, but that baby step eventually led Guise into the habit of going to the gym several times a week.

“If you’re serious about making real change…then you have to start small,” writes James Clear, author of Transform Your Habits: The Science of How to Stick to Good Habits and Break Bad Ones. Tiny habit changes are easy—and once a small new habit is established, it can be transformed step by step into a larger change.

Instead of telling yourself you’re going to start writing four hours a day, make a plan to write ten minutes, or one minute, or one page. Instead of insisting you must read a novel a week, set an intention to read five minutes every day. Just as Guise transformed his health by starting with one push-up, you can change your writing habits one paragraph at a time.

Try the “twice then quit” strategy, suggests Zen blogger Leo Babauta. Say you want to establish a habit of writing an hour every afternoon, but ten minutes into it your brain tells you to stop. You feel stuck. You’re getting anxious. You really, really want to check your email for the 40^th time—or just go take a nap. Resist the urge. Keep writing. The voice will come back, of course. Resist it again. The third time, give into it.

Why give in? Because continually battling it will only make it come back louder and larger. Resisting just a little—just twice—will give you a push and some practice. Do this every day, and you will find your resistance gradually growing softer. Samuel Thomas Davies calls this leaning into the resistance. Leaning, instead of fighting, keeps the resistance from swelling into something we cannot manage.

The good news is that habits can be broken—even lifelong habits. “What we know from lab studies is that it’s never too late to break a habit,” says Charles Duhigg, author of The Power of Habit. “Habits are malleable throughout your entire life.”

If you find yourself caught in a bad-habit loop that is undermining your writing—procrastination, abandoning unfinished projects, excessive perfectionism—don’t despair. Make small changes. Move forward softly. Discover the power of gentle change.