Can you create discipline without pressure?
Whenever I start a project, especially anything major the same sequence of events occurs. I begin by over planning everything and delay the start of the project, then I put an insane level of pressure on my shoulders to get the whole thing done in a stupidly short space of time. I quickly become bored of the project and because it doesn't feel good I stop in my tracks and then I inevitably go back to the drawing board and start the cycle all over again. If I'm lucky, I'll have done a good quarter of the project. Recently, I have been very watchful of myself while undertaking my new project, this new book, I have seen the beginnings of that cycle but this time I decided to stop myself. This time I have taken the focus away from word counts and time limits and given myself a new rule by which to check myself.
I value structure and routine and self discipline but somewhere in my history, probably school, I took on the belief that all three of those had to come at the expense of freedom and fun. I'm learning recently that you can have fun within discipline, you can have freedom with structure and you can have routine with joy. I now make a point of sitting at my laptop every morning and I write only until it stops feeling good. If I'm on a roll I might write 6-7000 words, If I'm not 100 is O.K. I am learning the different between judging my effort as a quantity of work and honouring it as a portion of joy. Of course there are challenges with every project, without them we may not create the room to grow beyond ourselves but growing through pain is not something I welcome in my life any more. I am not going to hurt myself for this book or welcome any negative emotion in my body. It goes against everything I believe in and stand for. This is the first book I've written in ten years and it is, by it's sheer nature, forcing me to clean up parts of my belief system that inhibit joy.
I can't give myself a time limit of when the book will be finished. Putting joy first ensures quality over quantity. When spirit told me to write this book I knew it would be a journey and the most exciting thing, is that I am only half way through. I can't wait to see what else I learn!
Big Love
Ryan James