5 reasons I have to get back to writing again

Wow!  It has been almost two years since I posted a blog on this site.  I did write a lot on another site I own for about a year, but I haven’t technically done any writing for the last nine months or so.

So what compelled me to pick it back up?

I felt like that I had lost some of the really good habits and emotions that created opportunities for me in my life when I was writing before. So here I am making a commitment to myself to start doing it again.  Writing provided a lot of different things in my life, but here are a few of those things along with my opinion on why I want to get back to writing.

1. Consistency: If you know me, you would probably say that I am very consistent in most of the things I do.  Whether it be exercising, working, or emotionally.  I am a consistent person.  But to me working and exercising are those things that I really do enjoy, but at the end of the day, I have to do them.  Yes.  I have to do them.Writing on the other hand is not a “have to do”.  My livelihood will not be in jeopardy if I don’t do it, like it would be if I didn’t work.  Or my health is not at risk, if I don’t write. Writing is truly extra.  Nothing bad will happen to me if I don’t do it.  However, that is the reason I choose to do it. It forces me do something that I don’t have to do. Forcing yourself to do things you don’t have to do is a muscle that needs to be worked.  And frankly I am not very good at writing, but I love the benefits of it.
2. Thinking:  Writing forces me to think.  Thinking isn’t something most people spend enough time doing.  Most of us are too busy doing things to think.  Whether it is working, spending time with friends and family, or watching sports or Netflix.  I have found myself the last nine months just doing and not thinking as much as I should.  I want to force myself back in to thinking more and that is what happens when I write.
3. Clarity: My mentor told me that putting things on paper, written or typed.  Is the best way to crystallize our thoughts and to make things more clear.  Over the last nine months and really the last couple of years, I have continued to journal daily, but it has gotten shorter and shorter.  I am not spending enough time doing it.  I feel like I need clarity more in my life than ever before and writing helps me have that.
4. Audio/Video: The world is now audio and video dominant.  Everything is consumed in these two formats.  And I have bought right in to it as well.  I have gotten in the habit of watching videos to get my news, to get additional training on a subject, to be entertained, you name it.  Video is everywhere and I consume it as much as the next person.Audio is the same way.  I am always listening to a podcast, a book, an interview, etc.  These are great mediums to get the full context of someones words and they are great when you are trying to do two things at once.  Like working out, driving, and working.  Personally, I have started to rely on these too much for my information, education, and entertainment.
5. Focus (attention span): My attention span sucks right now.  Seriously.  It is a weakness.  I can’t even read an entire article on something I would be interested in reading.  I skim through it and sometimes I will scroll down to see how long the article is, and if it is too long, I will bail out on it altogether.  Even though I am interested in it.Writing forces me to focus.  It requires focus.  Look, I am not a great writer.  If you have read this far, you probably have cringed at my grammar, sentence structure, my misspellings that spell check didn’t pick up, etc.  But for me to get this far, (679 words) I had to really focus. Because it is really hard for me to put together what I have put together.I believe focus (attention span) is a muscle.  Like all muscles if it isn’t worked and exercised over time it becomes weaker and weaker.  This is what has happened to me.  I haven’t worked the muscle enough and I have lost, frankly, a lot of my ability to focus on the things I need to focus on.

Focus, clarity, thinking, and consistency are all great habits to have.  When you are at your best you are implementing them all to have success.

Today’s society, and life in general has taken some of the gains I made in these areas that provided me a lot of success in my past, away from me.  I have to get what I lost back and build even more on them so I can get to the next level of success.   Writing allows me to work the muscles in each of the areas I mentioned in the post.

To your success and your future.