How writing everyday has changed my life forever.

For a long time I disliked writing of any kind. I felt like there was nothing in my life worth writing about and whenever I was asked to write it I would dread it. This was because I had a hard time taking the thoughts in my head and putting them to paper, most of these troubles came from lack of attention span, something that I have been battling for as long as I can remember.

Time and time again in the self help that I was reading, the author would suggest that at the very least I write down what I was grateful for everyday. I mostly ignored this advice, telling myself that I “wouldn’t benefit from it because I don’t even like writing”. Then, one day I was having a video conversation with my mentor and good friend when I realized that the bookshelf behind him was filled from top to bottom with notebooks. He had been writing in these notebooks since he started his self help journey nearly 20 years ago. After realizing that the person I look up to most had dedicated so much of his time to writing, I figured I would give it a chance too.

It’s now been 3 months and I have only missed a handful of days. At first, it was just a few lines, touching on how I felt, what I was thinking, things I was grateful for or highlights from the day. As things progressed I realized that writing became a method of stress relief that I was reaching for to end my day, and then it hit me.

Why only write to end my day when it offers so much mental clarity and gives me the ability to organize and rationalize my day to day thoughts and processes. From that epiphany forward I decided that I would make it a point to write once in the morning to organize my day, once in the afternoon to check up with my progress and one at night time to recap on what I had done and what I wished I had done better. It became my escape from the world and I found myself constantly writing and figuring out new ways approach writing to not only save time but articulate my thoughts in a more readable way.

Since the start of my writing journey I have found myself increasing the use of written words in almost every other aspect of my life. Instead of waiting for the weekly meetings at work I now send out long form emails to gather opinions and information from my coworkers. Instead of flying through my day with no clear route, I have found myself planning ahead of time and analyzing situations from the macro perspective which has led to an obvious increase in productivity in my day to day course of action. Instead of allowing my feelings to bottle up and sit precariously on my mind I have started to write them down and work through them in a healthy manner. Instead of… I think you get the point.

There is something special about being able to use your words to visualize abstract concepts. Humans by nature are visual beings, we developed our way of life through the use of our eyes and with the help of biochemicals. Writing has enabled me to see clear and concise metrics on my personal progress towards my goals and has forced me to be more analytical about the decisions that I make on a day to day basis.

How can you get started writing?

I suggest everyone start how I did. Writing is a very peaceful task and when you first start, it is very mentally intensive, requiring a great amount of effort to clearly translate thoughts to word. Start by ending your day with a 15 minute writing session. Summarize your day, write about how you feel, write about the following days tasks, whatever you write about just make sure that you practice consistency. The thing about writing is that it becomes a normal part of your life very quickly and with that, you will see writing work its way into many other parts of your life.

Conclusion

Writing is a wonderful tool and it has enabled me to take full control of emotions and my day to day routine. It has also allowed me to approach situations from a much more thought out and well rounded mindset. There is no reason that you should not be writing so get out thre and get started, I promise that iw will push you to levels you never thought possible before.