Sometimes, when you give other people advice, you’re saying what you yourself most need to hear.
The same applies to writing a blog post. It’s much easier to give another person answers to a problem, than to help yourself.
So when I say, writing is hard, I’m talking to myself. I’m giving myself the encouragement I need to keep going when everything feels too much and I want to give up.
When I say, you have to make the time to write, I’m telling myself to push the distractions away, bury the doubts, and make the effort to do the thing that makes me most happy.
When I publish an essay on the excuses writers make, I’m calling myself out for the rubbish I tell myself on a daily basis.
I need to hear it. I get lost some days, just the same as everybody else. I call myself a creative but my brain is too burned out to think clearly. I take the easy option and switch on the television, zone out for a few hours. Or I do something to pass the time, maybe even something important to another part of myself – clean the house, work out, browse the internet – but not something that will fulfil me, or help me achieve my goals.
I can lecture myself endlessly about working hard and being more productive, but it only makes me feel guilty.
The advice only strikes home when I frame it in a way that might help someone else. That way the things I tell myself every day take on a new weight; they become more real. I know that other people read them and relate to them, and I know that what I’m saying has truth for me too.
I internalise that advice, so that maybe, one day, it will become a part of life and the doing will become more natural than the thinking.
Daphne @ Life Through A Thousand Stories says
This is so true! I guess that is why I write my blog as well. To reflect on myself rather than setting an example for someone else 😉 lovely blog you have by the way! Just found it through Cider With Rosie.
Amy Lord says
Thanks Daphne, I think that’s very true! And thanks for reading 🙂