Just Half An Hour

“The writer is best friends with distraction. He knows its powerful call, and must master the urge to follow it. So shut down everything that isn’t your writing tool, all tabs, all email programs and social media, and just write.” – Leo Babauta

I have personally found this to be entirely true. From the time I decided to start writing for half an hour a day, I suddenly felt like I was living the rockstar life. I had things to do, places to go, people to see…and these all surfaced whenever I said to myself that it was time to sit down and put pen to paper, or fingers to keyboard.

So I stumbled. But I tried again. Some days I prefer to write long hand and in a physical journal, other days I prefer to sit at the computer and type away.

I contemplated why writing a blog might not be the best idea. For one, part of my goal was to maintain my beautiful penmanship. Yes, I have always received compliments on how beautifully I write. I started to think that with technology taking over the way it is, people would forget how to write nicely, and by people I mean me.

Some days I used the excuse of not having anything worthy to share as my reason for not writing. But I have to remind myself that I am not writing this for anyone but myself. It’s okay to jump from one thought to the other, I know what I’m thinking and I don’t need it explained to me.

Working on a new phase of my business now and we’re getting to the good stuff. One of the most valuable things I did this year was actually get a business coach. After multiple false starts, achieving success that I couldn’t maintain, achieving only marginal success and convincing myself that that was okay, I said enough.

I no longer want to be someone else’s employee. I’ve known that for a very long time. The motivation has been there but the help didn’t present itself, or at least if it did I totally missed it.

So I have to craft my “About” story. As much as the thought of writing one puts me off, I admit that it is one of the things, one of the pages I am first drawn to when I visit a website. The challenge is writing an engaging story that will make my audience know that they can relate to me. I don’t want to bore them and I want to garner their trust and confidence. This will require me to share more than I am used to sharing with strangers.

My goal was not just to write for half an hour a day but to also read for half an hour a day. I have been giving myself a pass on the reading by counting the business-related reading I do, meanwhile a stack of intriguing books I picked up from the book sale sit there on a book stand feeling neglected and rejected. Okay, I will change that too.