The benefits of being hard on yourself

Spoilers; there are none

Hey, Runners!

We are going to do a lot of mindset work when the challenge starts in September, but there’s one thing you can do for your Mindset Warm Up that will help you the most when we get started, and it’s wrestling with that nasty inner voice that tells you you’re lazy, not good enough, etc.

I am going to tell you to shut that voice down and replace it with a kind voice, and when I do, some of you—maybe even most of you—are going to resist.

Somewhere deep inside, that little voice will argue. If I don’t hold myself to the fire and demand that I perform to a high standard, won’t I do terrible work?

No.

There has been a long-standing misconception that the only good writer is a bruised one. Someone who has written words every goddamn day and hit every deadline with room to spare and never has writer’s block because they just won’t allow it, and when they show up in a space, you can see the bruises they gave to themselves while demanding Fucking Excellence!

Grrrrr, they say. No soft bullshit here!

And then, just to prove their point, they punch themselves square in the stomach.

Yeah… that used to be me.

Some of you here today have known me for a long, long time and you may remember how hard and tough I was. No excuses, no bullshit, get the job done, do it with an extreme standard of excellence, and hold everyone else to that standard as well for their own goddamned good.

And you know what happened?

I burned out. I freaked out. I got writer’s block. I wrote tens of thousands of words that I had to throw out.

Today’s Comments Assignment:

Cats, dogs, both, or neither?

Also, not liking or wanting pets is valid and we embrace all faiths here.

I am a little jealous that your clothes don’t have animal fur on them, though.

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Being cruel to yourself doesn’t make you a better writer

I have written while being kind to myself, and I have written while being cruel to myself. The work I did while being kind to myself has roughly the same quality as the stuff I wrote while being hard on myself, but the experience was better, faster, and took less of a toll on my mental health.

The only thing that ever made me a better writer was writing more, and being hard on myself slowed me down, making that process take longer.

There is no benefit to being hard on yourself… except that being kind to yourself can make you feel like everything is wildly out of control, and that can be a frightening feeling.

We’ll talk about that next time.