The spiral staircase

Why you keep doing the same thing, even though you know better

Hey, Runners!

Here we are at the end of Mindset Week, and I guess now is a good time to warn you that the mindset stuff is likely going to be the most frustrating part of your writing journey.

And the reason for this is that you will hear me say something wise and reasonable, and you will think, Wow, yeah, that makes sense.

You will absolutely agree what I’ve told you.

You will vow to change (for example) the way you speak to yourself, and feel really good that you’ve come to this wonderful breakthrough in how you think about yourself and your work and your writing.

And then when you hit a roadblock in your writing, your first response will be to think, God, I’m such an idiot. Why do I suck at this so much?

Let me tell you about the spiral staircase.

Healing and the Z-axis

I learned about the spiral staircase when I was in therapy for a deep trauma I had experienced. I’d talk to my therapist, she’d say something I knew fundamentally to be true, it would change the way I thought about myself and my experiences, I would vow to change, and then a few weeks later, I’d find myself repeating the same self-talk I’d sworn to stop.

“Why do I keep doing this? Why do I always end up back in the same place?”

That’s when she told me about the spiral staircase.

You see, healing from mental and emotional trauma is like climbing a spiral staircase. It feels like you keep coming back to the same space, and on the X-Y axis, you are in the same space.

But on the Z-axis, you’re a little bit higher each time. You’re moving. You’re making progress. It just doesn’t feel like it.

I would argue that you have to come back to that same spot, over and over, so that you can learn how to deal with being in that spot.

Here’s an example of how this might advance in five steps, but you might have fewer than five spirals before you get there¹.

• The first time, your immediate emotional response will be the same as always. You’ll do the same old thing you’ve always done, and only notice it way later.

• The second time, your immediate emotional response will be the same, again. Except this time, you’ll notice faster that you did it again.

• The third time… well, you’re gonna do the same thing again. But you’ll notice while you’re doing it.

• The fourth time, you’ll notice just before you do the same goddamn thing again.

• But then, the fifth time, you’ll notice before you do the same thing, and you’ll change the behavior.

And then, finally, you’re out of the staircase.

Today’s Comments Assignment:

In the comments, give yourself credit for something you’ve already accomplished with your writing, without qualification.

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You may notice that I’m equating how you feel about yourself and your work as a writer with trauma therapy and that’s because… well….

Writer culture can be traumatizing

Look, I don’t know what to tell you. I coach writers all the time, and I hear the same stuff from them over and over again, so I know it’s not just me.

Does any of this sound familiar to you?

Shut up and write. Quit complaining. Writer’s block isn’t real. All you have to do is sit down and type, and you can’t even do that. Other people out there have real jobs, and you think you deserve the cushy life of a writer? Oh, no, did someone on Goodreads call you a talentless hack? Well, maybe you are. Maybe you’re just not good enough. Who do you think you are, anyway, that you think anyone would want to read your stories?

If any of this does sound familiar to you, then you’ve internalized the toxic elements of writer culture.

And it’s my goal to get you to see it so that you can start your progress up that spiral staircase and eventually get free of this way of thinking about yourself and your work.

Because believe it or not, the day you stop telling yourself you’re just being lazy is the same day you, your work, and your productivity get so much better.

1. Or more. You might have more than five, and that’s okay. If you keep going, you’ll break through eventually.