3 Essentials for a Sustainable Writing Practice
Growing a sustainable writing practice makes it possible for you to write regularly and confidently inside your organization or on your own channels. When I talk about a sustainable writing practice, I mean the ability to
write without anxiety
write consistently rather than sporadically
write powerfully across contexts
After years of helping writers succeed, I have discovered that there are 3 essential components to developing a sustainable writing practice. In order of importance, they are
Empathy - the ability to write through shame and perfectionism; perspective-taking
Executive functioning skills - the ability to start, stop, and restart tasks
Rhetorical skills - arranging words and sentences
I hope it surprises you a little that I’ve put rhetorical skills, which influence how your writing sounds, at the bottom of the list.
To be super nerdy about it, rhetorical skills are necessary but not sufficient to make you a productive writer. Your written output may be beautiful, but if you are suffering tremendously in the process, your writing practice is likely to start and stop, leaving you without a productive writing cadence.
Among the writing challenges I see, the fewest are related to rhetorical skills. Most writing challenges have to do with internalized shame about writing (cuz school, cuz life) or with executive functioning skills, which regulate things like task persistence and ability to tolerate frustration.
If your Personal Writing Pundits are so loud they don’t let you get your writing onto the screen, or if they shout you down once you do get the words out, your writing practice is unlikely to be sustainable. Or if you find that you sit down to write with enthusiasm, but then have trouble returning to your work, the sustainability of your writing practice will suffer.
Ultimately, of course, you need to build strong rhetorical strategies, but first I want to help you develop empathy toward yourself and create executive functioning behaviors that work for your cognitive “wiring.”
Which of these areas (empathy, executive function, rhetorical skills) is the biggest blocker to the sustainability of your writing practice?
Not sure how sustainable your writing practice is? Become a member of the Leaders Write Executive Community this week for a tool that will help you gain insight into your unique writing sustainability blockers.
Photo credit: #WOCINTECH Chat