Why we get stuck (and how to fix it).

Confusion

Do you know what you want to say? Do you know which problem you’re trying to solve? Here’s the paradox of writing: we often figure out what we’re saying by writing. Though some people process better visually, auditorily or kinesthetically, we all need to process. It’s the old saying “the path is made by walking.” If you don’t know what is at the core of your message, what the payoff is for your reader, type or write the words “What am I trying to say?” and answer yourself. Take off the brakes, and see what comes. If you don’t have a feeling of “oh yes, that’s it” after half an hour or so it’s time to mind map. You may simply have too many competing messages in your mind and you need to sort them out.

Overwhelm

Do you ever walk into a store and completely blank on what you need? Our brain cannot process so many choices at once. In fact, it’s been proven again and again that as a species we’re far more likely to act given less options to choose from. That’s why “go to the gym this week” doesn’t work as well as “attend yoga at 9AM on Friday.” We don’t have to spend time deciding where the gym fits into our schedule from all the available time slots, it’s why people go to the store with a list in hand.

This is all to make the point that before you sit down “to write” do some mental prep work by meditating or taking a walk or musing about your ideas on your drive home from work. Pick one — and just one — point to start from. It doesn’t have to be rigid but it should feel almost too small and specific. Maybe you’re in the mood to rant about something today, but on days you don’t feel inspired you just need a tiny starting point — a seed of a thought. Start there, but just start, and let the words take you where they may.

Bottle necks

You’re inspired, you’ve got some clear ideas about what you want to say, but you’re staring at that infernal blinking cursor and feeling blank or fuzzy at what to actually write. This is because our brains are like storm clouds (hence the word brainstorm) in that electrical signals — thoughts — are crackling through the cloud, bursting all over the place. They are not marching along in a straight line! You are taking all these clouds and trying to squeeze them into one line of black and white text. Open up the funnel! Get away from your keyboard and get a sketchpad, sticky notes, index cards and begin jotting down your seemingly random thoughts. Any way that you can catch a thought like a butterfly and pin it to something, then you can group and organize your butterflies after you’ve collected a bunch.

Too high expectations

“Tonight I’ll spend two hours writing my eBook.” Did you wake up this morning and decide to run a marathon, too? I don’t want to belittle the power of big goals, but what about committing to sitting down to write and keeping your pen/fingers moving for 10 minutes? I’m not saying you can’t write for two hours, but wouldn’t it be nice to commit to 10 minutes then look up at the clock and notice two hours have slipped by? Alternately, write for 10 minutes, feel successful and check it off and make your next appointment. Do I need to say it? A journey of one thousand miles begins with a single step.

Guilt

Like an athlete, we perform better when we’re relaxed. Do you think athletes occasionally feel bad about missing a workout or not performing as well as they expected? Sure. But you bet if they gave up and didn’t show up for practice the following day just because they felt guilty, they’d soon no longer be considered athletes. Not only that, but if they expected to break world records every single day they’d soon be depressed. Take the pressure off of yourself! Avoid all comparisons of yourself to others and even avoid dwelling too much on the you of yesterday. Today is a new day and there’s endless possibility in it. You wrote two sentences yesterday, today you could write three. All you need to do is keep showing up.