That’s an unhealthy way to look at life. It’s also a great way to get burned out.

The faith community has long recognized the value of rest. The book of Genesis tells us that God Himself, after working so hard on the six days of creation, took time to rest.

If God saw fit to take a day of rest, doesn’t it follow that we should do the same?

It’s important to build a day of rest into your weekly schedule. Not only that, you must rest each day by getting enough sleep. I also suggest taking a midday nap. Many of the world’s greatest thinkers and creatives had a regular napping habit.

Rest is not lazy. Rest is essential. Sometimes the very best thing you can do for your creativity and productivity is rest. You’re not Superman (or Superwoman) and you’re not God. You need your rest.

It just might be the most important thing you do today.

Question: Are you building rest into your daily and weekly schedule?

The post Resting: Create Space in Your Life appeared first on Daily Writer | Essential Habits for Impact & Influence.

And if you’re already writing and have a clear direction, this will add to your creative arsenal and keep you moving when you get blocked.

A great way to start writing today is journaling.

I know a lot of people will dismiss journaling as a waste of time. Why? Because by definition, journaling is private and others will probably not see what you write there. Those who dismiss journaling assume that everything you write should be for public consumption.

But that’s not true at all.

It’s important for you to explore and experiment with your writing. When you reserve some writing time only for yourself, you can do that without judgment. It also gives you the opportunity to try things without it needing to be connected with your business or audience.

If you don’t have a regular journaling habit, I recommend starting with this very simple approach: Write one page a day for five straight days. Don’t stop writing, don’t analyze, and don’t overthink. Just write what comes to mind.

The whole exercise should only take 5-10 minutes per day, max. When you get into the flow and let your creative mind take over without judging or censoring your thoughts, you will be amazed at what comes out. We spend so much time thinking about other people’s perceptions of our writing that it’s hard to get out of the habit of censoring ourselves.

Journaling is a very simple way to begin writing without the fear of what others will think. Give this a try and you’ll immediately see the value of it.

Question: How could journaling help you process your experiences and experiment with your writing?

The post Start Writing Today: Journaling appeared first on Daily Writer | Essential Habits for Impact & Influence.

The post One Bad Decision Away From a Train Wreck appeared first on Daily Writer | Essential Habits for Impact & Influence.

One of the benefits of the modern world of content creation and publishing is that you can get your material to your readers very quickly. Books, blog posts, newsletters, emails, social media posts, and podcasts are things you can create and have them instantly available to people.

Think about the opposite for just a moment, though. In addition to having short-term goals and taking action on them, I want you to think about having a ten-year dream. It’s been said that most people over-estimate what they can accomplish in a year and greatly under-estimate what they can accomplish in ten years.

There’s a lot of truth to this. Imagine what you could accomplish if you consistently take action over a ten-year period. You could radically change your life and build a highly successful writing career, if that’s what you want to do.

The great thing about having a ten-year dream is that it takes the pressure off of having to have great results right this second.

Remember the fable about the tortoise and the hare? The tortoise won by keeping it slow and steady, thereby winning the race. That’s the key—slow, steady, and sustainable progress.

So, what is your ten-year dream? Have you ever thought that far ahead? Take a moment to dream about all the things you can accomplish and how it might take the pressure off of feeling like you have to get immediate results right now.

Question: What might be possible for you in ten years? Dream big and think about the incredible possibilities.

The post What’s Your Ten-Year Dream? appeared first on Daily Writer | Essential Habits for Impact & Influence.

Today I want to remind you of an obvious truth, but it’s a truth we like to avoid: You’re going to die someday.

When you die, what happens to all those ideas you’ve been storing? All those books and stories you wanted to get to someday, but didn’t? What happens to all those plans and dreams?

The truth is that all those things will die with you unless you do something with them while you’re still alive. The exception, of course, is if you’re one of those authors who leave notebooks full of amazing ideas, and publishers turn them into books years and decades after your death, or they have other writers flesh them out and list you as a co-author. But I digress.

The fact remains that for most of us, our creative ideas will have no value once we are gone.

Here’s another way of saying it: It all goes back in the box when YOU go in the box.

So make use of those ideas now. Don’t wait around for the perfect time because it will never come.

Great ideas are like money. They must be spent in order to have the greatest value. Money in circulation does far more good than just sitting in your bank account piling up.

Your ideas are the same. Put them out there in circulation on blogs, podcasts, social media, books, articles, or workshops. Just get them out there and see what happens. You might just be surprised what happens.

After all, your life has an expiration date. So make use of the time while you still have it.

Question: Are you making a habit of getting your ideas out there, or are you storing them for the “someday” that may never come?

The post In the End, It All Goes Back in the Box appeared first on Daily Writer | Essential Habits for Impact & Influence.

Finish what you start.

This might be the most important practice of all.

It is easy to get distracted by other projects. I have done that many times myself. But I encourage you to finish what you start, and then publish it. When you have too many things you have written but not finished, it’s demoralizing. You feel like you have put in a ton of work, but you have no results.

A few years ago, I spend months and months doing research for a book. I literally took 150 pages of notes. I had a massive Scrivener file full of ideas, outlines, details, and plans. But I never finished the book.

Now, I do plan to write that book someday, but since that time I’ve developed the Daily Writer and built a ghostwriting business. But I have to tell you, I was really demoralized and discouraged for a long time after putting together all that material and never finishing it. Since then, I have done a much better job of starting… and finishing… projects.

And honestly, the thing that broke me of the habit of not finishing was doing client work. When you are a ghostwriter, you have to produce on demand whether you feel inspired or not. That’s a pretty good habit for all of us who are writing, whether we’re doing it for ourselves or someone else.

When you finish what you start, it gives you incredible confidence and momentum to keep going.

Plus, you can’t sell what you don’t finish. Readers don’t buy half-finished books. When you finish and publish, you have products you can sell to readers that will change their lives and bring you income.

Question: What do you need to finish and publish? How could it give you the confidence and creative fire you need?

The post Writing Habits Practice #8: Finish What You Start appeared first on Daily Writer | Essential Habits for Impact & Influence.

Take a walk to get your blood flowing.

There is a lot of research that shows the correlation between exercise and creativity. It makes us feel better, puts us in a better mood, and helps the blood to flow to our brain. There is also a lot of research showing how bad sitting for extended periods of time is for us.

No matter which way you slice it, taking a walk is a great way to get your blood pumping, contribute to your overall health, and clear your head. If you struggle with depression or just feel cooped up a lot of the time, taking a walk is one of the best things you can do to boost your productivity and become a healthier version of yourself.

Søren Kierkegaard, the great philosopher, once said, “I walked myself into my best thoughts.” The same is probably true for all of us if we take the time to go for a short walk each day.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been stuck, or just felt like I was in a funk, and taking a walk around the block did the trick. I felt better and got the blood really flowing again.

Plus, I encourage you to take your phone and dictate some writing while you’re walking, so you’re getting extra value out of that time.

Or you can also do what I often do… which is listen to some 80’s music while you’re moving. I mean, let’s face it… there’s no debate that the 80s was the best decade for music. Am I right?

Question: Do you integrate walking or exercising as part of your regular routine, and how does it help your writing and creativity?

The post Writing Habits Practice #7: Take a Walk appeared first on Daily Writer | Essential Habits for Impact & Influence.

Today we’re going to talk about one of the hardest, yet most important, practices to develop when you’re building a writing habit. Here we go with #6:

Keep writing even if you think it’s bad.

Maybe this has happened to you: you write a piece (blog post, social media post, podcast, article, email, etc.) and you don’t think it’s that great. However, somebody else loves it.

It’s baffling but it’s true: we are not always the best judge of the quality of our work. As someone once said, “What you think of me is none of my business.” And there’s some truth to that when it comes to how others perceive our writing.

When we’re writing, we tend to judge it, but it’s important that we realize we don’t always know when something will resonate with someone. In other words, it’s almost impossible to be objective about our own work. So, keep on writing even when you don’t think it’s very good.

William Faulkner said, “Get it down. Take chances. It may be bad, but it’s the only way you can do anything really good.”

Plus, when you keep writing, it’s the only way to actually finish something. If you’re always in editing and revision mode, and never in creation mode, it will take forever to get something done. So just keep writing and you can go back and revise later.

Question: Do you feel you are objective about your writing? Be honest.

The post Writing Habits Practice #6: Keep Going Even When It’s Bad appeared first on Daily Writer | Essential Habits for Impact & Influence.

Today’s episode is for all the night owls… as well as the early birds… and everyone in-between. Here’s writing habits practice #5:

Figure out your most productive time of day.

A lot of entrepreneurs and leaders will try to tell you that you must be a morning person in order to be effective. Hogwash. You have to lean into the way you are wired. You must do what works for you.

I encourage you to experiment with figuring out the best time of day for you to write.

I don’t believe that writing in the morning is the only way to go. Many people swear by this, but it really depends on your biology and schedule. Not everybody is a morning person. Many people come alive later in the day or even late at night.

That said, Ernest Hemingway wrote in the morning. He said this:

When I am working on a book or a story, I write every morning as soon after first light as possible. There is no one to disturb you and it is cool or cold and you come to your work and warm as you write. You read what you have written and, as you always stop when you know what is going to happen next, you go on from there.

For you, it might be different. Many creative types like to work late at night. You have to do what works for you. So, here’s your pal, Professor Kent, giving you permission to go with the way you’re wired.

But it doesn’t mean you have to stay that way. You can always develop better habits. A lot of successful people keep an early morning routine, so that’s worth considering. But it doesn’t mean you have to be an early morning person to be a successful writer.

Question: What is your ideal time of day to write?

The post Writing Habits Practice #5: Figure Out Your Most Productive Time of Day appeared first on Daily Writer | Essential Habits for Impact & Influence.

Here’s writing habits practice #4:

Don’t wait for the perfect conditions to write.

We writers dream of writing in a beach cabana with the wind softly tussling our hair. Or we dream of a quiet house with no distraction so we can bring our creative genius to life.

But that vision doesn’t usually align with reality. We are irritable, we have interruptions, the weather is bad, we have stressors, or other issues. We just have to get it done anyway. We can’t wait for the perfect situation to actually get our work done.

EB White, author of Stuart Little and other classics, said this:

. . . the members of my household never pay the slightest attention to my being a writing man — they make all the noise and fuss they want to. If I get sick of it, I have places I can go. A writer who waits for ideal conditions under which to work will die without putting a word on paper.

Think of the amazing gifts that E.B. White has given us with his words. If he didn’t need perfect conditions, you and I don’t either. After all, that’s why God made headphones, correct? You can always put on a pair, crank up some focus music, and keep on writing.

Question: How do you handle distractions when trying to write?

The post Writing Habits Practice #4: Don’t Wait for the Perfect Conditions appeared first on Daily Writer | Essential Habits for Impact & Influence.