One day, the sand in your hourglass will run out. We have a limited amount of time on this earth. What will be left after you’re gone? Certainly, there will be social media posts, mementos, people’s memories, and what you created.

Those things can fade over time, but your words can be immortal.

We all have the same amount of time in life. Life is never going to be ideal, and things are not going to slow down. There is always going to be something happening. You write in the midst of an imperfect life, in the mess and the muck of what is happening all around you.

In the musical Hamilton, Eliza Hamilton asks her husband, “Why do you write like you’re running out of time?”

The truth is that we’re all running out of time. You don’t have an infinite number of days. You only have a limited amount of time on this earth. How will you spend the days you have?

Question: Does knowing your life will come to an end someday motivate you to make the most of every day? Why or why not?

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It’s a beautiful analogy for the power of your words. Your words can cut people down to the bone with sarcasm and criticism. Or they can bring life through wonderful storytelling, personal experiences, or inspiring content. The choice is yours.

Question: As you use your words today, will they bring life or death?

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Ask anyone who has gotten sick from contaminated water or tried to avoid falling out of a canoe while going down the Amazon River teeming with deadly piranhas. They will tell you that water can be deadly.

But what about a person dying of thirst in the desert or someone who goes into the hospital because they’re dehydrated? Water can bring life.

There’s a wonderful scene near the end of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Indiana passes three deadly tests to get the holy grail, fills it with water, then pours it on his father’s gunshot wound so he does not die.

It’s a beautiful analogy for the power of your words. Your words can cut people down to the bone with sarcasm and criticism. Or they can bring life through wonderful storytelling, personal experiences, or inspiring content. The choice is yours.

Daily Question: As you use your words today, will they bring life or death?

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In the previous weekday episodes, we have talked about activities that will help you maintain a growth mindset as writer. We began with preparing the soil of your mind, which in practical terms means getting around other people who will encourage and motivate you. Then we moved to planting, which is keeping track of your ideas. After that, we discussed how to water those ideas through reading. We moved on to pruning, which is eliminating the dead weight from your schedule and life so you can focus your energy on growth-producing activities.

Now we come to harvesting, which is simply creating the words. The three previous actions, if you do them consistently, make it much easier to write. You have probably noticed in your own life that it’s much harder to write if you don’t have ideas, you’re not exploring curiosity through reading, and you’re too busy to write.

Harvesting as a concept couldn’t be any simpler. You simply go to the field, get the crop, and bring it to the barn for processing. In writing terms, it means you must sit down and produce the words.

If there is one universal truth in writing, it is this: the words won’t write themselves. This means you need to set aside time each day to write. It’s that simple, and also that difficult.

A growing writer is an intentional writer. When you plant the seeds, water them with reading, prune unnecessary activities, and harvest your words, you have joined an illustrious club known as “writers who get things done.”

The price of admission to the club? Nurturing a growth mindset and doing what is needed to produce the crop.

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