Shifting Unhelpful Thoughts About Writing

 

Humans think just over 6000 thoughts a day. That’s a lot of thoughts! 

And for writers, 80% of them are probably some form of “my book is shite.”

We have a tendency to think all our thoughts are true. But understanding that our thoughts are ephemeral AND that they can be changed is a huge step forward in our writing lives.

This is one in a series of short blog posts about the unhelpful thoughts we have about ourselves as writers and our writing lives and how we can shift them.

Unhelpful Thought #1: I’ll Never Finish

Writing a book is a long process. Everyone’s different, of course, but for a new writer completing the first draft of a book-length manuscript in any genre can take YEARS.

But that’s not all writing time. In fact, most of that time is spent avoiding writing and thinking unhelpful negative thoughts about the book and ourselves as writers. Without the nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah from our psyche running in the back of our minds, we can write a first draft much more quickly.

In First Book Finish, we finish our drafts in 12 weeks – or even fewer! –  and that’s typically from relatively few pages at the start. (It’s common for people to come into the program with just 20 pages.)

If you’re in the habit of thinking “I’ll never finish this book” and then find yourself avoiding your writing sessions, or just not putting in the time to finish, the chances are good that you’ve started a cycle of negative thinking that’s getting in the way of productive writing time.

Shifting your unhelpful thoughts about writing is the #1 way to ensure you finish your book. Nothing else matters if you can’t get your butt to the chair and put words on a page.

How to Shift Unhelpful Thoughts

Therapy! Ha, just kidding…

Therapy is great if you can get it but you can shift the more basic non-trauma-based thoughts yourself once you learn how to do it. It takes time and practice but it can be done.

Here are the steps to follow…

1. Observe the Thought

Become curious about your own mind and how it works. Your first task is to notice you’re having a thought. 

Sometimes we become so wrapped up in our thoughts that we believe every thought we have is true.

But that in itself is not true. Think about it… you’ve held all kinds of beliefs in your life that you then changed. You believed things as a child (e.g. faeries are real*) that you no longer believe. Our thoughts always shift and change over time.

The first step to changing a thought is to notice you’re having it and name it as a thought. Not a fact, not the fundamental truth about human existence, but a thought – a set of words that will come and go a thousand times.

Get in the practice of observing yourself as someone who has thoughts come and go all day long. Acknowledge that thoughts are not permanent.

You also want to observe this particular thought: “I’ll never finish.” See how often it occurs and what other thoughts might be attached to it.

2. Challenge the Frame

When we observe our thoughts and hear words like “Never” and “Always” we have a sign that we may be lying to ourselves.

It’s known as “over-generalization” and it’s a common thinking error. We take one experience and apply it to all reality.

We go from “I haven’t finished a book yet” to “I’ll NEVER finish my book,” or from “I didn’t finish the last storyI started” to “I ALWAYS quit before I finish.”

Anytime you hear the words NEVER or ALWAYS, it’s a sign to stop and check your thoughts to see if they really hold up to reality.

3. Try On a New Thought

Once we can get in the practice of observing our thoughts and become curious about them, we can try out new thoughts as possible replacements for ones that aren’t helping us.

A great question for breaking open a negative thought pattern is: What else could be true?

Let’s try that out…

“I’ll never finish my book.”

What else could be true?

“I can finish my book if I just keep showing up consistently to write.”

“I don’t have to finish my book quickly, I just need to finish it.”

“I’ve finished other things in my life [give yourself some examples here!] so there’s no reason I can’t finish my book.”

“I can get help to finish this book if I need it.”

“Lots of other writers finish books, even with busy lives like mine.”

4. Choose the Best New Thought and Repeat

Not all replacement thoughts will feel true for you. Your mind will reject some of them outright – it’s hard sometimes to go immediately from “I’ll never finish” to “I’ll finish this sucker in the next 30 days!”

Instead, choose the replacement thought that feels most true. 

For this example, let’s take: “Lots of other writers finish books, even with busy lives like mine.” We’re replacing a thought about ourselves and something that’s never possible with a more general thought about how it’s been possible.

We’ve challenged our unhelpful thought and given our brain another one to hold onto.

But just thinking this once won’t do the trick. You have to observe the thought each time it occurs, then replace it with the new one…over and over again, until the old thought fades into the background.

The pattern is:

• Observe
• Challenge
• Replace
• Repeat

Shifting Unhelpful Thoughts Takes Time

This isn’t an overnight process. You don’t read a blog, try replacing one thought, and then BINGO! find yourself writing for hours on end every day with no negative thoughts.

I wish it worked that way, but this process takes time. The good news is that once you learn how to do this, you can apply it to other things in your life as well.

Releasing unhelpful thoughts about writing is one of the truly liberating things you can do for yourself as a creative person. Over the next few weeks, I’ll run through this exercise to help you chip away at some of the most common unhelpful thoughts writers tell me they experience – so stay tuned for more!

Coming up next week: “I’m not a Real Writer.”

*If my daughter Emma is reading this, faeries are totally real.