Perseverance as a habit to finish writing your book and all other worthwhile endeavors in your life.
“People often think it’s weird to get hyped about reading one page or meditating for one minute or making one sales call. But the point is not to do one thing. The point is to master the habit of showing up. The truth is, a habit must be established before it can be improved. If you can’t learn the basic skill of showing up, then you have little hope of mastering the finer details. Instead of trying to engineer a perfect habit from the start, do the easy thing on a more consistent basis. You have to standardize before you can optimize.”
James Clear
The quote above is a poignant reminder that habit building is a skill like any other. And when you approach a new skill, approach it with patience and a mindset of practice. I think we forget this with habits sometimes. We treat them casually, like more of a resolution or a wish than an actual skill that needs to be developed. We expect that once we decide to create a habit of doing something every day – like writing – VOILA – like magic – it will just happen.
But if you decided to take up a different skill, say, learning to play piano – would you approach it like that? Scales today and a Beethoven Sonata by week’s end? Of course not. Consider this blog post the reminder that building a new habit is an ACTUAL skill. It’s not a wish, dream or even a new year’s resolution which, statistically speaking, most people typically abandon by January 19th – for whatever reason or often, personal rationalization (our sneaky lizard minds!).
Approach habits with realistic expectations and a mentality of skill building. This requires a plan, a commitment to patience and perseverance, and above all – practice, practice, practice. Just like playing the piano. Repetition builds habits and habits create mastery of whatever the habit is related to. Like writing.
And don’t make the mistake of downplaying the importance of one of those words I just said – perseverance. By definition perseverance means “persistence in doing something despite difficulty or delay in achieving success.” Do not underestimate perseverance as a habit unto itself.
Perseverance is the reason I’ve been in business for over 20 years, ghostwriting and facilitating dozens of client books, the reason I produced nearly 1,600 episodes of my daily podcast for authors before finally releasing it “in syndication” onto my YouTube Channel, and many hundreds of blog posts and email newsletters over the years.
I refuse to quit – on myself or authors who might benefit from my work.
The journey of thousands of words begins with the quiet, unglamorous habit of putting one foot in front of the other in daily baby steps. Believe it or not, that’s how every success story you’ve ever read about, began. The protagonists of those real life stories are ordinary people who made the decision to show up for themselves and their goals, and start taking baby steps forward, day after day. Every step matters, every word matters, every habit matters, and perseverance is the thread that ties them all together.
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