Most of the time I don’t know what I want to write about until I pick up a pen or start typing. Sometimes I’m under the illusion that a completely original idea will just spark in my mind and I’ll have plenty to think about, plenty to write about. But, unfortunately that aint how it works. I think in some fundamental way, we’re all naively waiting for inspiration to grip us. Many of us have a natural inclination towards novelty or abstract ideas. The mistake I often make myself is expecting these ideas to reveal themselves to me during my day to day activities. Sometimes it happens. Sometimes we witness something beautiful and it leaves an impression on us. Sometimes we see something simple that just makes us think, something that allows our thoughts to expand. If you’re looking for something, you’ll generally find it. My own experience tells me that my thoughts expand and my creativity runs wild when I prime my brain to do so. To me this means reading a book, or picking up a pen, or even listening to an interesting podcast. As simple and self-evident as this sounds, the areas of your brain that you want to activate will only do so if you force yourself to use them.
I’ve been so busy the last four years that I’ve been looking forward to some time off that would allow me to read and write. Although I’ve always loved learning and found myself attracted to thinking through abstract concepts and ideas, physical fitness and sport has taken up most of my time until now. I don’t write that begrudgingly, because I am so grateful for the values that sports and physical activity have instilled in me and the lessons they’ve taught me. They have provided me with a blueprint for how to live a good life and now I am ready to apply that blueprint to all of my future endeavors. The only problem is I haven’t been reading as much as I would like to for the past three months and I have barely written at all. Here I finally have the free time I’ve been waiting for and I’m not using it the way I would like to. Don’t get me wrong, I have definitely enjoyed myself since I have been home from school. I’m just not doing what I planned to do.
I made a rookie mistake. I thought the inspiration to read and to write would come naturally to me because I like to do both of those things, but how could I be so naïve? I failed to apply the discipline I had learned from sports to the other aspects in my life. I love football, but when my alarm rang at 5:30 in the morning and I knew I would have to bash my head against another in an hour or so, there is nothing I wanted more than to turn my alarm off and go back to bed. It’s in week 3 of camp when you’re fatigued, sleep deprived, and in pain, when you question why you even play the sport at all. Every single august camp I would become depressed and begin to hate the sport altogether, as would many of my teammates. It literally only took until the first play of the first game of the season for that sacrifice to pay off. Why did I think the process would be any different for improving as a writer or educating myself with reading?
In football, or any other sport for that matter, you are guaranteed a season (barring a global epidemic). After all the practice you put in, there will come a time where you will have to put on your game jersey and play in a game where the outcome will be officially recorded. Even in something as simple as running, you can see yourself dripping sweat. You can see yourself moving forward with every step. You can feel your muscles working and your heart pounding. You can see your mile time gradually improving every week. The results are tangible. The process is tangible. It is so much more difficult to invest in yourself when your investment doesn’t pay you back immediately. How many sentences do I have to read before I’ve improved my reading comprehension ability? How do I know I’ve completely understood the concept expressed in a book if I don’t have to apply it? How do I know whether anyone will read anything I write?
It is difficult to move forward without feedback. I’m so used to seeing the results of my physical effort and hearing and seeing direct feedback from coaches that it’s become difficult for me to put faith in intellectual investments. I say this even though I do my best writing when I’m reading thought provoking material and listening to interesting podcasts. It takes building an environment that will promote the kind of actions I am looking to achieve. Something as simple as putting a desk in my room could incentivize me to sit down and work comfortably. Even having a workstation could help me compartmentalize work and pleasure, instead of trying to write as I lay in bed, falling victim to the lure of procrastination and naps. When I walked into the locker room every morning my mind and body instantly became prepared to go to perform. Just opening the door to the building primed me to do what I had done a million times before. Why should it be any different for non-physical challenges? The fundamental premise of improvement requires self-discipline, regardless of its nature. Improvement requires an environment which will provide you with the tools needed to get the job done.
In summary, I realized I needed to set aside a specific time to read and/or write every single day, as if it were a job. I also realized I would be more likely to sit and write if I had a desk and an office chair which would allow me to be as comfortable as possible, and would act a workspace that would work to prime the areas of my brain needed to perform the action. The psychological effect of the workspace is just as important as the physical. I need to apply the discipline required to be an athlete on myself. That requires self-discipline, a concept much more difficult than just discipline, because anyone can do something when they’re being ordered to do it and being spoon-fed and conditioned along the way, but that’s a whole other topic for another post. It’s time I start embracing and respecting the process of educational advancement the way I did, and still do, for physical activities. Even though it may not seem like the processes are similar, they rely on the same concepts. Nothing worth having comes easy, and the sacrifice will be worth the reward, regardless of the unpredictable temporal relationship between the two.
