Do you need discipline?

In the 80s, Stephen King was hit by a van while out for a walk.

His injuries were severe. He had broken bones, a collapsed lung, and suffered excruciating pain. For months, he couldn’t sit upright for long. Writing should have been impossible.

But he found a way. He set up a desk, wrote in short bursts, and pushed through the pain. He found the resolve because he’d fallen in love with the craft, and, as he shares in many interviews, he treated his writing habit as an absolute non-negotiable. In many ways, his writing habit pulled him out of his horror.

If creativity only appeared when conditions were perfect, we’d have far fewer books. Discipline puts you at your desk so that creativity has a place to emerge, even if it’s shy at first.

The problem I’ve always had with discipline is that it implies pushing ourselves into doing things we don’t want to do. But I highlight it here because often we aren’t motivated right before tapping the first keys. That’s where discipline comes in, but only as a short-term tool to get us back to the keyboard.

Once we start writing, we realise our love for it was always there. And when we keep doing it, we find that discipline is no longer needed, because we now enjoy a far more energised force: momentum.

Discipline is following through with the faith we have that writing into the long term is worth it. Discipline turns your lack of motivation into bums-on-seat action, regardless of how you feel. It’s the difference between writing like a tourist and writing like a professional.

You must be a professional. You have no choice unless you want to fill your days with excuses and your life with regret.

The best writers know how much of an advantage they have when writing becomes a habit. Discipline gets them back to writing if there is a chance they may choose to avoid it. But a habit keeps them hungry. Turning writing into a habit makes writing far easier over time.

See discipline as the boundaries you set to maintain a habit. You create a routine, a writing system, not because your life is now a prison, but rather because you know the world needs your writing and for you to continue improving. Routine turns a one-off creative spark into an accumulation of small wins. And if you keep writing, you will see success.

Discipline means setting project objectives so you’ve got a deadline and a reason to show up. It also means introducing timed writing sprints or daily word count targets, if that helps you be more productive, as it does for many.

You introduce boundaries and targets like these, so you get more bang for your buck, increased creativity, and less time is wasted on the non-essential.

The more you write, the easier it gets. Discipline creates the necessary environment for a good habit to develop. And when you have a habit, your confidence grows, your identity as a writer flourishes, your fear subsides, and you see results.

*The above is an excerpt from my latest book, ‘The Never-Retired Writer: How to Turn Your Ideas Into a Life of Freedom, Income, and Purpose,‘ releasing in a few weeks.

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