Ready, Set, Ready?
I’ve been working on getting back to a morning routine. It’s a work in progress. Last year, I read Miracle Morning, by Hal Elrod, and spent several weeks following those steps for my morning. I enjoyed it, but soon enough I’d fallen out of the routine, and I was back to allowing the whims of my feelings, how late I’d stayed up the night before, or the temperature in my house determine what I did in the morning.
One part of my morning routine that has been good for me, but inconsistent, is to write every morning. Seth Godin, who I have learned so much from and will no doubt continue to learn from, discussed the concept of getting the “first” writing of the day out in the morning. That way, he said, if you don’t get to write the rest of the day, you’ve already written something, you’ve already created something.
That was a really good habit for me, though, I don’t know that I did it long enough for it to count as a habit. But when I did it, I felt better starting my day, and had less regret or frustration about not having written. No matter how little I got out in the morning, it was something.
Again, I got away from the routine at some point, for no good reason. In an effort to get back to that, I read about something called Morning Pages. This is the description of Morning Pages from Julia Cameron’s website, The Artist’s Way:
Morning Pages are three pages of longhand, stream of consciousness writing,
done first thing in the morning. *There is no wrong way to do Morning Pages*– they are not high art. They are not even “writing.” They are about
anything and everything that crosses your mind– and they are for your eyes
only. Morning Pages provoke, clarify, comfort, cajole, prioritize and
synchronize the day at hand. Do not over-think Morning Pages: just put
three pages of anything on the page…and then do three more pages tomorrow
They sounded like a good exercise for me. I’d done something similar in the past but more organized and on the computer, not whatever came to my mind in longhand. So it sound like something I could dive into. Just to be sure, I did a little more research. Because we always need to know just a little bit more, right?
So I went to next website that popped up in my Google search for “Morning Pages”. Morning Pages had changed this person’s life, and she laid out how easy it was to get started.
First, I could grab a notebook of any kind. It could be a spiral bound or moleskin (which are on two different ends of the spectrum), just grab something to start. This step was followed by a picture of a stack of colorful notebooks.
I don’t have any colorful notebooks.
Let me take a quick look on Amazon for some Moleskins.
Oooh…too expensive for me. Let’s search for some other notebooks that look like Moleskins but don’t cost as much.
Ugh, they don’t look as nice. If I’m going to be writing everyday I need something that looks good. Let’s go back and look at the Moleskins. I need to figure out a way to make a little side money to buy me a stack of those. We’ll come back to that, let’s refocus.
The next bit of advice was to get a pen I enjoy. According to her advice, if you are going to write for that long, you should do so with a pen that you enjoy. It makes sense.
I haven’t had a pen I enjoy in a long time. I have some pens that I know write well. But I can’t recall the last pen experience that I enjoyed. I clicked on the links that she recommended, and there was a $16 pen and a $26 pen.
I don’t know if I I’m ready to starting paying $16 for pens. Between the pens and moleskins, I’ll have to get a second job. Maybe I’m not quite ready for morning pages. I don’t have everything I need just yet.
I’ll start when I’m ready. Or when I have the best pencil.
I recognized, as I was thinking through all of the things that I’ve just shared with you, while trying to get started on morning pages, that this is how it goes so often in the things that we do (or want to do).
We get ready, then we try to start, then we decide we need to get a little more ready.
We need more starting.
The “ready, fire, aim” strategy is not always a good one. Our local government is often accued of using this strategy with projects and funding and a lot of people are upset because they feel like the leaders in the county have waisted time and money and broken promises by starting down a path without a clear plan. I think it’s probably pretty important to have a clear plan in these situations, when millions of dollars of other people’s money is at stake.
But for much of what we do (or could do), I think we should be taking more shots, learning from them, getting ready again, and then trying again. Too often we spend too much time trying to get ready, making sure we have the pen that feels good in our hands and the notebook that looks pretty on our shelves or our Instagram feed.
Just grab a pen and some paper (or open up a document on your laptop) and see how it goes.
It’s not just the writing.
With the exception of things where detailed planning is important (surgery, burning yard trash, buying a llama online, etc.) most of the time we spend too much time in the getting ready phase.
We learn a lot less than we think by Googling, or talking to people, or making a mind map.
And we learn a lot more than we realize by doing things, “failing”, and letting the market explain to us how we can be better.
If we want to really get ready, we should spend less time getting ready and more time doing the thing, so next time we’ll be more ready.
I’m pulling for you,
Bryan
