RITUALS VS. HABITS: CAPITALIZE ON THE DIFFERENCE TO GET YOUR WRITING DONE

You might make a habit of writing first thing in the morning, but what gets you to your desk or wherever you choose to crank out some words?

Brewing a cup of coffee or tea?

A moment of meditation?

A walk around the block with the dog?

Bestselling author James Clear (Atomic Habits) talks about the importance of establishing certain rituals that don’t take a lot of time but promote good habits. He uses the example of Twyla Tharp’s daily ritual of taking a cab to the gym for a two-hour workout. The two-minute cab trip is the ritual that gets the famous dancer and choreographer through the workout (the habit).

We are indeed creatures of habits, but we are also creatures of rituals, and it helps to understand the subtle difference between the two. Both have a lot in common—they are performed routinely and often in a deliberate and meaningful way. They also tend to happen automatically, sometimes subconsciously, because we’ve repeated them so many times under the same circumstances. Some people like to ascribe rituals to spiritual practices, but rituals needn’t carry any religious or even cultural undertones.

I like to view rituals as the starter fuel for habits, the latter of which play into a much larger outcome or goal, such as finishing a book. Rituals provide the signal

If you struggle to make your writing deadlines or even find time to write, perhaps you simply don’t have reliable rituals to get you going and create the steppingstone to the writing habit. Build in the right ritual that will guarantee you’ll sit and focus on the writing process. Apply that idea to all the good habits you want to establish in pursuit of a lofty goal. Just be sure to develop rituals that are easy, accessible, quick, and enjoyable. Sometimes quirky works too. Dan Brown (The Da Vinci Code) prefers to hang upside down like a bat to “relax and let go.” What will get your creative juices flowing?  

Credit: Photo by Mikesh Kaos on Unsplash