When I first started a self-compassion practice, I also started a daily writing practice and a weekly blog posting practice. Any one of these is effortful enough that it would normally take a lot of “discipline” to develop and stick to a habit of doing it — a lot of pushing.
But this pushing / discipline runs counter to self-compassion. It smacks of the toxic productivity that I see under every rock these days, with exhortations to “supercharge your productivity” or “crush your goals” or (my current favorite) “double your productivity using this ADHD system,” usually accompanied by some version of “buy this app” or “use the planner that works for me because I invented it.” All of it essentially boils down to a better way to push through your daily Do list.
But here’s the thing: all this pushing has just driven so many of us with ADHD to an endless search for the perfect planner, the perfect system. We try and try to “act normal,” whatever we believe “normal” to be. We may not actually know, but we absolutely believe that “normal” looks like something that’s “not me,” so we just keep pushing.
This actually increases our stress level, feelings of not-enoughness, and blistering self-talk, making it less likely we’ll get things done, not more likely.
Is it possible to be gentler about it and still get things done, without pushing and without letting yourself off the hook and just collapsing?
My first writing coach, the amazing writer and teacher Miriam Hall, used to say to me, “don’t push but don’t stop.”
But how do you do that?
First, it helps to know what’s stopping you from writing. Maybe it’s resistance to getting the writing done, maybe it’s fear or anxiety, or maybe it’s that you’re uncomfortable with some aspect of your surroundings.
This means being exquisitely self-aware, paying attention to the nuances of mood and feelings, and to the ongoing conversation in your head, if you have one (or to the internal messages that give you an indication of what’s really going on with you, in whatever form they might take, such as seeing colours or pictures or hearing sounds but no words). It means paying attention to your internal landscape to understand what you need and don’t have that would make it easier for you to write.
If you have trouble getting yourself to the page because there’s something about your surroundings that’s stopping you, it’s helpful to know that so you can change it.
It’s a great relief and game-changer when you can create an environment that actually encourages writing. Some people need absolute silence, others really need the stimulation of having other people around, so their ideal environment might be a coffee shop.
For me, it means a designated writing space — two, actually, one for writing by hand and the other at my computer. Both are usually quiet, with few distractions. Both contain the necessities: lots of pens, paper, sticky notes, a place for my coffee and a place for the cats (who are, TBH, the biggest distraction).
If it’s resistance that’s getting in the way, it’s helpful to know what it is you’re resisting. Is it that you can’t get to the page or that you get stuck when you get there? Maybe you have no words, maybe you have too many and can’t make sense of all your freewriting. Does it feel like you have no motivation, and what does that feel like in your body? Apathetic, lethargic, or go-go-go-can’t-stop?
Or maybe you actually truly just don’t want to do it but you have to?
All good questions.
Ask with curiosity, not judgement.
Each of these calls for a different approach to working with the resistance and maybe even dissolving it. (Notice I’m not using the word “overcoming,” which to me is just another way of saying “pushing.”) None of these approaches involves just sucking it up and trying harder.
When a client comes to me with resistance, the one approach I almost always include is simply breaking up the job into the tiniest possible parts and doing just one tiny thing in a writing session, even if it’s only 5 minutes.
One little thing I often recommend is to go sit in front of your workspace for 5 minutes and write, off the top of your head, one thing you know for sure about your topic. If after 5 minutes you’re still stuck, take a break and try again later. But most people find that after 5 minutes they want to continue.
I’ve also come to understand that sometimes the best thing to do when you’re stuck or deep in resistance is to actually stop. Not forever, but just for a day or two. Take a sick day and give yourself some breathing space. Usually this works way better than just parking yourself in front of the computer screen for 8 hours, desperately trying to work but failing again and again, until you give up and go do laundry instead.
There’s something magical about intentional time of: it peels away the layer of guilt and shame that comes with not doing the thing when you’re supposed to be doing the thing. Even if you’re still not doing the thing, at least you don’t feel bad about it.
I argue that there’s NEVER a reason to feel bad about not getting the writing done. None of us are lazy. (No, you’re not the exception.) We try harder than most, often for less reward.
Having said that, when you do feel bad about it (and you probably will), it’s so helpful to have a new script of self-talk that sounds more like curiosity and less like criticism.
For myself, I finally figured out that I was deeply burnt out (like so many of us) when my body stopped letting me get up in the morning and just kept me in bed until 2:00, 3:00, 4:00 in the afternoon. No wonder I couldn’t write! I’d been pushing so hard for so many years that when I no longer had a fixed schedule, I completely collapsed.
It still doesn’t take much to throw me off-kilter. When I do, it helps to allow myself to stop instead of pushing through. When I feel better, it actually gets easy and even joyful to get to work in the morning and get writing done.
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(Recommended Resource One of the best resources I’ve ever seen for novel ways of working with resistance is The Anti-Planner: How to Get Sh*t Done When You Don’t Feel Like It, written and illustrated by Dani Donovan specifically for neurodivergent humans. (BTW it is NOT a planner!) Though it’s not specifically about writing, much of what she says applies to the writing process. Pure genius. I highly recommend it.)(P.S. because I just can’t resist this: Dani is a gifted cartoonist and writer, and has a series of comics that are a mostly hilarious take on life as a neurodivergent adult with trouble adulting. She totally nails it.)
