Embed Size (px)
Citation preview
©2016 Nina Amir www.ninaamir.com [email protected]
20 Habits to Help You Become a High-Performance Writer
Eighty-one percent of Americans say they want to write a book. Why do only two percent accomplish that goal?
First, the majority of aspiring authors don’t want to achieve this status badly enough to take action. Thus, they don’t manifest their dreams. Second, they don’t do what it takes to write their books. Their lack of motivation, organization or energy leaves them feeling they can’t do it.
If, to date, you have not written your nonfiction book, you must fall into one of these two categories.
Maybe at this moment, you feel like I did at one point in my life. You are frustrated with your past level of performance and achievement, and you are ready to make a change. At that point, I actually said, “I refuse to fail.” Maybe you have declared, “I will become an author.” Good for you!
Now is the time to take action! Use that commitment to do something that moves you closer to achieving your goal.
High-Performance Habits for Writers
To write a book, get it published, and promote it, you need to employ the habits used by high performers. Here are 10 you can use to become a high-performing writer and achieve not only your goals but your potential as well.
1. Prepare your mind and body. Your mind responds to how you take care of your body. Take care of yourself! Eat a good diet. Drink a lot of water. Exercise. Sleep enough. Don’t drink alcohol or caffeine. Take supplements. You will write with more clarity if you feed your mind what it needs.
2. Take frequent breaks. Studies show that those who take frequent breaks out perform those who work for hours on end without stopping. Get up from your computer and get a drink of water, stretch, or go for a walk around the block twice every hour—or, at the minimum, once every 50 minutes.
3. Set your daily priorities. Know what you need to get done. Stick to those priorities—that means your daily word count. Don’t do anything else until you meet that goal. No surfing the Net. No calling your mom or checking email or Facebook.
©2016 Nina Amir www.ninaamir.com [email protected]
4. Leave your email until later. Do not check your email first thing in the morning or right before you begin to write. This distracts you from your priority—writing. It also allows other people to dictate how you spend your time. Focus on want you to do and accomplish, rather than on what others want to do and accomplish.
5. Have a routine. Most successful people and high performers have a routine. Create one for your self. What will you do every single day and in what order? Stick to it.
6. Master your thoughts. Negative thinking and limiting beliefs are a sure-fire way to get off track when you write. They make you feel inadequate and unable to accomplish your goal. If you need to take up a meditation practice to become more conscious of your thoughts, do so. But pay attention to them, and when you find your mind filled with messages that make you feel badly about yourself and your writing, change those thoughts to positive, affirming ones instead.
7. Choose who you want to be every day. You get to choose how you show up each day. If your boyfriend dumped you or you owe the IRS $4,000, you can still choose to bring joy, focus and concentration to your writing periods. You have the ability to determine how you feel and who you want to be. Do you want to be depressed or worried? Or would you like to be joyous and confident. Choose…then choose again and again and again.
8. Protect your confidence. Don’t put yourself in situations that might cause you to question your ability to write a book in a month. Don’t tell your mother you are participating in NaNonFiWriMo or NaNoWriMo if she is critical and will say, “There’s no way you can write a book in a month. You are crazy to try.” Don’t show your manuscript after week one of the challenge to your friend, who aspires to be a nonfiction book editor (but isn’t one), and who will return it “bleeding” red ink just to prove she knows what she’s doing. This will wreck your confidence and make possibly cause you to give up before you are even halfway through the challenge. And if you need to just write, so your inner critic doesn’t start telling you how badly you write, don’t bother rereading, editing or revising before you meet your goal.
9. Have clarity about your goal. Know why you are writing your nonfiction book in a month. Understand your motivation and ambition. Once you do, you’ll find it easier to sit down at your desk each day.
10. Bring energy to your day and writing periods. Wake up and create a heightened state of energy so you approach the day or the times when you write with joy and enthusiasm. You can do this with mind exercises, body movements, music, or self-talk. Whatever you do, don’t sit down to write feeling tired, bored or in any way low energy.
11. Use a daily to-do list or productivity planner. Rely on this tool to help you stay organized with your time and projects. Plan out the next day as you finish your work. When you show up at your desk, you’ll know exactly what you need to accomplish.
12. Use time blocking. Organize your daily schedule in blocks of time, and include one or more for writing. Set an intention, or goal, for each block. Nothing else happens in your writing time block other than writing. You also can set goals for each time block.
©2016 Nina Amir www.ninaamir.com [email protected]
13. Turn off the Internet. While working on a time block, shut down your Web browser completely. You know what happens when you check email or a new Facebook or Twitter message; you get lost on the Internet—sometimes for hours. You must turn off the Internet for periods of time. There are great programs for this, such as: • Anti-Social • SelfControl • Write or Die • StayFocusd
14. Show up. Every day, show up as the person you want to be with the energy and attitude you want to have. No matter what happens, you have to show up and be effective.
15. Be on purpose. Determine if your activities align with your goals. For each activity or opportunity, ask yourself, “ Is this helping me achieve what I want as a writer or author?”
16. Do the most important things first. If writing is your priority, that gets accomplished before everything else.
17. Create a restart button. This will helps you stop the processes in your mind or body that hold you back when external situations become challenging. Your restart could be a 30-minute jog, a meditation period, a bit of chi gong, a nap, or playing catch with the dog. Choose an activity that brings you back to center and reminds you of your purpose and how you want to show up.
18. Realize that fears aren’t real. There are only two types of fear: The first involves physical safety and the second emotional safety and comfort. Few writers fear for their physical safety, but many make excuses that allow them to feel emotionally safe and comfortable. If you suffer from the latter type, fear becomes a mind-management issue. You have to become conscious of your thoughts and aware of how they control your behavior. Then you have to change them into ones that support your writing rather than hinder it.
19. Combine your passion with your purpose. Passion will sustain your writing efforts. That’s why when you start a writing project it’s important to choose subjects about which you feel passionate. You want to choose a book project that feels on purpose—that aligns with your Big Why. If you do those two things, you will feel inspired. That feeling will move you forward to the conclusion of your project more often than anything else.
20. Make yourself accountable. Set a deadline for the completion of your first draft and for the publication of your book (or for finding an agent or publisher). Then schedule time into your calendar for the necessary tasks, including writing, so you meet that deadline. Don’t create a deadline that is a year or two years from now. Push yourself to get your book written and published fast! You’ll get more done if you push yourself.
©2016 Nina Amir www.ninaamir.com [email protected]
Change Happens in a Moment, Transformation Takes Time
You can make the decision to change in a moment, but that doesn’t mean you will change at that moment. Think about New Year’s resolutions: You may decide to change as the clock hits midnight, but how many resolutions have you only kept for a few days or a week? Transformation didn’t occur even during those early weeks of the New Year.
That’s because real transformation takes work and commitment. Change takes time. Personal growth requires a moment-to-moment commitment as well as a high level of intention, consciousness and initiative. You need these qualities to make the changes you want or need related to writing a book as well.
I’m sure you’d prefer to know you will keep your resolutions or develop the positive habits to help you achieve your goals. You would like to create sustained change so you can write your book or books, produce more content and do so in a consistent manner.
To write a book, to become an author, learn and use high-performance habits and mindsets, the same ones used by high performers in every industry including publishing.
If you are struggling to become an author, or if you are finding it difficult to finish your book project, your current habits likely are not helping you achieve your goal. You need to adopt new habits. Put a few of tips above to work for you, and you will find yourself more productive each day. That means you’ll become a consistently more productive and successful writer. You’ll move into the two percent that actually gets the books out of their heads and onto paper.
Do you need help achieving your writing and publishing goals? If you want to develop high-performance habits and achieve your goals, Certified High Performance Coaching can help you fulfill your potential and purpose as well as give you more clarity, courage, energy, productivity, and influence—and success. To set up a 1-hour FREE Certified High Performance Coaching session, click here. Then download the session application, and submit it. I’ll contact you to schedule your session (and tell you how to receive a FREE ticket
to Brendon Burchard’s next High Performance Academy (a $997 value.)
With Nina, you
Click here to find out more
