How to Create 10+ Hours a Week to Write [LitHabits Live Workshop]
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT: Mini-Workshop – How to Create 10+ Hours a Week to Write" (Even If You’re Outrageously Busy)
[Heads up! This transcript has been edited for clarity and ease of reading.]
RENEE LONG:
Welcome! It's so good to see everybody here. Happy Thanksgiving if you're in the US. Happy Friday, if you're somewhere else tuning in. I'm so excited that you chose to be here today instead of out Black Friday shopping, which if you are doing that later, that's totally cool. [Small talk with group.]
Today's talk is how to create 10+ hours a week to write even if you're outrageously busy. I know that title may freak some people out and don't worry, we're going to get there.
If you're not familiar with me or my work, my name is Renee Long and I am a creative writer. Honestly, I've been a writer since as long as I can remember. I was writing at my mom's kitchen table before I actually knew how to write. I would dictate to her and she would sit there with a pen and paper and write down my stories when I was very, very little.
I've also been a writing teacher in some form since 2009. I’m the founder of LitHabits.com, both the blog and the workshop. I've been twice nominated for the Pushcart Prize. I'm a regular columnist for The Waking. My mission as a writing teacher is to help writers overcome fear, self-doubt, procrastination through holistic habits.
In this workshop, you're going to learn:
My M.A.K.E. Method for creating more time to write.
How you can take back control of your calendar, so you're calm, focused and motivated to write.
The actual true root of procrastination and why distractions tend to pull you away from writing.
The true cause of distraction and that it's not actually what you might think.
Simple and effective strategies to silence the inner critic.
The M.A.K.E. Method for making more time:
There’s this myth out there that you’re going to “find” time. That is a myth. You have to make time.
There's also this phrase out there in our culture that “everyone has the same 24 hours in a day.” To be honest, that's actually not true. For a long time, we had a Newtonian perspective of time, which meant that we thought that time was a fixed thing.
Then Einstein came along and totally blew that out of the water. And we learned that time is relative. Meaning, that wherever you are in space and however fast you're moving through space, time expands or contracts relatively.
So that's where we get the theory of relativity. That's why you're not going to find time. You're going to make the time via “Einstein's time,” which I think is really cool. “Einstein Time” is a concept I learned from a Gay Hendricks, who's a wonderful expert on this topic of growing more time.
The first part of the M.A.K.E. Method is Mindset.
Mindset is the first part of the acronym. You probably heard the title of this talk and thought, "Really? What is this girl talking about? Like really 10 hours a week?!"
You’re probably pretty skeptical and thought, "Yeah, right Renee, you don't know my life. You don't know my schedule."
You're right, I don't. But I'm going to show you that this is actually possible. Not even that 10 hours a week are possible, but whatever you need to complete your goal. Whether that's a writing project, whether that's a book project, whether that's anything else you want to do in this bold and beautiful life, you can find the time. Even if it's one hour a week, 45 minutes a week… this presentation is going to show you how to do that.
I've been seeing this quote go around in a number of different places. I'm not quite sure who the primary source is, but I love this quote: "When you cling to your excuses, you get to keep them." It’s so true. I want to remind you that there are powerful writers out there who had the same reasons for not writing as you do and they still did it anyway.
Whatever your reasons are, there are people who have gone before you who had the same reasons for not writing that you do. And they still did it anyway. So you might be thinking, "Well Renee, I'm too busy. You don't know my schedule. I'm just way too busy." You might be thinking, "My family takes up all of my time." That is true for a lot of us, especially parents.
You might be thinking: "I'm not talented or smart or energetic." That's one that I get a lot. I might seem bubbly and excited right now, but on the whole, my energy levels tend to be quite low. So I struggle with, "I don't have enough energy to reach my goals or reach my writing goals."
You might be struggling with chronic illness or chronic fatigue or emotional things that are going on. All of these things are good reasons. They are good reasons not to write. Nobody is going to begrudge you for not writing because of these reasons. However, when you cling to those reasons, you get to keep them.
What you don't get to keep is that finished essay or that finished poem or that finished book or whatever that looks like for you. So I ask you then, what would you rather cling to? There was another quote I saw going around on the internet, which I really loved which was, "There are two types of people in the world, those with reasons and those with results." So which one do you want to cling to?
You might be thinking, "Yeah, well, Renee, they were way more talented or way more capable or way smarter than me." No. YOU are just as powerful, just as smart, just as capable as every single person who's gone before you with those reasons and who have succeeded. We're going to dive into that.
Reason #1: “I don't have time because I'm too busy with my full-time job.”
I’ve been there. But guess what? There are writers who've done it. There are writers who've written beautiful books with full time jobs.
We have Tony Morrison. From 1989 to 2006, she held the Robert F. Goheen chair in the humanities at Princeton University. She also raised her son as a single mom while a writer and a professor.
Eula Biss is one of my all time favorite writers. She is a professor and artist in residence at Northwestern University. She was also a Guggenheim fellow and is an editor at Essay Press. She’s also a mother and married, so she has a family.
Anthony Trollope wrote 63 books in his lifetime with a full-time job at the post office that he actually loved. I love telling Anthony Trollope’s story because he really loved his job at the post office, and that's not something we typically hear about.
His job and life brought him so much joy that he actually invented the British postbox. If you ever go to England, you’ve seen those little red postboxes in the street. In the midst of all that, he woke up early every day and wrote three hours daily with no mercy.
These are really powerful writers––people who have influenced our culture. You might think, "Well that's them, Renee! They were stronger or smarter or had more privilege that helped them be a great writer." It’s true that they were strong and talented and creative, but that wasn't the only ingredient. You have this ingredient, too, so keep the faith.
More writers with full-time jobs who wrote their books with full time jobs:
Elizabeth Gilbert
John Grisham
Harper Lee
Agatha Christie
Kurt Vonnegut
The list goes on and on!
Reason #2: “My family takes up all of my time.”
Here are some writers who've written gorgeous books who also had young children and busy families:
Cheryl Strayed: married with two children and a full-time career.
Jane Austen: she was a single lady, had no children, but back in that day there was a very high emphasis on community and family living. So she lived in a very busy bustling household with her mom, her sister, and her friends.
They had company coming in and out all the time. Jane had a lot of responsibility within the house to keep things running. She still wrote within the cracks of time. If you're someone who's thinking, "Yeah, I don't have kids, but my family still keeps me pretty busy," Jane Austen is a great example as well.
Melissa Poulin is actually on the call with us! Melissa is one of my dearest, dearest friends. She's a wonderful poet, essayist, and mother of two. She's also the author of Rupture, Light. If you want to hear her thoughts on how she divides up her time, how she found a lot of ease in writing her own book, you can watch our interview here.
One of the things I love about Melissa is that she respects the seasons of life. So if you have a tiny baby right now under a year, or you’re someone who's like, “I just got diagnosed with an illness, and this is my life right now.” Respect the season that you're in.
It may mean that this season you’re in is not a time for writing. It may mean it’s a season of daydreaming and focusing on taking care of your newborn baby or focusing on rebuilding your health.
That doesn't mean it’s going to last forever. Respect where you're at in life. If it is a time where something is really going to take up your focus, just honor that and know that a season will come when you'll be able to devote 20 minutes a day, 30 minutes a day, an hour to a writing project.
But if you're in a season where something takes up most of your focus––like a new baby––it's okay to respect that and know that it's not going to last forever…and to enjoy the season because it’s special!
Here’s my interview with Sophfronia Scott, who’s also a mom and who's also written books while having a young child as well.
Reason #3: “I’m not ________ enough.”
This is a big one for me:
“I'm not energetic enough. I'm not creative enough. I'm not smart enough.”
We just listed a ton of successful authors. When you hear about Toni Morrison or Eula Biss, these highly respected professors at Princeton and Northwestern, it can bring up a lot of feelings of “not enoughness.”
The truth is, they've done studies on what makes an individual successful in any field. They found that talent and IQ matter far, far less than consistency, determination, and grit.
This means that if you have a goal, and you're walking towards it, and you're doing consistent actions to get there. That consistency matters far more than whether you're talented or highly, highly intelligent on the IQ scale.
The truth is that folks like Eula Biss, Toni Morrison, Melissa Poulin… they have to write really crappy first drafts. They have to edit them, and revise them, and they put in that extra, extra work consistently because they know that is what they have to do in order to get the results that they're looking for.
This is something I struggle with. I've been in a season of thinking about this idea of “enoughness.” If you are in that place right now, I want you to know you are enough, you are enough, you are enough.
Reason #4: “I have a chronic illness that zaps my energy and creativity.”
Let’s say you're struggling with a chronic illness like Flannery O'Connor did throughout her life, or anything that affects your body or your mind. No one is going to begrudge you for choosing to heal yourself or choosing to spend more time taking care of your body.
But if there is a spark inside that makes you feel like, "Writing is something I really want to do! I really want to write this piece, and I'm tired of my illness or my fatigue or my mental state holding me back."
Then I encourage you not to cling to that reason as an excuse not to write. Like I was saying before, honor the season you're in. If you’re in a season of healing, it’s fine to honor that. But if you have a little spark of light that wants to move forward with writing, I encourage you to lean into releasing this as a reason for holding yourself back.
Flannery O'Connor is a great example of this. The same year she published her first novel, she was diagnosed with lupus. If you're aware of lupus, it’s just the worst possible condition for a writer. You become foggy, exhausted, pain ridden, you experience flu-like symptoms almost all the time.
One of the ways Flannery supported herself was by moving in with her mother so she could have a support system. She asked her help so she could have the support to recover and still walk towards her life's purpose as a writer.
She has this wonderful quote: "Routine is a condition of survival." Part of her healing process was devoting a very specific routine to her writing. She wrote from 9:00 AM to noon every single day without fail. Obviously, if she was in a super, super debilitating spike of her illness, she didn't do that. But for the most part, she wrote every single day. She said to a journalist that most of what she writes is total crap and she throws most of it away. But every now and then there's a gem of something beautiful.
Flannery continued to write throughout her illness until her death. I'm so glad that she did because I love Flannery O'Connor's work.
If it’s possible for these writers, it’s possible for you too.
Truth #2: The real reason you're procrastinating, even though we had all these other reasons, is only and always fear. That is the number one reason.
Once you build the courage muscle, it’s going to be so much easier to recognize fear and move through it. Courage is a muscle you can grow!
None of us is born with the skill of how to move through fear or how to work with our fear, which is a protection mechanism. Fear is there to protect us. But we’re not taught to recognize a true fight, flight, or freeze response versus something scary like writing a challenging scene in your short story.
Courage is a muscle you can build. I love to focus on tiny, tiny habits that can build that courage.
The first one is meditation. It's probably my number one recommendation for writers who want to build courage.
Julia Cameron’s Morning pages is probably the biggest thing in my life that helped me build the courage muscle. There are a bunch of other little habits you can integrate into your life that will help you feel less afraid when you're sitting down to write:
Short bursts of exercise
Chanting
Qi Gong
Making the bed
Prayer
Gratitude
Affirmation
I'm right now in the middle of my LitHabits Workshop, my longer 7-week paid program. This is the first thing we focus on so writers can simply get that first crappy first draft out. My students are doing amazing.
These “bedrock habits” are going to build courage so you can show up to that page and not be pulled away by distractions.
The next step in the M.A.K.E. Method is: Ask for Help
This is probably the hardest one.
The truth is… every single thing on your calendar you said “Yes” to. It doesn't mean you said yes joyfully or happily, but you did say yes to it. You agreed to it.
The reason we feel the necessity to say yes to everything is because we believe there are people out there who “do it all.”
You can look at folks like Toni Morrison or Eula Biss and I assume they do or did it all. I guarantee you they had help.
Even though Toni Morrison raised her son by herself, wrote her books by herself, is a professor by herself, I guarantee you there were people who lifted her up. Maybe they watched her son for an hour a week or maybe they helped her revise a really difficult part of chapter of Beloved.
With social media and media in general, we see people doing all these cool things, and it looks like they're doing it all by themselves. I guarantee they are not.
We see headlines in Forbes about “self-made millionaire, self-made author, self-published, self-made blah, blah, blah.” Nobody is truly self-published. You have an editor. Maybe you’ll hire a publicist. Maybe you hire a coach that helps you do well on Amazon.
Everybody asks for help. If you're seeing someone’s success, it's because they asked for help.
We are communal creatures, and it takes a village to reach our goals. The reason for this because of synergy. We are stronger together than we are individually.
If you're reading this, it may mean that you're saying yes to too much and not asking for anything in return. I want to encourage you that you are allowed to ask for help. I know it's so hard. I struggle with this myself and it's something, another muscle I'm constantly trying to build. You are allowed to ask for help.
I'm going to be super, super vulnerable with you right now because I think it's really important that if you see somebody doing something that they explain how they asked for help.
Often they'll tell you what they did to become successful or finish a book, but they don't really share the specifics of how they asked for help. So I want to share with you right now.
If you've been following me for a while, I've been working hard on my blog. I've been working hard to grow my audience for the LitHabits for Writer's world because I have a mission deep in my heart to help writers share their soul's work with the world.
In early 2018, I had a full-time, remote-work position. Wonderful job, full benefits, and I was able to live alone in a beautiful studio apartment in San Diego, California… the most gorgeous place on earth to live. I lived right by the beach.
The thing was, there was something in my heart that wanted to expand beyond the 9 to 5. I no longer wanted to have someone else calling the shots of how I used my talents, and I really wanted to expand the LitHabits mission and into entrepreneurship.
Yes, I could have stayed in a 40-hour a week job and worked on LitHabits for two hours after work and on the weekends. But I guarantee if I did that, I wouldn’t be in front of you right now teaching this lecture, sharing with you that I have students in a larger program. I wouldn't have published the pieces I published this year because a I wrote them during the week when I’d normally be working.
I was able to do this by asking and accepting my mom's offer to move in with her in LA. So right now, I live with my mom.
My mom supported me in my journey, and I was able to take more time and cut down my work hours to just 20 hours a week so that I could work on LitHabits on Thursdays and Fridays and be here in front of you right now.
It was a lot of pride to swallow. My mom is amazing. She's the best roommate. She's my best friend. But there's a cultural expectation that we're supposed to be “self-made”––that we're supposed to be standing on our own two feet independently. To be honest, the rest of the world lives within family units and supports each other as a family unit. We have this belief that millennials are “failing to launch” and living with their parents.
To be honest, I didn't want to be a stereotype, but my mom offered help. And the only way I was able to grow faster was if I took that leap and accepted her help so that I could work less hours in a day job and more hours on LitHabits and my creative writing.
So that was a scary admission for me to say. I’ve never shared that publicly. I've only shared it with close friends. I wanted to let you know that nobody is doing this alone and without help.
You’re allowed to release cultural expectations that may not be in your best interest. I had to release the cultural expectation and stereotype about millennials and receive my mom’s help.
Take a second to think about five things that you absolutely hate doing. You are not a unicorn, and these things on your calendar that you hate… someone else can help with! Can you swap or barter responsibilities with someone in your family or community? Can you save or spend some money to outsource tasks you hate?
Can you put money away every month so that maybe you can hire a `housekeeper in 2020? Or maybe you can hire an assistant for 2020 to help you with little tasks like setting the doctor's appointments?
Can you automate it? Can you set up automatic bill pay? Are there tasks you can simply eliminate? Can you simply say no?
Can you save up some money so that you can delegate it to something like Task Rabbit or a Wag dog walker? Or is it something that can be put on autopilot? Something as simple as an email responder can automate answering common questions that come into your inbox.
Truth #4: you are not a martyr. It doesn't help you or your loved ones if you're feeling resentful, burnt out, or depressed.
The next step in the M.A.K.E. Method is: Keep Track
So how do you put this all into action? If you don’t know where the time you have is going, it’s harder to make more time. This was game changing for me: the next step is to see where your time is going by tracking your time.
If you're an analog person––meaning you like to write things down in a journal––go grab your journal. If you’re someone who really likes apps and software like me, here are some amazing tools you can use to track your time.
TMetric is what I use to track where my time is going. I tracked my time for a full year before I stopped doing it because I got a better understanding of where my time was going. But I recommend you do this for at least a week.
Other tools for time tracking:
Pen and paper
Smartphone notes
If you want to cut down on screen time, you can absolutely do this with a pen and paper. All you need to do is set a timer for every 90 minutes and then open up your journal, write down the time, and write down what you’re doing.
And if you really want to get into it and get a lot of good data about where your time is going and what lifts you up or deflates your energy, go ahead and log your emotional, physical, and mental state. Are you feeling foggy? Are you feeling energized, joyful, restful, fatigued? All of those things. After you've done that for a full week, I want you to look back at where were you actually spending your time?
What habits and activity are really sucking up your time? What can be completely eliminated? What can be delegated to another member of the family? Delegated could mean swapped–– you can barter and swap.
Or what can you simply reduce? If you're spending two hours a week on Instagram, where can you reduce? How can you reduce that to 15 minutes a day instead of five hours a week? What strategies can you use to cut down on that distracting time? Maybe you want to reduce that and do something more restful like read a book or hang with your kids.
Netflix, binge scrolling through Google news? “Procrasti-research” instead of composing your writing project? Are you “procrasti-cleaning?” Are you cleaning the toilets or vacuuming when you really wanted to dedicate time to your writing? All of those things will show up when you track your time.
Then assess those habits and activity. And I guarantee if you do this for just one week, you're going to be surprised at where your time is going.
The next step after you've tracked where your time is going, is to set a SMART goal for a writing project.
You've probably heard this acronym before: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time-based.
Example: I will complete a personal essay on pop-punk in the early 2000’s by writing 200 words on MWF from January 1 - March 1, 2020.
This is a SMART goal because it's specific. It's timely because it's going to be 200 words every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. It's measurable: 200 words, It has a time limit on it.
And if you really want to get crazy, you can prepare and make sure any distractions that might come up will be eliminated. So you're going to turn off your phone. You're going to use a social media blocker and tell your family you're busy during that writing time.
The next thing that I suggest is to schedule your plans by the week. Scheduling by the week is the number one strategy from any time management expert out there.
When you plan by the week, it's a long enough time where things are achievable and a short enough time that you're not overwhelmed by your goal. So once you've made a larger smart goal, break that down into your weekly goal
Example: I will write 200 words on Monday, Wednesday, Friday at 6:00 AM for a total of 600 words this week.
Once you've got that goal written down, you're going to put it in your planner or calendar.
The next thing you're going to put in your planner or on your calendar is actual playtime, actual rests and breaks. They don’t have to be long. A rest or break can literally be five minutes of alone time with a cup of coffee on your porch. And again, anytime you get stuck, go back to the beginning of the M.A.K.E. acronym: Mindset and Asking for help.
Then of course, then schedule in the rest of your priorities and appointments. Those come last because you are your number one priority.
And just to reiterate, there's that phrase out there, "You can't pour from an empty cup." Again, your family, your co-workers, your boss, etc. is not served by you being resentful, being a martyr, just being so burnt out that you can't focus on what's in front of you. No one is served by that.
That is why I say plan your priorities first as in your writing priorities and your simple short breaks and then schedule everything else in.
Truth number six: just 10 minutes of planning can save you two hours per day of wasted time. That’s pretty incredible.
If you take 10 minutes a day or half-an-hour a week, you get two hours per day back. Guess what two hours per day, Monday through Friday is? 10 hours a week!
You’re getting 10 more hours a week simply by taking 10 minutes a day to look at your planner, look at your schedule, and plan what you're going to do for that week or that day.
Again, that's 730 hours––an entire month per year––saved when you take 10 minutes a day to plan ahead. There’s your 10 hours a week for writing. I told you I was going to deliver on that!
The next step in the M.A.K.E. Method is: Execute!
Before we get into the execution discussion, the number one way you’re going to be consistent is with self-compassion, being kind to yourself, being forgiving, and not expecting to get all of this perfect.
I’ve been working on this method for almost three years now. It takes time, and you're not going to get it perfect.
The only reason I didn't give up is because I'm constantly forgiving myself. People who show compassion to themselves and constantly forgive themselves for failing, for not getting it perfect, for having to constantly try again, are way more likely to get back on the horse. People who feel guilty and self-blame and beat themselves up almost never reach their goals. They have such a hard time of starting again.
This is one of my favorite quotes from Saint Benedict: "Always we begin again.”
We're always, always having to forgive ourselves because perfection is not realistic. Compassion is a muscle you can grow.
Bedrock habits that build compassion and take five minutes or less:
Meditation
Morning pages
Gratitude
Affirmations
Language shifts
Writing letters to yourself
Creativity play-dates
You can use these habits to grow not only your compassion, but any muscle, any inner muscle to really be more courageous, be more focused. Any of these.
If you’re struggling with a lack of motivation or self-doubt, remember that motivation requires you to feel in control. Autonomy is going to boost your motivation.
When you can keep your vision and your purpose for writing front and center, that goal that we talked about earlier, you're going to feel more motivated. Remembering that you are in control of what goes on your calendar and what doesn't, and this puts you back in the driver's seat. It's going to motivate you more.
This is my favorite strategy for feeling more in control of my life: Simple language shifts like this:
But → And
Should → Choose to / Want to
Need to → Choose to / Want to
Have to → Choose to / Want to
Instead of saying the word “but,” you can switch to “and.”
For example: “I should write today but I have to go to the doctor” becomes, “I want to write today and I have to go to the doctor.”
The “and” triggers your brain into thinking of creative solutions. Instead of writing at nine o'clock, maybe you’ll write at eight o'clock so you’re on time for your doctor’s appointment. Or maybe you take today off from writing to care for your health. Or maybe you’re feeling really inspired to write, and you’ll simply reschedule the doctor's appointment.
Here’s another one:
“I should go to the post office to drop off these holiday letters to my friends.”
“I want to go to the post office to drop off these holiday letters to my friends.”
Or,
“I choose to go to the post office and drop off these holiday letters to my friends.”
Again, when it's something less joyful, like going to the doctor, you can shift it into a bold choice. “I choose to go to the doctor.” Not everything is a joyful choice, but when we choose it, even if it's an uncomfortable activity like going to the doctor or editing a really tricky poem, we feel more in control.
You don’t have to do anything other than notice when you're using restrictive words like “should” “but” or “have to.”
Don't expect to shift your language in one fell swoop. Just notice when you're using language that implies that you’re not in control and shift it to language that implies you are in control.
Did you like this mini-workshop? Then you’ll love Writers Camp!
Writers Camp is a free 5-Day training program to help you sit down, focus, and make progress in your writing. The live program runs every few weeks, so if you’d like to get an email update when the next Camp starts, sign up here:
In Writer’s Camp, you’ll:
Finally create a sustainable habit that makes writing a priority.
Regain courage & confidence in your writing so you can get that idea you’ve been kicking around onto the page.
Spring into “flow” so it doesn’t take 5 hours to write one sentence.
Enjoy guilt-free weekends with family & friends (or chillax with Netflix). Why? Because you already showed up for your focused writing time this week. #NailedIt
Plus, when you sign up for Writers Camp, you'll become a LitHabits VIP and hear from me once-a-week (sometimes more) with writing tips, inspiration, interviews, & priority updates and offers on my workshops. Opt out anytime.
Live Q&A
Melissa asks, "When do you log? At regular times each day or throughout the day?"
That's a great question. When you're first starting time-tracking, I recommend setting a timer on your phone or maybe have a kitchen timer in your pocket if you're super analog.
Set that timer for 90 minutes, and when the timer goes off, take out your journal or your notes app on your phone and write down the time and what you’re doing. Again, don't worry about getting this perfect. Even if you get three logs in, that's amazing because you're still getting really good data.
Danae asks, "Is courage something you can grow? It seems like fear is something you also might grow from certain habits. Have you read anything about becoming aware of fear growing habits that we should avoid?"
Amazing question. The first part of that question is yes, courage is something you can grow. Any of these bedrock habits like meditation, morning pages, chanting, etc., will absolutely help you grow inner muscles like your courage muscle.
It seems it won't work, but I guarantee if you do five minutes of meditation for five days in a row, you’ll feel far more courageous than you did when you first started. Even just three minutes.
Morning Pages is another one. They've been really transformational in my own life and for my own courage. So yes, courage is absolutely something you can grow. Another exercise I recommend is called Fear Setting by Tim Ferriss. I guarantee you'll feel more courageous after doing his exercise.
I agree, fear is also a muscle. It's also a protective mechanism that protects us from danger. Something that is related to fear or amplifies fear is comparison. Comparison amplifies our “not enoughness.” And we often struggle with comparison when we’re addicted to social media. Not that people shouldn't post lovely pictures, but what happens is you start to compare your life to this beautiful curation on Instagram or Facebook. That triggers feelings of “not enoughness.”
When you don't feel enough, your underlying fear confirms that you’re not enough. So I think reducing social media time is really, really effective for moving through fear. Again, Melissa is on the call, and she actually cut out social media completely, which is amazing to me.
The number one habit to reduce, if not eliminate completely, is mindless social media engagement.
Irina asks, “Any tips for fighting the inner critic?”
Yes, absolutely.
I encourage you to rewatch the section on the excuses and reasons. And remind yourself of the truth that the only reason our inner critic is showing up is because of fear. When we can meet that inner critic with compassion and acceptance and truth, it gets a bit easier.
The next thing I’d recommend is Anne Lamott's essay “Shitty First Drafts” from her book, Bird by Bird. That is the number one essay out there on perfectionism and inner criticism. She's absolutely wonderful. My third recommendation is to start Morning Pages.