How to Become Addicted to Writing

How to Become Addicted to Writing

Do you need to write an essay, article or story? Or a business presentation, a manual, product documentation? Do you have writer’s block? Lack of impetus? Not in the mood?

Let’s face it. Discipline is hard. Most of the time doesn’t work. Instead, addiction makes you do things. Even when tired or busy. Even when you are not motivated.

You don’t have to develop a discipline to write. You have to develop an addiction to write.

The will power approach to build habits isn’t enough for most people. It’s not enough to want things. You need to desire things.

What was the last biggest behavior change you have?

We are going to take advantage of our smartphone’s addiction to learn how addiction works. Or, if you prefer, how behavior change works. Then we can become addicted to writing. Or anything else. For good.

It has worked for me since I was younger and there weren’t laptops or smartphones. I hope it works for you too.

The addiction to smartphones is no longer in dispute. Well, some people don’t want to call it under that name, because they think it is a harmless behavior. If it doesn’t hurt is not addiction. They think there is no proof of the damage from using our cellphones.

Call it what you want. The point here is that our brains have the capacity to engage in behaviors for survival and evolutionary purposes.

We don’t call addiction our need, search, and satisfaction for food unless it becomes excessive and starts to damage us. But the mechanism is the same.

Bellow the incentives, motivation, learning and positive emotions is the part of our brains named the reward system.

The adoption of smartphones in recent years has been huge. We come from the absence of a cellphone in our daily lives to the necessity to carry one as much as we need to use cloths.

Once adopted as much as you carry the keys of your house, the object began to be more complex until the apparition of what we call smartphones today.

First, the cell phone was the answer to a necessity. We spend too much time and energy going to point A to point B just to have a word. The cellphone was, from the beginning, a useful tool.

When you use it, your necessity is satisfied. Thus, you are rewarded. If you don’t use it — because you forget it at home, for example — you are punished paying with time and energy. Carrot and stick.

So, the first step to becoming addicted is to have a necessity to be satisfied. A basic or primary need is better.

What are the needs that writing can satisfy?

We write to keep memories. From mundane memories to family or spiritual memories. From keeping a shopping list to keeping stories in the form of novels. Memory helps us to survive.

The most important necessity that writing can satisfy is to help us to remember.

And if we want to become addicted to writing we have to use it for everything that needs to be remembered. Again, from the shopping list to the story for a novel.

You may have a good memory. It doesn’t matter. You are going to start writing everything.

You may write down three items to a shopping list and do the shopping later without checking the list. But some other day you are going to need to check it. That’s important.

It’s the same as your cellphone. You have it with you even if you don’t use it because sooner or later it’s going to happen that you need it.

The easier it is to satisfy your needs, the easier it is to become addicted to that satisfaction.

In other words, the more you think about it, the more reasons you find to procrastinate. It’s the gap between intention and action.

So, you must have a pen and paper with you all the time. Ok, it could be a pencil and paper. And yes, it could be a note app on your smartphone, but a standalone gadget is better.

Using a little notebook, index cards, or similar, helps your mind to associate the satisfaction with the object. The moment you want to write an article or a story on your computer or anywhere, you are going to have the same pen and paper with you too.

Again, let’s use the smartphone as an example. Once the gadget has been associated with satisfaction, the solo fact to take it with you gives tranquility. And the opposite. Remember the stress noticing that you left your cellphone at home.

You are going to use the little notebook to accomplish the first step. You are going to write everything about it.

In the beginning, you are going to forget your little notepad at home. Don’t worry, it’s normal. But every day you will get used to it until you carry the notepad with you as you the cell phone.

Well, you are not to write long text pieces, of course. For that, you need a bigger notebook or your computer, depending on your workflow process.

The more complicated the way to satisfy your needs, the more complicated becomes the addiction.

Intensive repetition and association is essential in motivational change.

Your smartphone isn’t just for communication anymore. You need the camera, the search, the weather, the maps directions, the music, and very specific apps only a few people like you use.

So, you also need a journal to keep a record of your emotional state every day. You need a notebook to collect memories for your grandchildren. You need a yellow pad to take notes in meetings. You need a notebook for drawing or mind mapping.

Or you need only a couple, a pocket-size notepad to take little notes everywhere, and a large-size notebook to use on the desk.

The point here is to use your writing for more useful things every day.

Is someone going to give you his phone number or address? Try to write it down instead of exchanging messages by phone. Do you have to check your personal finances for this month? Try to do it on paper instead of opening Excel just to do a few math operations. Planning a party? Try to do it on your large notebook instead of the reminders app.

You may seem a bit dated at the beginning but the day you have to look for that phone number, personal finances, or party plan, you are going to feel the satisfaction to have it on your writing device.

You can even enjoy the satisfaction of seeing it on a paper at the same time that you use your cellphone… for a phone call.

Many times you are not going to need to check your records or writings. But when you do, enjoy it. A lot.

You don’t remember all the times you didn’t really need your smartphone. You remember perfectly all the times you need it urgently.

So, enjoy and re-enjoy it. How? Read your writings, check your records. Use them the same way you use your books.

"I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train."— Oscar Wilde

Enjoy past entries in your journal. Recap a meeting on your notes. Remember the song you liked to listen to on your last trip.

You may discover a forgotten memory. You may learn a project hasn’t gone as planned in the first draft. You may make a serendipitous association between an idea from the past and an event in the present.

Enjoy it.

The smartphone has filled our boring minutes, waiting times, commuting hours, dead hours.

But now, you can do the same with your writing — and the subsequent reading of it. Fill those empty spaces in your routine with the satisfaction of writing.

And then, the moment you have to sit and write an article, essay, story or whatever you need to write, for you, for a client, for money or a hobby, believe me, writing is going to come naturally, to be a pleasure, a satisfaction.

You are going to be addicted to writing. For good.