Who would you like to become?

And how will you get there?

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

This week I’ve been pondering the kind of person I’d like to be. What you might call A Big Question.

This isn’t because I don’t like myself (actually, I try hard to love myself - and I think we should all make an effort to do so) - but because if I’m going to fulfil my potential, there are a few positive things I’m going to have to get into the habit of doing.

I have recent form in this area.

When I wanted to feel confident about going to a pub for a soft drink and not feeling the need to explain why I wasn’t ordering alcohol, I pictured myself as the kind of person who does exactly that, and it worked (if you want to know more, you can read about how it did it here, in a piece I wrote for Delish magazine about going ‘semi-sober’).

And when I realised the Time Had Finally Come For Me To Take Fitness Seriously, I joined a council gym, went to classes and hired a trainer to help me learn how to do weight-bearing exercises.

Because I don’t have a lot of constraints, life felt a little un-graspable.

These changes may sound simple, but both took many months while I went back and forth about what to do and how to do it. There were several false starts and quite a bit of agonising, too.

The reason I’ve recently been thinking more about the kind of person I’d like to be is because I got into a productivity rut a couple of weeks ago.

I’m fortunate to have a fair amount of freedom in how I spend my time, partly due to being freelance and also because I don’t have kids.

But recently, a lack of structure and routine started getting to me, and because I don’t have a lot of constraints, life felt a little un-graspable.

I had a go at myself for checking Instagram too often, googling bikinis in the middle of the day, or not getting up early enough.

From quiet, creativity comes.

I also got cross because, if I can see a free afternoon coming up in my diary, I have the urge to fill it with an activity, when what I really crave in the long term is to be creatively productive.

And by that I mean if what I really want to be is A Proper Writer, someone who will write An Actual Book One Day, then I need to bloody write more.

If I want to see how far writing can take me, then I need to try harder.

It doesn’t matter too much what I’m writing, because, as Joan Didion wrote in an essay called Why I Write: “I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what I see and what it means. What I want and what I fear.”

But can I get organised (or remember) to do my morning pages, three A4, longhand pages of stream of consciousness writing prescribed as necessary for every artist by the revered director, creator and teacher Julia Cameron, author of The Artist’s Way?

No.

Do I show up to Writers’ Hour, the silent, online writing sprints held four times a day by the excellent and welcoming London Writers’ Salon?

Not enough.

I do need to give myself some credit, because I’ve been writing The Honesty Box every fortnight for nearly two years - and I’m now doing so weekly - so I’m clearly getting more on the page than I used to.

My mother has a good tiny habit: when she cleans her teeth, she stands on one leg.

And, can I conjure up some wise-ish words for this newsletter in a few hours every week?

Yes.

But mainly my issue is weaving in moments where I put down my phone, stop pottering around doing jobs or saying ‘yes’ to everything to allow myself some quiet time.

And from quiet, creativity comes, as I woke up thinking the other day.

Julia Cameron encourages creative people to get over their blocks by going on regular short walks (with no phone or music) and by taking themselves on an Artist’s Date every week, but do I remember to do those things?

Rarely.

This week, in an effort to be more of the person I want to be, I set myself some Tiny Habits. These are what Stanford researcher BJ Fogg uses to help people get into better habits and they usually attach themselves to something they’re doing already.

For example, to help him lose weight, every time BJ went to the toilet he did two press-ups. This might seem a little odd, but it worked for him.

My mother also has a good tiny habit: when she cleans her teeth, she stands on one leg, to help improve her balance.

If I am lucky enough to have a relatively free life, then I want it to be a purposeful one, and I think writing is part of my purpose.

BJ suggests you create what he calls ‘recipes’ for these habits, and you can choose from his suggestions or make up your own from themes like productivity, love, tidiness, mental health and so on.

These are mine:

When I realise I’m procrastinating, I will set a five-minute timer.

When I’m worrying about something, I will open my journal.

When I sit down to work, I will think about someone who loves me very much.

I was meant to do these every day this week, and then report back via email as part of BJ’s free, five-day course.

But did I do them? Hmmm. I did the timer about three times, thought about someone who loves me three times, and did the journaling zero times. I reported back once.

If I am lucky enough have a relatively free life, then I want it to be a purposeful one, and I think writing is part of my purpose.

It helps me understand myself and other people better, and forge deeper connections.

So, I resolve to keep my tiny habits up, to look at my diary and pick Writers’ Hours that I’m going to join and remember to go for a quiet walk at least once a week.

And if Joan Didion can write to find out what she’s thinking, then I am allowed to as well.

What tweaks are you making in your life? Do you start sentences with ‘I wish I could do…’ Is there anything you can do to make a tiny step towards that? If I can, you can too!

There’s no ‘things I like’ here, because I’m now sending a separate newsletter every other week with that little list… If there are things you like that I should know about, let me know.