In my Planning classes I talk about how you learn to juggle by tossing one beanbag from one hand to the other. Your goal is form and consistency. Once you have that, you can add more beanbags, change from beanbags to something else, and do something that looks much more like juggling.

You can’t juggle flaming torches without spending some time tossing one beanbag from one hand to the other. Even when you’ve juggled flaming torches in the past, if you start dropping them you have to go back to tossing one beanbag.

Back in December I decided to take my own advice. I know that yoga is a practice that is good for me. However, I have never successfully established a home practice and, in the autumn of 2014, I had fallen out of the habit of attending a weekly class. I decided to fix that.

Yoga may not be your thing. It may never be your thing. That’s okay. I don’t care if you ever do yoga.

Writing is your thing. You know it is good for you. You may have stopped doing it, just like I stopped doing yoga. This happens to everyone.

What I did to fix my yoga practice:

• I took a couple of private classes to figure out what would work for me.
• I asked myself “How do I make daily practice easy?”

Things that make the daily practice easy:

• The smallest possible amount (10 minutes to start)
• No extra clothing changes, special places, etc: in my underwear, on the floor of my bedroom
• Peg it to another activity I do daily: right after my shower, before getting dressed

I also booked several more private classes, once a fortnight, to check on my form, to get ideas for expanding it when I was ready, and to keep me going. Knowing I would be seeing my teacher helped me start again if I missed a day or two.

It is now the beginning of March. I do 20 minutes of yoga every morning (in my underwear, after my shower, before I get dressed). I have temporarily suspended the private lessons but I will have more when I’m ready to change or add to that 20-minute practice.

I am NOT pushing myself to make it longer.

I am deliberately sticking with 20 minutes of the same thing every day for at least another month. I want to really bed this practice in. My goal is form and consistency.

I need it to be something I do no matter what is going on. Something I do when I travel. Something I do when other members of my household are away and I have more morning chores. Something I do when I’m busy.

My identity is shifting. I am becoming a person who practices yoga daily. I want to be that person.

Why am I telling you this?

I am sharing this because you can do the same thing for writing that I did for yoga.

• Get some help to figure out what will work for you.
• Ask yourself “How do I make it easy to write regularly?”

You can be a person who writes regularly. But you have to start with the equivalent of tossing one beanbag.

Start by brainstorming ideas for each of those bullet points. Then pick one to start with.

Post recategorized Sept 21, 2015.