In fact, I wrote this post when I was not in the mood to write! So you already have the proof – you can still create good quality content that is useful to the others even when you are not in the mood to write!
So you are not in the mood to write. I get it. There are days when you just don’t feel like writing. You might be overwhelmed. You might be tired. You might be bored with your “routine”.
Or there will be just no reason for you to be so! You are just not in the mood to write, right? No explanations needed!
Well, but you have a business to run. You have a blog that needs to be updated; newsletters that need to be scheduled! Social media updates that need to go out. Guest posts, that free e-book, that report, and that Kindle e-book that you’re planning to launch in a month – all of these scream at you for attention.
So what are you going to do? Pass this day with the “excuse” that you are not in the mood to write? Stay in the couch with your favourite movie? Or are you going to step out of your comfort zone, pull up your sleeves, and create something useful?
Well, if you are lazy to write, that is a different story. I can advice you to push and push! But you are not in the mood, you poor thing! What am I going to tell you?
I’ve got something to tell you actually! Let’s open up.
Tame your writing muscle
You might have already heard that – writing is just like exercising. The more you write the better you get at it and the easier it becomes.
When you walk on the treadmill or hit the gym for the first time, you would feel muscle cramps for the first couple of days.
But then once you start doing things consistently, you get more and more energy. You don’t get muscle cramps anymore. You don’t feel exhausted at the end of the session but the more sessions you do the more energised you become. The more you exercise, the lesser you find yourself seeking excuses to skip a session!
Am I right?
The same concept works with writing too! By exercising more, you are taming your muscles. You train them to tolerate more and to push more. You train your muscles that it is “OK” to be worked up. And then you know you have successfully tamed them when you don’t get the cramps anymore and when you are pumped up.
Writing works similarly. When you practice it in a regular manner, the more you write, the better you get at it. And when you have successfully tamed your brain muscles (and also your finger bones?!) you will find that you don’t feel uncomfortable or feel stressed about having to write when you are not in the mood to do so.
In fact, you won’t encounter a “not in the mood to write” moment!
Writing will become your casual habit. You won’t need a “perfect” condition to start writing and you won’t find excuses for not to write. Your writing muscles will be so trained that you can just write in any situation.
If you are not in the mood to write, no problem! You will still manage to write anyway. And let me point out that this tip is the main reason I am writing this post right now while I am not in the “mood” to write (or do any kind of serious work for that matter).
Consistency is the key
Just in close connection with what I said about taming your writing muscle, consistency helps with getting serious about your writing. When you consistently write, you naturally get to tame your writing muscle! And writing becomes a casual habit to you.
Apart from this, doing something consistently will help with scaling your efforts. Be it publishing blog posts on your own blog, or guest blogging or doing something differently, you can only start to see scalable results, if you do that for a consistent amount of time, right?
One guest post on a big blog will only give you a spike in the traffic and a spike in the number of subscribers. But when you do it consistently, you can build your own kingdom in the blogosphere. That’s the power of consistency.
There are two ways in which consistency can help you with “writing when you are not in the mood”:
(i) When you develop the habit of writing consistently, you tame your writing muscle and you don’t have to have the mood to write!
(ii) When you write consistently you will have enough material to cover you for days when you are not in the mood.
Even though there are 2 options I always find (i) to work more effectively than (ii). But both of them do work and are direct benefits of writing consistently.
So how do you develop a habit of writing consistently?
I can give you many tips on this. But the primary tip is this – Just write everyday, no matter what! It doesn’t have to be stellar writing. It doesn’t have to be the content for a novel.
Over the time you will just casually write a blog post. But when you start, you may not be able to use all of your writing – that is OK. The most important thing here is to WRITE EVERYDAY.
Do this consistently for a few days (I don’t know, 12, 27 or 30 days!) until you make it a habit.
“I don’t have the time” is not an excuse! You have to make the time to write.
Break the routine
So you are not in the mood to write! May be your “routine” is making you feel bored. Do you always write on your working desk? May be that’s what is boring you!
Or do you always work on the couch? You should try writing in a different room in your house.
Do you spend a lot of time writing/working in your home? You should try the nearest coffee shop, or a different location that you can think of!
Just change the location. Your mind will feel fresh and you will get into the mood. Many times boredom blocks your writing ability. So just make sure you don’t let yourself to get bored easily.
Take a lot of breaks. Change your working schedule to your liking (that is the plus of being an entrepreneur, right?)
Travel a lot. This keeps your mind fresh and clears the blocks. You can kick boredom in the butt when you travel a lot and feed your mind and eyes with new things (be it location, projects, people – whatever!).
Be prepared for rainy days
Lastly, let’s face – sometimes you are just not in the mood! Even after all this, you still might not feel like writing. I call these days as rainy days.
You just have to let go. You just have to let yourself take a break. Be nice to yourself and don’t push too much.
At the same time, make sure you are prepared for rainy days. When you don’t write one day, then you might have missed that day’s chunk of writing. And that might reflect somewhere in your output.
When you don’t write one day, you might not have the material for your blog post. Or you might have to skip the newsletter. Or you might have to postpone your guest post.
So on days when you are pumped up with motivation and zeal, make sure to go a step or two ahead and do some extra writing. More importantly, have an editorial calendar and stick to the schedule. This way you can easily prepare your blog posts ahead.
Even if you miss writing in one or two rainy days or on days when you are unwell, you can still have yourself covered.
Wrapping up
What do you do on days when you don’t feel like writing? Again, I say this – if you are lazy about writing, that is a different story and the tips I shared in this post might not apply to you.
This post is for you if you usually do good at writing, but sometimes you find yourself to be not in the mood to write. In that case, these tips will surely help you – these tips come from my personal experience; especially #1 is my favourite.
Do you encounter “I’m not in the mood to write” days? If so, how often? Do you find these tips useful? Or at least does any of these make sense to you?
