30 Days Of A “Just Do It” Writing Practice
It is said that Nike’s “Just Do It.” slogan was inspired by the last words of Gary Gilmore, a man convicted of murder and sentenced to death by firing squad. Gilmore’s last words of “Let’s do it.” were transformed in 1988 by advertising executive, Dan Wieden, into the tagline we all know and recognize today.
While far less dramatic and tragic, what I learned as I worked with the 30-Day Writing Practice Project can be summed up in the exact same way – “Just Do It.”
Why did I commit to 30 days of writing?
I needed something, a catalyst, to get me to the page. Despite years studying creative writing in University and writing for pleasure, I had never called myself a writer until I met Rose at the Ideas Write Now (IWN) workshop in DaNang, Vietnam. It was at this time that I began to embrace and affirm that I am, in fact, a writer.
In those 2 years of working with her I wrote more than I had in the previous 10 years since college and even cashed some checks courtesy of my renewed writing efforts. I had returned to something I truly loved and was part of a community that promoted it and was seeing the fruits of my labor rewarded.
When life gets lifey.
Fast forward a year, I received a promotion at my job and no longer had the 10 years of experience in my previous role to help me along the way. I was learning new things and that took time and attention. Covid hit and Rose moved from Vietnam taking IWN and my weekly commitment to writing and my writing community with her.
I felt directionless, frustrated, and rarely found myself returning to the page. You know that feeling where you know you should be doing something because it aligns with your values and ensures you are being true to yourself but lack the motivation/enthusiasm/time/energy/whatever to get it done. That was me and it wasn’t pretty.
I carried on like this for a good while, but as a person who strives to live their values, it weighed on me like a boulder.
When the 30-Day Writing Practice Project came up, I knew it was something I had to do. I had to get back to a place where I was getting out all the ideas I had swirling around in my head. I needed to get back to the space where I was telling the stories that needed to be told.
Anyone can do 30 days, right?
I knew I could see success in making change when giving myself a specific window of time for improvement and habit building. It is just easier for me when I know that I am only on the hook for a specific start and stop. Plus, I’d previously used the same method of habit forming with a yoga challenge.
I completed a 30 day yoga challenge and found my balance in the process. Balance, get it? Ha! I felt energized in my commitment to myself and the movement over those days and reaped rewards I hadn’t expected.I had previously done a 30 day yoga challenge and found my balance in the process. Balance, get it? Ha! I felt energized in my commitment to myself and the movement over those days and reaped rewards I hadn’t expected.
In the 30 days I committed to my yoga practice, I mastered poses I hadn’t before and came out of the short time with a connection to movement practice that I had never had before and continue to carry on to this day 7 years later.
I dove into the writing with the same hope that this month long promise, minute on the grand scale of an entire life well lived, could serve to do the same.
30 days is a solid commitment, but it is also a nice round chunk of time. There is a reason that calendars are broken down into months. Seeing your commitment on one page of a calendar has a way of helping to make the promise to yourself seem possible and dare I say, attainable.
Habit building is hard.
Attainable, yes. Easy, up for debate. Going from 0 to 100, or in this case, 0 days a week to 7 days a week, felt darn near impossible.
To get there, I needed a plan. I used the guiding questions from the writing practice workbook to figure out the just right formula for my ideal writing commitment. The guiding questions from the workbook were the who, what, when, where, and why for my personal plan - just the facts ma'am. The workbook gave me the thoughtful direction I needed when considering my life, my time, and my goals for this month long commitment.
Jumping into a 30-day challenge the questions helped me create a goal of one page a day everyday. I didn’t put constraints on when or where and didn’t limit myself to a specific topic. The goal was both simple and grandiose. I wrote it on my calendar. I joined the Writing Practice Project accountability group.
I went for it.
The 30-Day Writing Practice Project was a very stark reminder that adding positive habits into our lives is way harder than it should be, and this unfortunately crosses all planes on the spectrum.
Eating an ice cream is easier than eating an apple.
Binge watching Netflix is easier than cycling.
Doing the things we need to vs. the ones that come easy is, well, hard.
I was coming off a year of personal practice in keeping promises to myself, particularly in the health and wellness sphere. I had lost 40 pounds and was regularly walking 100k steps per week. To be honest, I was worried I had maxed out my commitment muscles and concerned that the habits I had built in that arena might not easily translate into my writing.
Shocker - they mostly didn’t.
As I committed to changes in my personal habits, I was constantly met with encouragement from those around me who saw me cycling to work and having my skirts taken in at the tailor. There were external motivators and atta-girls from those around me to keep me enthusiastic.
The Writing Practice Project was a very different and far more personal promise. There wasn’t a t-shirt for me to wear around town announcing my having kept to my writing goals for the day, though there might definitely be a market for such a thing. I needed a whole new set of habits, the kind you can only build one day, one page, one paragraph at a time.
30 days of writing alongside a full-time job.
Despite the inherent difficulty, I embraced the “Just Do It.” spirit and did it. There were days I missed the mark, but overall, I wrote more in those 30 days than I had in the previous 365. Talk about massive return on investment! I didn’t hit my goal of writing every day, but just as the name implies, it is a practice. What a downer it would be if it were called the Writing Perfection Project. That is just never going to be it for me or most anyone else whose full-time job isn’t writing, and I would venture to say that even if writing is your full-time job, you probably miss the mark on perfection more often than you hit it.
For me, just making the attempt seemed monumental. Just committing to the practice was noteworthy. Other than the daily commitment, I set the bar rather low. I committed to just 1 page each day. It sounds more than attainable, but there were some days that despite the desire I just couldn’t make it work.
On those days, I made note of what I missed and gave myself grace to come back to it. If I missed my page on a Thursday due to whatever circumstances, I committed to completing that page on a Saturday or Sunday when there was less responsibility on my plate.
What came out of this month of writing was the solidification of my practice.
The commitment of working toward something hard and never giving up. I don’t quit my job when I have had a bad day. I don’t move out of my apartment when the bathroom sink springs a leak. And I don’t stop writing just because I miss the mark or what I get down on the page doesn’t impress me. I keep working. I keep going. I “Just Do It.”
Top tips for 30 days of writing.
What advice can I give to you as someone who has lived this commitment to practice and come out the other side?
Make the commitment!
Reflect on where you are, what goals you aim to reach, and be realistic about the challenges you will face. Based on that, commit to what you can and stick with it.
Do you only have 2 hours a week to set aside for writing? Embrace it!
Do you only have the opportunity to write from behind your steering wheel while your eldest is at soccer practice? Charge up your laptop battery before you leave your house.
Whatever you have to give, make the promise and give it.
Change your thinking!
Commit to your writing as a practice, something to be embraced even when it falls short of what you envision.
It is just that – a practice.
Don’t make it anything else.
Even the pros have crappy days and miss the mark. Acknowledge it won’t always be amazing but be willing to fail and continue to show up anyway.
If you’re not sure where to start getting in writing on your calendar consistently, then sharpen your pencil and get your hands on this workbook. Think about the possibilities that 30 days can lead to.
You can’t win if you don’t play - “Just Do It.”
When was the last time you carved out time for yourself and your writing practice?
Written By: Stephanie Shepperd
A consummate raconteur, Stephanie works to translate the engaging stories she tells into living words on a page. She is a professional educator, published author, and enthusiastic editor. Stephanie prefers to write first-person essays on what she knows from her life, relationships, and travel. She just might make you laugh while you stop and question yourself and the world around you. Based in DaNang, Vietnam she can be found spending sunny days scooting around to secret beaches on her Vespa with a hammock in the seat.
Need some ideas on what to write?
Join our monthly creative writing workshop where we collaborate, craft, and share writing of all kinds every week.
Check out our upcoming writing sessions here.
