The Discipline-Inspiration Cycle

I used to write in high school. Only a couple of friends read what I wrote. (Back in 2013, I posted a couple of things I wrote in High School. You can read two of them here: “A Full Understanding” and “Reputation Realization.” Consider my 18-year-old heart bared! :)) I enjoyed writing as a means for processing and expressing my experiences and ideas. I began blogging more officially in 2010-11 as I prepared to move to Colombia. When I look back now and read what I wrote in those days, I think, “Hmm, that’s pretty good. Where did I get that idea?”

The joy and inspiration of writing is always in tension with the discipline of writing. When I get an idea and feel inspired to express it, I’m excited. New ideas often come to me as a write. And the more I write, the more ideas I get – and the more I write. It’s a cycle of discipline and inspiration, and it seems to follow the law of inertia – when it’s going, it’s great. When it stops, it’s hard to get momentum.

Back in 2013, two days into a 40-day personal blogging challenge, a lady I didn’t know came up to me after church (in Colombia). “The Lord spoke to me about you today,” she said. “He said you need to write. He is calling you to write. You need to write. A lot.” She repeated herself a few times, grasping for words to express the urgency of her impression. I listened in awe. The timing was so right. I had just set myself up in a framework of discipline to force myself to write for 40 days in a row. And she confirmed it.

I had another friend who was often confirming that I needed to write more. Bob (who I wrote about here – Legacy of Listening) was a consistent voice of encouragement, always mentioning how he was sure someday I would publish something. (Ironically, the only thing I’ve written that’s been published was a chapter in a book – and that chapter was about Bob. Unfortunately he passed away a few months before the book was released.)

My formerly self-sustained discipline-inspiration cycle came to a halt when Bob passed away. For over a year, it was all I could do to muster up just enough discipline to write work-related updates once a month. Producing 300 words felt like pulling teeth. “I’m going to write more in 2017,” I told myself in the beginning of the year. I set writing goals the first few months of the year that I didn’t complete… so I didn’t set any more writing goals for the rest of the year.

However, even though I didn’t meet my writing goals in 2017, for the first time in years, I had set goals in a variety of areas and I was consistently working on them. I failed in some and succeeded in others. The combined feelings of success and failure were far better than former feelings of apathy. At the end of 2017 I asked myself, “At the end of 2018, what would I most regret not doing?” The answer was clear: writing.

So here I am, back again. I’ve managed to figure out my blog password after 16 months of silence. After ten hours of disciplined writing the past three weeks, I’m starting to get glimpses of inspiration. I hope that every week or two I can share some of these glimpses with you.