This episode is for writers who want to learn how to use mantras to help increase their confidence and write with more ease.
Hi writers! How are things going this week?
So today I wanted to talk about something that can have a major positive impact on your work, your writing process, and the amount of writing you are able to produce.
And that is the power of “priming” your mind.
Priming basically refers to how being exposed to one stimulus can affect your reaction to another stimulus later on.
In essence, your mind is constantly storing information and then using it to create thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that come later.
When it comes to your work, one of the most important things you can do is to prime your mind to have positive associations with writing so that you are more likely to want to do it and feel good WHILE you’re doing it.
How do I suggest you do this? By using writing mantras.
Now, before you discount mantras as being too New Agey, give me a chance to explain why they can play a critical role in helping you reach your goals and become the writer you’ve always wanted to be.
I’ll talk about what they are, why you should use them, and help you create some that are tailored to your own individual needs.
Why prime your mind?
When I was working on my first book, I often felt like I had to wade through an endless stream of negative self-talk before I was actually able to get anything done.
It was truly exhausting, and I would wake up in the mornings feeling burdened and filled with a strong sense of dread about the work ahead.
And even when I did get something done, I would second-guess myself and spend hours revising and re-reading articles and books to make sure everything was “perfect.”
The experience totally, completely sucked.
Not only was I unhappy and insecure about my work, but I literally felt drained of the energy to do anything else that would make me feel better.
Back then, I didn’t have any strategies for reframing my mindset.
I didn’t know I could intentionally set a positive and productive tone for my work sessions, so each day felt like an unpredictable roller coaster.
It felt like my book was in control of me instead of the other way around!
And it wasn’t until I discovered the power of mantras that I was able to make these shifts.
I learned that when you practice them consistently, priming your mind can help you cultivate positive emotions and drastically improve your experience of writing.
What are writing mantras?
So let’s talk about what writing mantras actually are.
Whenever I start working with a new coaching client, I have them fill out an in-depth questionnaire.
It asks about things like the books they find inspiring, all about their writing goals, and their strengths and weaknesses as a writer.
But I also ask what them to list their writing mantras.
This question often stumps people!
They might answer something like, “I don’t use mantras” or “I’ll need to think about this some more.”
Sometimes they write a vaguely punitive-sounding statement, like, “What you don’t do now, you will have to do later.”
And once in awhile they give pithy advice to themselves they heard along the way that no longer really applies to their circumstances like, “A good dissertation is a done dissertation.”
But we really don’t feel that way about books. Very few people believe that the only purpose of a book is to finish writing it.
Books are in many ways far more personal and can make you feel much more vulnerable.
The stakes feel even higher than when you wrote your dissertation.
It’s no longer just about earning your degree, it’s about things like getting a job, getting tenure, getting full professor, earning fellowships, becoming a respected figure in your field, your legacy, etc.
However, I don’t want to discount my amazing clients either, as some of them have wonderful heartfelt mantras like, “Connection, not perfection” or “Passion and precision.”
So what exactly do I mean by mantra?
Mantras essentially refer to statements that inspire and motivate you on an internal level to write.
But even more than that, they symbolize your highest intentions and are areas you’d really like to grow into as a writer and a person along the way to completing your book.
In other words, mantras help distill the mindset you want to cultivate as you’re writing so that the process will be easier and more enjoyable.
As I talk about all the time, achieving any major goal such as a completed book manuscript is at least half mindset and half strategy.
We are often unaware of our thoughts because they run in a constant loop in our minds.
When we take our thoughts for granted as truth, we don’t question their validity.
But in effect, what you think during your writing sessions does one of two things: either impedes your progress or facilitates it.
The problem many writers face is that their inner critics constantly offer up a stream of negative, deflating thoughts. These have the power to block their best efforts when they choose to believe them.
Notice that I said, “when they CHOOSE to believe them.” Because believing any thought is a choice, as I’ll come back to.
High achievers tend to have an inner critic dialogue that seems to be hard-wired into their brains.
A lot of people I know believe that if they aren’t extremely hard on themselves, they won’t be as productive.
I’m here to say that the opposite is actually true.
The harder you are on yourself, the harder it is to get things done.
On top of that, the less likely you are to be proud of yourself and to celebrate your achievements when you actually finish.
So being really hard on yourself pushes off happiness and satisfaction with your work to some undefined point in the future, when you could actually be enjoying a lot more of the process right now!
But bear in mind that our brains are malleable and flexible even as adults.
This means that we can introduce new thoughts at any point that help, rather than harm, our productivity and well-being.
Process Goals vs. Tangible Goals
In my first session with a new client, we’ll talk about their writing goals, which usually include things like finishing a book proposal and a couple of book chapters.
Afterward, I always ask them to list out the most common negative thoughts they think during their work sessions that prevent them from moving forward or enjoying the writing process.
Once we have these, we reframe them into something called “process goals.”
These are essentially writing mantras.
They are self-beliefs that, if you truly believed them and operated from that place, the writing process would feel easier and more enjoyable.
One simple way to think about process goals is to imagine that your book has already been published and is very successful, however you define that.
Maybe it’s made a big splash in your field.
Maybe you’re being invited to speak on panels and give keynote talks at conferences.
Maybe it’s won prestigious awards. It’s up to you to define.
Consider, what does your future self who has experienced all this success now believe about your work and yourself as a writer that is different from yourself today?
Are you more confident in owning your role as an expert? Do you feel like you are the very best person to tell this story?
These can become your process goals.
One of my favorite business coaches, Simone Seol, calls process goals your “winning results” rather than the tangible outcomes like finishing your manuscript or getting a contract.
I love this line of thinking!
It’s pointing out that consciously cultivating how you want to feel or believe in the process—which is usually more empowered and more aligned with your core values—will make you much more capable of accomplishing your tangible goals.
Turn Your Self-Judgments into Mantras
So now that we understand what process goals are, it’s relatively simple to turn them into mantras that will help you write your book.
All you need to do is take your most common judgments of yourself as a writer or researcher and reframe them with the opposite meaning.
But let me introduce the caveat that these new beliefs need to feel good to you and within the realm of possibility.
Let me give you some examples.
One of my clients recently graduated from her PhD program.
She has a hard time getting going on her own projects because her internal dialogue goes something like, “You don’t know what you’re doing” and “Who are you to be doing this research?”
Now, these self-judgments are not based in any kind of objective reality, as this person has a PhD and many years of research experience.
Therefore, doing exercises like making lists of your own accomplishments to prove your inner critic wrong might or might not be helpful because they don’t necessarily shift deeper feelings of inadequacy.
Instead, I encouraged my client to turn these critiques into statements that actually felt good and would allow her to reach her tangible goals more easily.
And so we came up with three process goals of “I know what I’m doing, “I can figure things out along the way,” and “I’m the exact right person to be doing this research.”
Another one of my clients has an inner critic dialogue that constantly berates her for not writing fast enough.
Imagine how you might respond if your mind is constantly telling you that you’re falling behind.
You’d probably get overwhelmed, which would cause you to panic, slow down or procrastinate and give up altogether because it doesn’t feel like you can catch back up.
So we turned this thought into a process goal of “I’m writing at exactly the right pace.”
This thought brought her immediate relief.
It calms down her nervous system and opens up space for her to actually focus on what’s in front of her.
This how we knew it was a good fit and a prime area of personal growth for her.
I’ve got another client who has had a very difficult time with writing and publication due to long-time patterns of deep procrastination and perfectionism.
As a result, this person feels constantly disappointed in themselves and has extremely negative self-talk.
They admitted to me that their most common and debilitating inner critic thoughts are, “You are not living up to your potential” and even “You are a waste of space.”
How painful is that!
We reframed these into the process goals of “My self-worth is not reliant on my productivity” and “I am making slow and steady progress.”
And another client recently told me a mantra that I thought everyone could use as a nice reminder of self-care, which is, “When I take excellent care of myself, the words just flow onto the page.”
Creating Bridge Thoughts
I should note that if it’s really challenging for you to embrace one of your process goals as a mantra, you can try creating a bridge thought instead.
This is basically a thought that serves as a bridge between your self-judgment and your process goal.
The point is to bring the pressure down, which might make it more believable to you and something you can then implement more easily.
Take the case of one of my clients, who has never written a sole-authored article and is filled with self-doubt about the process.
Saying to herself, “I am filled with confidence about my writing and research” doesn’t feel totally true.
So instead, we rephrased it to become the bridge thought, “I’m open to believing I’m a confident writer.”
Summing It All Up
Priming your mind before you write is so important because it’s a way to fill yourself compassion, confidence, and inspiration.
Writing mantras calm down your body and mind.
Or they can fill you with excitement that kickstarts your drive to get started and stay present in the process.
When you’re feeling present, you’re much more likely to enjoy what you’re doing and be able to get into a flow state where you can focus and produce great writing.
And once you start seeing the fruits of your labor, you’ll feel better about what you’re doing, which in turn will relax your body and allow you to be more present with writing.
I encourage you to come up with a list of 5-10 writing mantras that are uniquely inspiring to you.
Read them before you start each and every work session.
And when you come up with or hear a new mantra that you like, add it to your list.
Mantras are good for building your belief in yourself for just about anything.
I’m not kidding when I say that I have about 150 process goals that relate to my business, my health, my writing, and my self-care.
I use a paid app called ThinkUp to record my mantras and play them back to me as a meditation, which I listen to several times a week.
And in a year-and-a-half of using it, I’ve listened to me saying my mantras over 15,000 times!
And I attribute most of my success in every area of my life to these mantras.
Try it out and see for yourself! What do you have to lose?
Let me just remind you that all of your thoughts about yourself and your writing are just stories that you are choosing to believe.
So why not tell yourself some more empowering ones?
I’ll catch you next time.
**If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to check these out too:
Ep. 1 – Write Your Book Faster With These 3 Thoughts!
Ep. 57 – Four Mindset Shifts to Break Through Writer’s Block