Cookbooks in the Wilderness
The other day I saw on Instagram an amazing cook talk about writing - or rather not writing - her cookbook. She said it’s her dream, but “I don’t see it happening unless I go to the wilderness... One of these days I’ll do it and come back with a cookbook.”
Many of us think, “I’ll design the garden when I retire.” “I’ll write the business plan when I make enough money to take a year off.” “I’ll start the nonprofit when the kids go to college.”
There is a better way.
One of the best things I learned from my writing teacher is the 15 minute writing habit. You make a tiny commitment to spend just 15 minutes a day writing. The bar on the writing is nonexistent - you can write something completely worthless. 15 minutes with no quality bar? There go the “I don’t have time”, “I’m not in the right mindset” or “I’m not good enough” excuses. Just write. Or draw, pole-dance, learn, research, whatever it is you want to do to follow your curiosity, with ZERO expectations.
You start the session with a mini-ritual to focus your attention and separate yourself from the chaos of life outside those 15 minutes: A quick meditation, a few deep breaths, a small prayer to the muse to shower you with inspiration, some music, whatever works. Then you do the activity for 15 minutes and you’re free to get on with your day (or night).
I tried it. I sometimes wrote utter garbage, and sometimes ended up in a state of flow, writing way more than 15 minutes. I started thinking about writing throughout the day, getting ideas and jotting sentences down while walking somewhere or talking to someone. I soon realized that the daily habit isn’t about being disciplined - it’s about keeping the thing you’re doing marinating in your head, so you want to keep going, chipping away at it slowly but surely.
Now, let me kill a few more excuses that may or may not have popped up:
If you are not curious about anything in particular try meditating for 15 minutes. You don’t need to be “good” at it, you just have to sit with yourself. If that sounds too boring, try to journal or meditate on what your ideal future self would say to you today to support you in your personal growth quest (watch out - if they say anything nasty they’re not your future self, they’re your inner critic).
If you don’t have 15 minutes a day because you work 100-hour weeks and have eight kids, look at your media consumption, the number of times you hit snooze, or the number of supposedly urgent but truly unimportant work tasks you perform. Then make the conscious choice to prioritize those over your soul. Or not.
If 15 minutes a day won’t work, what commitment can you make?
So - will you wait to go to the wilderness, or commit 15 minutes to your true self today?
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