Has Your Brain Betrayed You?

Maybe you had a rough day at work or just compared the earnings of articles on the trending page of Steemit to your own personal blog. Maybe you just don't feel right, because you prefer to write at night. Whatever the reason, anyone who's written more than a few words has had to face....the wall.

^{Look at that wall, being all smug about being a wall...}

If you thought writer's block was bad, it's just a single brick when compared to the wall of crushing defeat. The wall saps out all motivation, makes you feel helpless, and can cripple even you even when you know what you want to talk about it. Breaking through is usually no easy task, but here's 5 simple things that can help you do it anyway.

How To Crush The Wall

1. Steer Clear of External Motivators
In my earlier post on motivation I discussed external (or extrinsic) vs internal (or intrinsic) motivators. If you're thinking about writing a post for the money, cut that shit out. If you're externally focused then you're setting your brain an expectation, and if that expectation isn't met, then your brain will make you feel like your time was wasted. Even if it IS met, your brain will expect a GREATER reward for the same activity next time, and you can't guarantee that.

^{And you thought Dvorak keyboards were bad...}

2. Internalize Your Task
Instead of thinking about writing as something you're doing for an external reward, internalize the reward. Remember, that just the act of WRITING the post is going to be good for you. Completing the post is a task you CAN succeed at, and you know you can do it if you've ever done so much as written a tweet at any time in your past. You proved to yourself that you were able to write a post the minute you submitted your introduction. Having an easier goal with an almost guaranteed degree of success can help you get started, but don't stop there.

3. Feed More Than Your Ego
If you don't push yourself, you can fall into a state where you only attempt tasks that you know you can, with almost no effort, complete. Instead, add a goal on top of it that will increase the difficulty by some margin. Tell yourself that you're going to spend more time sourcing pictures, or that you will re-write your title three times to find the best one. Challenge yourself. Why? Because as humans we feel the best when we overcome challenge. Which is more fun, winning a game against an unlearned opponent, or barely scraping out a win against a skilled opponent which challenged you, which forced you to use a new or risky tactic? The same can be applied to motivating yourself. You'll have more fun at it as well.

^{That pidgeon never stood a chance against me!}

4. Write One Word
If you spend all of your time thinking about what your post is going to be about, you can get stuck dreaming about it without getting any work done. Instead, write one word, force just one word out. Once you've done that, you've completed your first step. Breathe, smile to yourself, and remind yourself that you can succeed when you give yourself a goal, because you just did it. Now go back to step 3 and challenge that goal, finish the paragraph, then the post.

5. Perfection is NOT the Goal, Progress is
You will never be perfect and neither will I. Get over that right now and forget about it. The greatest artists will always look back at their older works as utter garbage compared to where they are now, but the best ones can tell you what they learned from each one, how each completed work changed their style or taught them something new. If progress is your goal, then all you have to do is finish the work and reflect. Note the things that you can improve on and keep going, but don't reflect until you're DONE! Don't go back and change anything until you've completed your post. Only then should you go back and re-read it to improve parts.

Now get out there and CRUSH THAT WALL! Grind its bricks and use the remains to pave a PATH TO SUCCESS!!!

^{Revel in the glorious aftermath of wall destruction}

Image Sources 1, 2, 3, 4, 5