Two new writing practices I'm trying this year

Without the pressure of a challenge or reaching goals

I don’t do New Year’s Resolutions. I never have.

I don’t like the pressure of committing myself to a change that might be what I’d like to do in theory, but isn’t something I can stick to in practice.

What I do love, though, is trying new things, with the hope that they might become habits, but without stress if they don’t.

I also like being able to change things up depending on my current needs – okay, so that sounds like it should be really fricken obvious. If something isn’t working or isn’t meeting your current needs, you stop or tweak, right?

Well, it’s not always that simple. Sometimes we hold onto doing a thing because the habit has become so ingrained that we think it’s what we’ll always need, when in reality, we’re always changing and so should our habits.

I used to wake up at 5am to exercise and get a ‘strong’ start to my day. My husband used to wake up even earlier (I know, right? Crazy!) to exercise then we’d switch – we were both trying to get in our exercise first thing in the morning. (Unfortunately, when you’ve got young kids, you can’t always do these things together or at the same time.)

This system worked well for quite a while … until it didn’t anymore.

It’s hard to say why exactly it stopped working, but when it did, it took a while for me to stop pushing to make it work and come up with another solution.

When I finally did stop, it was a breath of relief. I’d been pushing for something that I didn’t need to push for anymore. Nothing bad happened because I no longer exercise in the morning and I’ve been able to figure out other ways to start my day.

Nowadays, my husband still mostly exercises in the morning and I go late afternoon or night. This is what’s working best for me right now because I no longer wake up with the motivation to jump around and get all sweaty. (Okay, so I never did much jumping, but you get the point.)

What I do have motivation for first thing in the morning is writing.

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New practice no. 1

My morning pages notebooks

Morning pages.

You’ve probably heard of morning pages before. I’ve known about it for a few years now, but it was never a thing I wanted to try before.

Probably because my morning thing for so long was exercise. There’s no way I could fit in morning pages and exercise before my kids wake up. I had to choose one and for a long while it was exercise that I needed.

Now something has shifted, and writing in the morning helps me empty my mind of all the things I’m thinking about before I officially start my day.

For me, it’s a mindful practice that eases some of my anxieties and calms all that busyness in my brain.

So what exactly is morning pages?

Well, this idea came from Julia Cameron, author of the hugely popular book The Artist’s Way.

The idea is to write three pages of whatever comes to mind, first thing in the morning – before you do anything else.

I tweak the rules a little.

• Sometimes I pause and think before I write, so it’s not completely stream-of-consciousness writing for me. (Pauses also happen when my kids come in a little earlier than expected and start talking to me, but it’s also nice when they join me and do their own ‘morning pages’.)

• I’ve cut back to two pages instead of three – it eases some of my guilt over ‘wasting’ so much paper, and it also feels like enough for me. I doubt Julia Cameron would agree as she says (and I’m paraphrasing here) that towards the end of your three pages is when you really start to write the ‘good stuff’. But I’m not searching for any brilliant revelations or useful bits to use later. I’m just wanting to empty my mind for the day.

• I allow myself some grace if I need to miss a day – though it hasn’t happened yet – because I know it’s going to happen one day and I want to allow myself missed days so it’ll be easier to get back to it again. It won’t feel like such a failure, at least that’s the hope.

• I also allow myself to complete my morning pages at any time of the day – though, again, I haven’t had to do this just yet. But if I do, it’s because morning pages for me isn’t just about writing first thing in the morning. It’s also about emptying my mind of all those little things that sit there taking up space and circling around. Getting them down on paper often releases them so I can better focus on what I need to, so if it’s not possible to do that in the morning, I think it’ll still work at other times too.

I’ve already filled one whole notebook this year, and one thing I’m not sure about is what to do with my morning pages notebooks once they’re full. Do I keep them? Throw them in the bin? Burn them?

What would you do?

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New practice no. 2

My mindfulness journal

A mindfulness journal.

I’d been wanting to practice more mindfulness in everyday life. I’ve known about mindfulness for many years, back when I first had therapy, and though I don’t believe that it’s a fix for anyone experiencing anxiety and depression, it is helpful to establish ways to calm down and be more present. Particularly if you’ve got a mind like mine that doesn’t always know how to slow down.

My husband brought this mindfulness journal home for me one day and it felt like he’d been reading my mind. Not only is it exactly what I needed, but the notebook itself features a design by an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander person, and a portion of the proceeds go to the Australian Literacy and Numeracy Foundation. (It’s the same with my current morning pages notebooks too, actually.)

I generally fill this out at the end of the day, and I haven’t been as consistent with this one as my morning pages, mainly because I’ve been unwell and so the only mindful thing I’ve been doing consistently is morning pages. Everything else has gone out the window.

However, it’s another new practice that I’ll keep going back to because it’s a lovely way to finish my day by noting down the things I did throughout the day to help keep me grounded.

Plus, the process of writing things down on paper with a nice pen that glides across the page is mindful and soothing in itself.

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Both these practices are getting me writing more regularly and helping me refocus on my writing and illustration priorities for the year.

Do you have any new things you’re trying this year?

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I acknowledge the Darkinyung people as the Traditional Custodians of the land on which I live and work, and I pay my respects to the Elders past and present.