31 Days of Writing

The back story

You may prefer to jump ahead to the guts of the challenge, but for those who are interested here’s the back story.

Something happened in December, something changed. I spent the first four months after exiting my business lost in a blur. Stuffing in as many things as I could to distract my brain from freaking out about my choices! Wading through loss and grief of who I was and nervous about what lies next.

The weird thing is that the energy change coincided exactly with the end of an astrological transit which had been in play for me for 2 years. It was finally time to let go, to loosen my grip on the past two years. I went along to a Christmas Network Event for Women in Business with clarity and zest, this is my year, my year of discovery.

Of course, I was seated with a collection of incredible women - that’s how I roll! See my post on the Power of Beliefs  to boost your happenings. And I met Hedley Derenzie. An amazing woman with a youtube channel on the Law of Assumption and a 6x published author, just who I needed to meet!

After diving deep into Hedley and her videos I discovered her writing challenge - the 31 days of writing.

The structure of the writing

The original challenge from Hedley was as follows;

• 2000 words per day for 31 days, no days off.
• The words are to be inspired from something that happened during the day.
• No rolling over words. Every day is a new day.
• Each day will begin with 20-minute meditation
• Each day will start and end each day with an intention/prayer.
• The commitment is formalised with a signed contract
• The challenge is public to family and friends to help keep you accountable.

Being an Aries Snake, I always like to do things my way. Here is my version of 31 days of writing.

1. Before writing, complete 7 mins of meditation ( I scrapped this after 2 days!!)
2. Write for 35 minutes for 31 days straight
3. No rolling over words, every day is a new day
4. Book a date with myself on the last day to review it all

That’s it, short and simple. I told my partner Jeff and my friends who were staying as I needed to lock in the time to write, but I wanted to make myself accountable for this. After all, this was just for me. It wasn’t about how many words I wrote, I was ok with staring blankly at my laptop if I needed to, it was about showing up everyday to say I’m here, I’m writing.

If you are thinking about taking this on, you get to choose what is right for you. It could be 5 minutes a day, 100 words or 1000!

This is your adventure, you get to choose.

The benefits of writing for 31 days

Writing, journaling, bullet points, it doesn’t matter what your style is, it’s about getting all the useless chatter out of your head. When you can’t roll over from one day to the next it also forces you to stop the looping. Get it out and move on.

Here are 10 benefits to writing for 31 days:

1. Work out your worries on paper
2. Release the looping monkey mind
3. Gain clarity on ideas that you have
4. Learn that you can write everyday
5. Unpack the events of the day
6. It builds muscle memory to discover the creative act of writing
7. Quiet time, just for you.
8. The more you write, the more you can write
9. Space and time to DREAM
10. Expand your imagination

Surely, you are now thinking hell yes?

The results

The 31 days ended up being a complete roller coaster ride of emotions for me. In true Aries form, I hit the start like a bull out of a gate and then by day five I was writing;

How on earth do I get through this challenge? Does it even matter? Is this normal?

By day eight I was back in flow, I had got past the first little hurdle. On day 22, I hit a hangover wall and could only make it for 4 minutes, but I decided to give myself that grace of a day!

I covered everything and anything and I came out with so much clarity.

• It’s ok to miss my business
• It’s ok that I don’t know what is next, it’s my year of discovery!
• Don’t rush into a new business
• You can write 40,000 words in 31 days, HIGH FIVE
• Practice makes you better
• Becoming the Creative Director of you Life has legs as an idea
• Caring for the garden of the mind has legs as an idea
• I know my values: Passion, Magic, Creativity, Growth
• I know what my magic is; Creating, Writing, Speaking, Connection
• My life is incredible and I’m so freaking happy.

Action Steps

OK, time to make a decision, is this for you?

What if it’s not writing, could it be something else? I’ve jumped on to 31 days of video and I’m excited to see what comes out of it. Maybe I’ll share it one day, maybe I won’t. It doesn’t matter, it’s not the purpose.

If this is for you, what’s the format that will work for you?

Set yourself up to succeed and use it as a way to build incredible proof for who you are becoming.

You are the Creative Director of your life, you get to choose, you get to design.

____

Thursday Thrive is all about giving you an injection of inspiration and I hope this sparked some ideas.

The greatest gift you could give me is sharing this content with someone who you think might appreciate it. Thank you in advance, I really appreciate it ❤️

See you next week! Leina x