Is Your Writing a Priority?

​You have this great idea for a book and you’ve even started writing it. But somewhere, somehow, you lost steam and it just doesn’t feel like it’s a priority right now. A family member is ill. Your job is demanding overtime. You said yes to organizing the church potluck. You volunteer at your kid’s school, or scouts, or the local food bank. Maybe your house flooded and you’ve got to deal with that. Something always happens that tends to take precedence over your writing dreams. Let me ask you a question. How important is your writing to you? 

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How important is staying alive? You eat, right? Go to sleep at night, right? Make sure the bills are paid? The kids have food, clothing, and a house to live in, and you make them go to school, right? So beyond the basics, things get a little muddled. Priority means “the fact or condition of being regarded or treated as more important” or “a thing that is regarded as more important than another”. Is your writing more important than your health or your family? Probably not. I ask you again: how important is your writing to you?

As a multi-passionate individual (hello, writing and running!), we have a tendency to take on a lot. We say YES to things at work, to book recommendations, to friends who want to go out, to family members who need help. Most humans feel bad about turning these offers down. Not to mention, every idea that crosses our mind, and every race we feel compelled to participate in. You might sometimes feel that you can’t do it all. But you can!

When you prioritize your passions, others will finally know that you don’t just enjoy them, but that they’re actually important to you. When something is important to you, you make it a priority. And that’s how you can have your cake and eat it too. You can’t really write and run at the same time, but that doesn’t mean you can’t pursue both of your passions and have a life too.

Every time I’ve trained to run a marathon, half marathon, or a 10k race, I’ve made my running a priority. Finishing the race is important to me. Not finishing dead last is important to me. For those who want to make a new PR or place in their age division, then finishing the race within a certain time is an important goal. 

When I was looking for a literary agent, it was important that I had several manuscripts ready to submit. If they liked the one I submitted, I needed to have another one ready in case they asked, “Do you have anything else?” or “What else are you working on?” My writing was always a priority to learn more about the craft, to practice my craft, and to learn more about the industry. 

But when I got my first agent, I got lazy. I stopped writing. It wasn’t a priority. It was about a year later when we parted ways - due to many factors. But that’s when I realized I hadn’t continued making my writing a priority. It didn’t take long to find another agent, but this time, my writing remained a priority.

Most beginning writers are trapped in the tug-and-pull of getting the writing done. They’re stressed, discouraged, and not confident in their plan to finish their manuscript.

If you’re not making the progress you want with your book, you’ll never get to experience the writing life you hoped for when you decided you wanted to write your story.

Here are three ways to rethink your priorities so you can stop drowning in discouragement and procrastination and spend more time doing what you truly love - writing the story that made you want to write a book to begin with.

1. Understanding why passions should be a priority.
2. Questions to ask yourself about prioritizing your passions.
3. Learn why it’s hard to prioritize your writing and running (and what to do about it).

Why Your Passions Should Be a Priority

​It’s easy to tell what someone’s priorities are. Just look at where their focus is. ​

What they do with their time. Are they watching TV for 2, 3, 4, 5 hours a day? They say the yard is important and it needs to be mowed, because they care about how their house looks in the neighborhood, but when they don’t DO it, it’s clearly not a priority at that moment.  

Here are three reasons why your passions should be a priority:

1. Writing is how you communicate your emotions.                                                         Writing is about more than just putting words on paper or telling a fun story. It communicates human truths through the themes and emotions you choose to explore. Human connection and relationships is one of the top 3 priorities in life. Writing can help you, but only when you make it a priority.
2. Running will give you more energy to write.                                                                    Many of us writers who run lean a little stronger to either the writing or the running. Sometimes it feels hard to balance them both. It’s easy to squeeze in a 20-minute (or even a 50-minute) run into your day 3-4 times a week. But when it comes to our writing, we think we need to spend 2-3 hours a day, every single day, just to finish our current project. You don’t. Running will give you more energy to write, so make your running a priority.
3. Writing and running will give your life deeper meaning.                                            People with a passion live longer lives. A passion goes deeper than just an interest or a hobby. Sometimes our passions can borderline obsessions. When you enjoy your writing and you love going for a run – and you create goals around your passions – it will motivate you to keep going. And you’ll feel like you’re living your truest self with deeper meaning.

5 Critical Questions to Ask Yourself About Prioritizing Your Passions
If you’re struggling with making time for your writing and running, ask yourself these five critical questions about prioritizing your passions. Rate them on a scale from 1-10, with 10 being the most. If you score less than 30, then your writing and running will probably never be a priority for you.

• How much does writing and running excite you? Maybe some days or weeks the writing is more exciting and other times the running excites you more. That is okay. Overall, how much excitement do you feel when you think about these two passions?
• How much time do you spend enjoying your passions? Sometimes you may not get to spend as much time as you’d like to on your writing or running. But on average, is the time that you do spend on them very enjoyable?
• How consistent are your writing and running practices? Do you write at least once a week, on the same day and at the same time? Do you run at least once a week? Being consistent is sometimes a better indicator than frequency.
• How much fun do you have when you write and run? If you don’t enjoy it, then why do you do it? Yes, there are lots of components to each. Writing includes planning, plotting, brainstorming, revising, editing, submissions, marketing, and more. You may enjoy some bits better than others. That’s to be expected. Same thing goes for running. Getting ready to run, getting out the door, your warmup, stretching, the run itself, signing up for races, training, etc. If at least one part of the process is truly fun for you, then it’s worth it to make an effort to make it a priority in your life.
• How much impact does your writing and running have on the rest of your life?​ If you feel like you would “die” if you could never write or run again, then they are probably part of your soul’s purpose in life. If running makes you a nicer person with more patience, then it has a huge impact. If writing helps you deal with past traumas, again, a huge impact.

5 Reasons Why It’s Hard to Prioritize Your Writing (or Running)
Do you feel like you never have the time to spend on your writing? Like you keep pushing your runs to the back burner? Do you find that everything else in life bubbles up around you and buries your passions to the bottom of your to-do list? If so, it’s likely because you haven’t learned how to prioritize them yet. 

Here are five reasons why it’s hard to prioritize your writing (or running):

1. Unclear goals. ​When you set goals and write them down and add a deadline, they’ll be a lot more clear to you than if you simply think about them in your mind. Get specific with your goals and write them down. Clarity helps you prioritize.
2. No system in place to rank priorities. ​​When you have too much on your plate, it’s easy to get overwhelmed. To overcome this, think about all the things you need to do and what might be getting in the way. Procrastination may give you temporary relief from avoiding your to-do list, but prioritizing will help you rank importance, include your passions, and get more things done.
3. Lots of distractions. Don’t squander your time on low-value items just because being busy makes you feel productive. Just because you’re busy, doesn’t mean you’re being productive. Blocking out distractions will help you focus on your priorities. Attending a writing retreat will help you do that too!
4. You have a hard time saying no. Sometimes, we’re afraid to say NO to others because we don’t want to create conflict with anyone. But if you have a list of your priorities (the things that are most important to you), it will make it easier to analyze your weekly and daily to-do lists and ensure that writing and running are always on the list, by saying NO to others when your time is already filled.
5. Tackling urgent tasks feels good. According to researchers, the Mere Urgency Effect says we’re apt to choose urgent tasks first even though other tasks are less urgent but more important with greater long-term rewards. Often, the most important task is also the most intimidating, which makes us procrastinate getting it done. If you can hone in on one way that your writing and running will make you feel good, chances are it will rise in ranks on your list of priorities.

How Do You Prioritize Your Writing and Running?
Now that you understand why your passions should be a priority in your life, you’ve confirmed that writing and running are indeed passions you’re willing to pursue, and you know why it’s sometimes hard to prioritize them, what can you do about it? Here are 20 things that can help your running and writing become more of a priority in your life. When you focus on what’s important, it becomes a priority. A lot of these items will help you focus.

1. Rethink what writing means. Writing includes a lot of other tasks besides getting words down. Imagination, daydreaming, brainstorming, research, playing with words, talking to others about your progress and your story, reading lots of books in all kinds of genres, and studying the writing craft are all a part of being a writer. Doing things in addition to putting words on paper count too!
2. Do the big things first. If you try to fill a jar with sand, pebbles, and rocks (in that order), they won’t fit in the jar. But if you fill the jar by putting the bigger rocks in first, everything else will be able to fit.
3. Schedule the time on your calendar. Chances are, if it’s not written down in your calendar, it won’t happen. Important things get added to the calendar. 
4. Before you write, make a plan. Know what you’ll be working on before you sit down to write. For your runs, plan the route you’ll take ahead of time.
5. Get off your social media and close the tabs. Don’t focus on being social right now. Focus on writing or running.
6. Wear noise-canceling headphones. This will help you stay focused and minimize distractions.
7. CLOSE the door. If you’re able to, close the door. This is great for minimizing distractions and extraneous noises. Pair it with a pair of headphones, and you should be able to have a golden writing session.
8. Remember how much you love to write and run. Write down how you feel when you go for a great run. Write down what it feels like to have written so you can remember how much you love your passions, and it will automatically make them more important to you. 
9. Get rid of one thing. Do you watch TV 7 days a week? Cut 1-2 days out of your routine and replace it with the things you’ve decided are more important.
10. Find an accountability partner. Attending a writing retreat is a great way to find a writing buddy to cheer you on and help keep you on track.
11. Practice your writing with specific writing exercises. Writing prompts are great for story starters and creativity generators, but writing exercises can actually make you a better writer. 
12. Write first. Then revise. Edit last. You can’t remodel the bathroom if the house hasn’t been built yet. When you’re writing, focus on that. Once your first draft is finished, you can go back and revise.
13. Read books that bring up strong emotions for you. Subconsciously, you’ll be able to emulate the techniques others authors use. So if you want to make your readers feel something (trust me, you do), then study the authors who elicit feelings in yourself.
14. Invest in yourself as a writer. A writing retreat is one of the BEST ways to invest in yourself as a writer.
15. Revisit some of your old writing. Taking a trip down memory lane to remind yourself how good you were back then (or not). Then celebrate how far you’ve come.
16. Get together with other writers. Writing retreats are a favorite way for writers to connect with each other. You can join the Writers Who Run Retreat here.
17. Choose to write. Everything we do in life is a choice. What you believe is important to you is your own choice. The priorities you set is a choice only you can make. Don’t let other people impose their urgent matters on your time. Choose to write (and run) and relish every minute of it.
    
18. Always write for yourself. Yes, writing for publication is writing for an audience. But first, you must write for yourself. Always remember that.
    
19. Let go of fear. Easier said than done, I know, but when you release some of your writing fears, it will help you to actually DO IT.
    
20. Just do it. I couldn’t help myself. Just do it!

Keep writing, keep running.

XO, 
Christie :)