If You Have to Force Yourself to Write, It Might Be a Sign You Actually Love Writing

Most days, I have to force myself to sit down and write.

As someone who’s trying to make it as a freelance writer, I don’t wake up and think, “Oh, I’m so excited to write four thousand words today!”

Often, my thought process is more like, “I want to stay in bed and read books until I disintegrate into my bedsheets. But alas, work awaits.”

Okay, I don’t ever actually think alas, that would be just plain weird for my Gen-Z brain. But the rest still stands. When I was little, I used to write for fun. I plotted stories, typed them on a keyboard adjacent to a huge grey box that used to be called a computer and I spun fairytales in my own imagination.

There was no talk of money. No responsibilities, no planning for the future, no consequences. There was fun and play and that was it.

Now that I’m older and seriously thinking about what I want to do for a living, writing has turned into something different. It’s still one of the things I love doing the most, it’s still my passion, it’s still what gives me a sense of meaning in this crazy world.

There’s only one thing I know for sure — when I start to write something I enjoy, I lose myself in it. I automatically find my flow state and I get drowned in creativity, my fingers being almost too slow for all the thoughts pouring out of my mind as if my human essence has turned into a waterfall of words.

Nothing more, nothing less. It’s just me and the screen, me and my words, me and the story that desperately wants to get out into the whole wide world.

I will always love writing. And that’s why I want it to be my profession so desperately.

Even when I have to force myself to do it.

Writing eats me alive

They all say it, don’t they?

Don’t make your hobby into your job. If writing becomes your job, it will stop being fun. You’ll lose your creativity, your drive, the reason why you do it in the first place. It’ll all get lost amidst the necessity to earn money and the monotonous routine. If you force yourself to write every day, it means your joy of writing is gone.

To which I respond, “blah, blah, blah.”

I never said I wasn’t childish.

Seriously, though. Many people probably do have trouble turning their passion into a money-making machine. It stops being fun.

But not for me. I do force myself to write on most days, yet I still do love it with all my might. The moment I drown myself in the work, I forget time. I forget my surroundings. I forget I exist on a planet orbiting around a burning star.

When I waited tables or cleaned houses in the past, there was nothing I loved more than the occasional distraction. Please, I’m grasping for straws here, do ask me all kinds of questions so I don’t have to go back to work! Please, entertain me for one second more! I’m dying of boredom!

When I write in my workspace at home and my partner wants to get my attention, I bare my teeth and snarl. Don’t you dare disturb me! I stopped existing in this world the moment my fingers started moving, so don’t talk to me! I’m miles away!

I actually do get seriously annoyed. Sometimes I apologize to him after the work is done because I feel bad for how angry I was at his innocent question about what I’d like him to make for lunch.

It goes to show, though. Every job I’ve ever done has consisted of counting down the minutes until the end of my shift. Not writing, though.

Writing eats me alive. To put it mildly.

Brains are lazy employees and we are their managers

If I have so much fun writing, why am I not excited to do it every second of every day? Why do I sometimes struggle to go sit at my desk, why do I take ages to prepare in the morning, why, why, why?

Because I’m lazy. And because like most humans, my brain wants the least resistance possible. Inverse says:

“Authority figures may chalk our lethargy to lack of self-discipline, but new research suggests that we’re just being our true selves: Choosing the path of least resistance, scientists argue, is hard-wired into our brains.”

Why would you do it the hard way when you can do it the easy way, am I right? We strive to put in as little effort as possible to achieve the best passable result.

And that’s why I have to force myself to write. Because writing isn’t easy. It’s an activity that requires a lot of effort. Lying in bed, reading a romance novel, and disintegrating into the bed is what’s easy.

But that 1) won’t make me money 2) won’t allow me to actively create values instead of just passively taking in information 24/7 and 3) will eventually make me feel like shit for both of those reasons (and many more).

When you’re employed by a company, you have to go there every weekday to show your boss that… well, that you work. That you’re still agreeing to be employed.

When you’re self-employed, though, you’re the creator of your own schedule. As great as this is, it can also be a burden if you’re not disciplined enough because you have as much freedom as you give yourself.

Don’t wanna work at 9 AM? Fine! Don’t feel like it at 1 PM? That’s okay, we’ll do it later! How about 4 PM? Ugh, I’m kind of tired… At 9 PM rolls around and you tell yourself you’ll do it tomorrow.

And the cycle continues. With no work being done.

This is why it’s so important to be able to force yourself every day, even when you don’t want to, even when you’d much rather do a billion other things. It’s always reasonable to take days off and breaks, of course, but let’s be real — if I listened to my gut and acted according to my desires every single day, I’d end up broke and miserable.

Your brain doesn’t always want the best for you. That’s why building a strong sense of willpower is so important. It lets you overdrive the autopilot in your head and. Get. Shit. Done.

Your brain is hard-wired to be a lazy employee. If you want to thrive, you need to have your managing skills under control. You need to take charge.

You need to be the best manager you can be, which means that yes, you do need to force yourself to do the stuff that matters on most days.

Forcing yourself to write might be a sign you actually love writing

In the end, having to force myself to write actually shows how much I love it. The forcing itself is much harder than the process of writing — that part is actually extraordinarily easy. To me, writing is like breathing. Except the air is pink and smells like strawberries. Yummy.

I go through a lot of rationalizing, lazy shuffling around, and sighing in the mornings because I know I have a day of work ahead of me. I’d much rather just stay in bed.

But I don’t. I sit down and write. I sit down and work on my dreams. I go ahead and do everything in my willpower to create the life I want, a life full of writing and doing things that give my life a sense of purpose.

Overcoming your laziness shows how much you actually love what you do. Because it’s not easy to tell your brain to shut up and get to work — often it’s harder than the work itself.

But if you want something badly enough, you’ll fight that brain every day that counts. I know I do. It makes me feel motivated, energized and it brings me results.

And when the writing is done, when the day is over… I go to bed and read a book. I’m happy with myself, I’m mentally fulfilled, I’m physically tired in the best way possible. I’m ready for the next day of doing the thing I love, no matter how much I have to force myself to start each morning.

Then I read a book and happily disintegrate into the bed.