The Three Principles of Growth for Writers

Who of us does not know one of the following pearls of wisdom?

- Overcome one difficulty, and you'll keep a hundred others away from you. (Confucius)

- Even a journey of a thousand miles begins with one step. (Laotse)

- constant dripping wears away the stone (Ovid)

Anybody would sign that right now. But do we really understand what these words mean?

I can only speak for myself. I knew all these idioms long before I acted on them. This shows that theoretical knowledge is of little use to us if we do not apply it.

To experience how many small decisions and actions turn into something huge and essential after a long time is something unique. But how do you last that long? If only the result proves the usefulness of the process, how do you motivate yourself every day on the way to the goal?

Personally, I need evidence to make me believe something. That's why I wasted many years. I thought: Sure, maybe I just have to write a little bit every day to be able to make a living off writing sometime in the future. But who can guarantee me that? It also could lead to nothing. So why invest strength and time when perhaps it will remain an unfulfilled dream forever?

In other words: I was an idiot. But it couldn't be any different because I didn't know much about life and I didn't understand some important basic principles. However, understanding these principles is the prerequisite for understanding the principle of small things.

The principles I haven't understood in a long time.

1. The process is more valuable than the result

Even though this may sound strange at first, it is absolutely logical to think about it for a while. Results can be taken from us. The million we made can be stolen, the house we built can burn down. Even the book we've written can get lost. Shortly before the release, a computer error can deprive us of the work of months.

But no one can take the trial away from us. We can always restart it. We may not be able to write precisely the same book again, but if we go through the process of writing again, we will end up with a book still.

If our million was stolen, we could repeat the process by which we made money. A house can be rebuilt.

2. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

If we repeat an action regularly over a long period, as a result over time, we get more than what we have invested. In sports, for example, this is very obvious.

When I have just enough strength today to do twenty push-ups, my push-up potential is twenty. But if I do twenty push-ups every day for a month now, at the end of the month, I didn't just do six hundred push-ups. I've also increased my potential. The twenty push-ups, which I had previously only managed with difficulty, are now the minimum I can do without problems. From the first day of the second month, I can go beyond the old limit and then maybe thirty or forty push-ups are my potential. I can always continue that way. What used to be the maximum possible is now suddenly the minimum we can do without exhausting ourselves.

But it doesn't end here. Those who can do more push-ups because they are fitter can also hold out longer in other areas of life.

Better oxygen supply to the body also benefits the brain. More push-ups also make thinking less strenuous, and if thinking is easier for us, we come up with more and better ideas.

I could go on, but I think the principle is clear: over time, our actions don't just add up - they connect and create a new quality.

Of course, I also apply this principle to writing. Over time, we can increase the number of minutes we can focus on working on our book. Longer, focused work increases the number of words we can write every day. The number of words written per day is directly related to the number of books we can write per year, which in turn increases our potential income.

3. growth is not linear

In my opinion, understanding this principle is the most essential basis for developing a regular writing routine. Those who do not internalize this will eventually lose momentum and give up discouraged.

Without the discovery of this principle, I would have given up writing long ago. The first book I published in 2012 was an Urban Fantasy novel. It hardly sold at all. But I hadn't expected it any different, because nobody knew me and I knew practically nothing about marketing.

Nevertheless, it has brought me a huge step forward in my personal development. I had proved that I could write a book by merely writing one page at a time. This gave me the confidence and energy I needed to tackle the second novel.

The second fantasy novel sold just as badly as the first.

I would certainly have given up if I had not already learned something about the principle of non-linear progress at that time. Fortunately for me, I had started jogging a few months earlier.

I remembered how I had to stop my first run after about ten minutes, and I could barely breathe. I repeated this experience half a dozen times before it got better. Luckily for me, I just had fun physically exerting myself. If I had only worked towards the goal of being able to run ten kilometers uninterruptedly, I would probably have given up. But so I continued unswervingly, had better and then again much worse training sessions and one day actually managed to run ten kilometers in less than an hour.

By the time my second book became a failure, I had already experienced the effect of the principle of non-linear progress.

After that, I tried a collection of horror short stories, which performed a bit better. This was followed by a zombie dystopia that brought in a few hundred euros.

Then I noticed that the Kindle Top 100 on Amazon was dominated by thrillers and romance novels and horror hardly played a role. So I wrote my first thriller (romance novels were never my thing, so I didn't try it in the first place).

It was overwhelming what happened then: The book went straight into the Top 100 and stayed there for three weeks. In this month I earned 1588 Euro and in the next month even 1729 Euro.

I thought I had found the Holy Grail, and although I knew growth was not linear, I expected the next thriller to outdo the first.

Instead, it sold less than half as well.

Of course, I was disappointed, but then I remembered the principle and stayed calm. I continued to write thrillers, and by the end of 2016, I gradually increased to an average of 2000 € per month. The best month this year was over 3000 €.

Then there was another setback, and for almost a year I could not get over 1700 €.

I had reached a plateau, so it seemed.

And then came January 2018. Suddenly my sales exploded after a -new release, and I made over 5000 € in a month, repeated that in February and increased in March to 8532 €.

Then it went step by step downhill until September until I was just under 3000 €.

But the progress could not be overlooked. This 3000 €, which represented the worst value in 2018, was still the maximum in 2016.

So over the years since 2012, my earnings have grown tremendously, but this growth has had dips over and over again. The art is not to be discouraged by these downturns, which is only possible if you know from the outset that they will occur.

The three principles in everyday life

Not everyone writes books for a living. But the realization that small things have significant meaning and the three principles that underlie them are valuable and vital to every human being.

I have already mentioned the example of sport, but beyond that, knowledge of the three principles is essential wherever progress needs to be made.

- You want to become more relaxed, but meditation was difficult for you when you tried it once? Remember the three principles and try again.

- You want to learn a new language, but so far you have always given up frustrated after one month because you have not seen any progress? The three principles will help you with your next attempt.

- Your career seems to be stagnating? Your boss doesn't notice your ambitions? Here, too, understanding the three principles helps you to keep the ball rolling.

At the end of this article, there is only one thing left to say: I have indeed read many books and other articles like this one, but none of them would have helped me if I had not tackled real-life problems with them.

Everything I write about here I know not from books, but from personal experience.

So, dear readers: Don't just click on the next article or buy the next self-help book, because that won't help you. But if you internalize the three principles and make it the maxim of your actions, then you will achieve real success. So go out there and apply your new knowledge. Now!

This article was first published on Medium.com

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