Valerie is an instructor at the gym I belong to.
Calling her an instructor is a bit of an understatement.
She’s more like a drill sergeant in a leotard.
Valerie is strong, motivated and incredibly good at what she does. So good people willingly get up at an ungodly hour to make her 5:45 a.m. class. So good, she was recently honored as the 20,000-member club’s instructor of the year.
What makes her so good? She’s a big believer in intention, being in the moment and putting maximum effort into whatever she’s doing right then and there to get the best results. It shows in every crunch and lunge she does in class, in the sweat that pours from her face, and the muscles that grace her frame, the ones everyone who takes her class covet.
In fact, Valerie believes in intention so much she had the word tattooed around her arm.
There are lots of similarities between working out and writing.
In writing, as in exercising, you get out only as much as you put in. Take a half-baked approach to an interview, a story or a rewrite and you end up with dull quotes, a boring read and poorly executed revisions.
But put intention into what you’re doing and you end up improving your writing – and I’d wager your relationship with the publications you work with as well.
You’re going to sit in front of a computer for hours a day writing or editing anyway, why not do it with intention. Come up with a list of the things you need to do that day and focus your energy on executing them, one after the other.
You could be amazed with the results.
Fantastic post, Michelle!
Love the parallels you draw between working out & writing, and enjoyed “meeting” Valerie, too. (Hey, do you think she’d let you post a pic of that tattoo?)
Last week I had a long to-do list and very little time to work. I sketched out a quick note to myself. It read:
– Focus.
– Do exactly what you need to do.
– Clear, focused, relaxed.
And every time I started to get off track I’d glance at my reminders to be intentional. Helped me out so much I think I’ll recopy that sloppy note and keep it around for another week.
Look forward to reading more,
Marla (@MarlaBeck)
Great idea Marla. Today I have a ton of things on my own to-do list and am feeling very unfocused because of it. And when that happens I end up spending too much time on Twitter (LOL). So I’m turning on Twitter, putting a Post-it next to my screen to “Focus.”
Michelle
PS – Another great idea to ask Val to photograph her tattoo: I’ll ask her next class.
I’m glad you posted this, Michelle.
I’ve always compared professional writers to athletes, in terms of the discipline and routine it takes to succeed.
We’re like the rowers who get up at 5:00 am every day to pull their oars in the dark. It’s lonely, but the power of intention gets us over the hump of wanting to go back to bed.
Twyla Tharp, the American choreographer, writes about this in The Creative Habit. She too gets up before the birds, hails a taxi in the dark and tells the driver, “Take me to the Pumping Iron gym at 91st and First.” The workout is less important, she says, than “the ritual of the cab.”
Love the Twyla Tharp example. Agree 100 percent habit and ritual are important. There’s something to be said for routine, especially when it comes to disciplines that are hard to master, like writing.
Michelle
Great post Michelle!
Doing what we do for a living takes a lot of dedication and focus. I develop a daily to-do list with my top three or four priorities and try to stay on task. There also is power in routine.