In college my roommate had a fairly simple rule to follow any time he didn’t want to go to class. Whenever he wanted to skip class, he would force himself to get get ready. He would get dressed, pack his bag, and go outside to sit on his bike. If he still didn’t want to go after getting past all of those barriers, he would let himself skip class. I have to admit that I am not sure of his exact success rate with this rule, but I do know that he rarely missed a class (even the ones he hated most).

I’m intrigued by the process of building habits. Sometimes they come naturally or even unexpectedly. Other times building a new habit can feel like the most impossible task in the world. Regardless of whether it’s easy or difficult, momentum is the key. If you can show up just enough to get started, good things almost always follow.

I have wanted to build a habit of writing for years now. I’ve tried a dozen different apps marketed at writers. I’ve fiddled with countless blogging tools. I’ve even owned domains with clever names! Those are the important parts, right? Shockingly they aren’t, as proven by the fact that this is the first post I’ve actually written and published to the internet.

One other thing I’ve tried is following and listening to other writers. Hearing about how they write, what inspires their writing, and why they write. Most of the time the answer is pretty simple: they write for themselves. Whether they started with that mentality or not, the happiest writers that I’ve followed have figured out that they need to do it for themselves if they have any hope of sustaining their habit.

Will I actually build a habit of writing from this point forward? Probably not. Will getting this first post up lower my barrier to entry for future posts? Yep, it will. Do I know why I want to write? Somewhat, but I think I still need to figure that out. So for now, I can at least get started.