NicoleToday, I’ll give you a sneak peak at my favourite tool in my 90-Day Writing Acceleratorg: the flow ritual!
Have you ever sat at your desk and stared at the blank screen? Or distracted yourself?
Imagine you could use a simple ritual that gives you flow easily, so you get your writing done faster (and it only takes 3 minutes!).
The Flow Ritual that you’re going to learn today will signal your brain that it’s time for deep work – day after day after day.
And unlike other habit books, there’s a trick (scroll down) that most productivity gurus ignore.
Let’s dive in!
Step 1: Make a list of things that focus your mind
Your mind needs to have a bit of space and focus to find flow. If you look back at times when you went into deep work flow, what conditions were present?
Examples:
Quiet room, clean desk, set goals before starting, favourite snack, timer on, another writer in the room, focus music, noise cancelling headphones, ….
Over to you:
Make a list of a few things that you know focus your mind.
Now, you’ve probably heard all that before. So let’s move on to the tricky bit.
Step 2: Relax your body
A successful flow ritual must have two components: one for the mind, and one for the body.
Your body stores stress, fear and negative self beliefs in your body, e.g. tense shoulders, wrist pain, headache, brain fog, back pain, acid reflux, and so on (I have all of these at times).
The more you stress about your writing, the worse your body feels.
Over to you:
Where do you store stress and fear of writing in your body? And what can you have to do, even if it takes only 1 minute, to relax your body?
Examples:
Take 3 breaths, meditate, stretch, lie down, roll your neck and shoulders, glass of water, lay your hand on your heart, etc.
Step 3: Pick one of each list, and stack them together
Now, it’s time to create your flow ritual. Keep it simple: pick one thing from the body list, and one from the mind list.
Then do those two things each time before you start writing.
You’ll signal to yourself that it’s time for focus and deep work, and soon you’ll experience writing flow again.
Plus, to make it even easier for you, I recently released a video and workbook to explain it all.
Let me assure you that you can find flow again!
I’ve seen it with all my clients. I do this exercise in the 90-day accelerator and everyone finds their ritual within a week.
If you want to experience flow and finish at least one writing project, join the 90-Day Writing Accelerator.
Enrolment closes soon.
