The Magic of Constraints

Establishing a practice is a powerful way to make changes in our day to day lives. Whether you are practicing patience, a new way of eating, or an athletic pursuit, taking time to define your practice and why you're doing it makes all the difference in how it goes. Not just a difference between doing it or not (although that difference is a real thing), but also in what it feels like when you do it and how it impacts the rest of your life. 

Months ago, when I decided I wanted to devote my time to writing (for real), I promptly entered a period of panic because my mind kept going blank. I mentioned my frustration with the situation to a friend who happens to be an accomplished artist, and she responded swiftly, "Ohhhh. You can't just sit down to write; you need constraints. What are your constraints?"

My what?

Everything, she explained, is just too much to choose from when you sit down to do something vulnerable like making stuff. This idea made sense to me. I can lose 10 minutes at the wall of nut butter at the grocery store if I'm not careful, because there are many options, and I don't have a clear navigating principal. I could see how this was similar to the overwhelm I was experiencing at my desk.

I played with a few ideas for writing prompts and constraints, but nothing stuck. When the new year rolled around, I was inspired by an email I got from the folks at The Workout Today about a challenge they were doing to support people in practicing something they wanted to learn or improve. Participating in the challenge meant committing to do the activity for 7 minutes a day, every day in January.

I did not pick writing. I picked watercolor, something I'd wanted to try ever since my sister gave me a handy little set for it as a gift a few years ago. I had to answer a few questions when I signed up. How would I spend the seven minutes (for me it was 7 minutes of actual painting not including setup and cleanup), and what did I hope to achieve (I want to be able to sketch and paint some of my life experiences–places I visit, favorite things, etc.).

Seven minutes is nothing and really something. I have learned so much about watercolor, my willingness to make things knowing that I might not like the result, and how wonderful it is to learn something new just for the heck of it. I also got to see how much I can do when I've got a little bit of structure to lean on. 

In my search for things to paint, I started looking at photos around the house, and some of them brought up so many feelings that I found myself wanting to write about them. I smiled and shrugged to myself as I thought of the adage 'a picture is worth a thousand words'. I wondered how many pages a thousand words were, and before I knew it, I had the bones of a writing practice that sounded fun.

Select a photo each week and write a thousand-word essay about it. I'm not sure if I'll always share them, but I had such a good time with the first one that I didn't want to keep it to myself.