I have been involved in something called the My 500 Words Challenge for the last 18 days. The challenge, begun by Jeff Goins, has been to write at least 500 words every day for 31 days. The premise behind the challenge is to making writing a habit for those who desire to or love to write. I have had the desire to write a book for a number of years. In fact, I have at least two active book ideas that I am “working” on right now. The problem has not been with the idea to write a book, but with the actual “writing” of the book. This is where the My 500 Word challenge comes in. Every published author that I have spoken to has reiterated the importance of writing every day as a habit key to their success. So I embarked on this challenge just under three weeks ago in an effort to develop a habit needed to fulfill my goal. And then…I hit the wall.
The dreaded wall. We have all heard of the wall that athletes may have to conquer during competition. Everything has been going along fine, and all of a sudden it feels as though you are running backwards or stuck in mud. The energy that characterized your effort at the beginning has been replaced by malaise, dryness, and at times a lack of motivation. In the words of Jesus, when we hit the wall, “the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.” Three weeks into this challenge I have run smack dab into the wall. Writing was so easy for the first three weeks of the challenge. My ideas flowed and the writing prompts made the moments when the ideas did not flow a breeze. But in the third week everything about writing seems more difficult. Finding the time to write or the ideas to write about all seem to be a chore. It begs the question, what do we do when we hit the wall.
Know Why Your Doing It
The first thing we should do when we hit the wall is remind ourselves of why we embarked on the journey in the first place. The athlete running a marathon, who hits the wall at 20 miles, can remind herself of the many months of training and the short distance left to run. The football player, who hits the wall midway through the fourth quarter, can look to his teammates and be reminded that he is doing this for more than personal glory. In the same way, when we hit the wall we must pull from within us our “why.” Why did we decide to enroll in a doctoral program, why did we decide to become a church planter, why did we get married? We must be able to, through remembering our why, justify why it is important for us to push through the mental, physical, or emotional fatigue that accompanies the wall.
Life, contrary to the belief of some, is not a solitary endeavor.
Rally Your Support
The next thing we should do when we hit the wall is rally our support. Life, contrary to the belief of some, is not a solitary endeavor. We all need support, and there is no time when we need it more than when we hit the wall. The marathoner can hear the cheers from those who line the race route. The football player can key in on the roar of the crowd. When we hit the wall we can call on the women and men who know why we are doing what we do and ask them to cheer us on. The good thing about our support teams is that they typically know us well enough to discern when we need to be cheered on. The wise person keeps his support team well informed of where he is along the route, how he is feeling, and when he may need help.
Rest When Needed
The next thing that is important when we find that we have hit the wall is to rest if we must. Life is not a sprint and neither are most of the things that we attempt to do in life. We need to understand the natural rhythms and recognize the places that were designed for rest. When we attempt to sprint a marathon we are in danger of not completing the race or experiencing injury in the process. There is a running method created and popularized by Jeff Galloway called the run-walk method. Galloway, an experienced runner and coach, posits that when we take regular walk breaks during our runs we significantly increase the probability that we will finish the race healthy and happy. He even states that many who use walk breaks in their running actually finish with faster times than if they were to run the entire race without walking. Taking regular breaks heads off muscle fatigue and increases the joy derived from running. When we take the needed breaks along the way we may actually prevent hitting the wall at all. If we do hit the wall, it may be a signal that it is time to take a needed rest and return to the assignment refreshed at a later time.
Forward progress, no matter how slow, is better than no progress at all.
Don’t Stop Moving Forward
The last thing that we need to do when we hit the wall is to keep pressing. Don’t think about it…just do it. Even if you have to stop running and walk for a while, see the walking as forward progress. You are still advancing toward your goal. We sometimes need to be reminded that the person who crawls across the finish line gets the same medal as the person who runs across the finish line. The only person who gets no medal is the one who does not finish. Forward progress, no matter how slow, is better than no progress at all.
I hit the wall this week in the My 500 Words challenge. I didn’t feel like writing, didn’t see that I had the time to write, and I didn’t know what I would write about. What did I do about it? I employed the steps that I just talked about. And guess what happened as a result? I wrote an article of over 1,000 words on what to do when you hit the wall. Progress is closer to you than you believe. What are some of the things that you do when you hit the wall? I would love to hear about them. Share some in the comments.