Reframing

I am (somewhat) inexplicably scared of writing. I know this because every time I set aside time to write, I have procrastinative thoughts. Now, procrastination is just your brain opening the escape hatch because of discomfort. I could try to reason my way out of this: dear brain, there is no rational reason to be scared of sitting down to write, etc., etc.

Or, I could reframe the reaction. How about this: "Writing isn't scary, writing is exciting." (Bonus points for the rhyme.) I just repeated it to myself about ten times, and now I'm pretty jazzed about finishing this nice post and then diving into my book.

Now it might be interesting to spend some time thinking about exactly why the idea of writing makes me uncomfortable--that will probably lead to some increased self-awareness at a minimum. But I think I've stumbled on a bit of a hack here: a thing that is scary is also exciting. Just reframe it as exciting, put a little mantra on it (ooh, more on mantras later), and see if that procrastination doesn't melt away.