Chronic Brain Reluctance: It's Society's Fault, But YOUR Problem.

In last week's post, I mentioned my chronic reluctance to write. My reluctance often stems from a feeling I tend to experience about halfway through each semester. My brain is like "Nooo... don't do this to me anymore!" I try to convince it that I have no choice because I'm paying lots of present and future dollars to do this so I can eventually receive a piece of paper that will help me prove to future employers that I am worthy of receiving some of their dollars (many of which will help me finishing paying for that same piece of paper). Yet, somehow my brain still remains unconvinced. In this case, I must attempt to trick it into functioning using the following methods.

5 Easy Steps for Overcoming Writing Reluctance:

1. Drink too much coffee.  Psychology says your brain needs stimuli in order to function. When your environment is lacking necessary stimuli, you must find a way to stimulate your brain intrinsically. I recommend drinking several cups of coffee. How many cups exactly? As many as it takes to reach that euphoric state of mind where your level of happiness is comparable to how you feel when you are playing with puppies.

2. Play with puppies. If the coffee isn't enough, you might want to try actually playing with puppies. Don't forget to grit your teeth as you pet these small animals. And use lots of baby talk, as it's easier for them to comprehend.

3. Appreciate nature. Humans like to pretend that they aren't part of nature, so get away from them and from their concrete establishments and go out into nature. Breathe the fresh air. Yes. Ahhh. Nice. If possible, combine this step with step number 2. Puppies and fresh air are sure to help you overcome that reluctance to start writing.

4.Put yourself in a life or death situation.This one transitions nicely from the last. Let's say you're out in nature, playing with puppies, and an angry pack of hyenas confronts you. They have that look in their eyes--the one that says that they're hungry for both you and the puppies. Fight or flight? Fight or flight?! The answer is write. I can't tell you the proper way to avoid death, but if you do survive, you will at least have something to write about.

5. Read a post from a favorite blog or section from a chapter of your favorite book or a favorite poem or something. So you've got a nice coffee/puppy/nature/fear-of-death adrenaline rush going. You're pretty much capable of accomplishing anything at this point. However, for the purpose of this blog, your goal is to write. To help center your energy on writing, read some of your favorite words that have already been written. A few minutes of reading one of my favorite works helps me to remember why I aspire to write in the first place. I want to try to make other people feel the way I feel when I read some of my favorite works.


Any combination of these five steps should help you trick your brain into functioning just enough to do things that it does not want to do. If it does not, you might want try repeating the process over again, but this time substitute the puppies with kittens.