Surprising Benefits to Writing or Why Everyone Should Write

I hate that we treat writing like it’s some kind of “elite” activity, only to be reserved for the incredibly gifted or well-trained. Writing is language. It’s communication. It’s as basic an instinct as food and water.

What we need, more than a bunch of training or talent, to be good at writing is simply this: permission.

Permission to be ourselves.

To speak freely. To say what we think.

To be imperfect.

Permission to show up to the page without being all buttoned and laced.

To be honest, even as someone who would consider herself fairly talented and trained as a writer—by that I mean I’ve been drawn to writing for as long as I can remember and I have two degrees in writing—I can say the biggest thing keeping me from writing well usually isn’t a lack of information or knowledge.

It isn’t a lack of skill that holds me back.

It’s usually a lack of confidence in my own ability as a writer, a lack of clarity in my own ideas.

It’s this incredibly crippling feeling that comes when I sit down to the page—that writing is for certain people and I’m not one of them.

It is the idea that writing is unnatural, that it requires me to strive and try, rather than to relax into the process and let the words flow.

This is what makes writing so difficult for me. I would argue it’s the same for most of us.

Ultimately, I think, everyone should write.

I don’t think there are “writers” and “non-writers”. I don’t think “non-writer” exists as a category. If you are human, you have an innate desire to navigate your experiences using words. You have an innate desire to communicate your experience to others.

Writing helps us do this.

Writing is instinct. It’s natural.

If you are human, you are a writer.

As an added benefit, writing has dozens of really wonderful side-effects.

Writing can help us prepare for difficult conversations, it can bring clarity to confusion, it can help us uncover answers to our most complex problems, it can alert us to holes in our logic, can communicate messages of hope to others.

It can improve our marriages, help us find more satisfaction in our careers, can help us clarify a vision for our families.

It can allow us to process old emotional baggage we didn’t realize was holding us back from what we really wanted in our life.

Writing can heal us. It can change us. It can help us to discover ourselves. (tweet that)

I know that writing can be daunting but I hope you won’t let the intimidation keep you from getting started. Your whole life is waiting. The most authentic version of you is waiting to be discovered. Your voice is waiting to be found out.

TRY THIS: Writing is not just daunting for those who are new to it, it’s daunting for those of us who do it everyday. Fear can cause that feeling. So can stress or anxiety. So can deadlines. When writing feels daunting, just try to go back to the basics. Instead of trying to write a whole page today, just try to get 5 words on paper. They don’t even have to go in order. You don’t have to write from left to right. They don’t have to be in a straight line. Just get five words on paper that describe what you’re feeling or thinking right now, today.

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