The Silent Promise: Why Writing is a Commitment to Yourself

If you’re like me, writing isn’t just about putting words on a page. It’s about writing something with meaning. It’s a promise.

Every time you write, you make a silent contract with yourself that your thoughts, stories, and ideas are honest, fair, and worth capturing. Even more than this, you’re making a statement. Because it is important enough to write it down, you're saying that your voice and your thoughts matter, even when no one else may ever read it. Publishing is not the end goal. No matter what happens after it occurs, the end goal is sharing yourself on paper, documenting you, documenting that you matter.

Think of the screen as a mirror. As you look in, it looks back, revealing and reflecting your innermost thoughts. You’re not creating word counts; I’m not even sure you’re creating content in the frame we usually think of. What you’re doing is leaving a tangible trail of cookie crumbs that you showed up, that you believed in your work enough to show up, sit down, put in the time, and put the words onscreen. You’re validating yourself. You’re coming through on your promise, your silent commitment. Every day, the more you honor this promise, this commitment to yourself, the more you reinforce your self-trust, your confidence, and, if you do want to be a real writer in the sense of taking it seriously, you’re promising yourself something you can share with others. I’m telling you, no one else really cares. What matters is that you do. You care by honoring this promise to yourself.

When you make a promise, maybe even more important to yourself than a promise made to someone else, you must carry it through. When you don’t take it seriously enough to schedule your writing sessions in advance, when you don’t show up, you’re essentially telling yourself your words don’t matter, that what you have to say isn’t worth the effort, that—and forgive me if I’m pushing it too far—you’re saying you don’t matter. Sorry, but that’s the way I feel about it. Let it go long enough, and it won’t matter. Your confidence will go out the window. Your passion will die down to coals. Eventually, you won’t go back to the keyboard. A part of you will die. The promise you made? Dust in the wind.

So, here’s my success tip for the day. Commit to showing up. Every day. Do it for yourself, not for anyone else. If you’re a publishing writer, still do it for yourself. Intent makes all the difference. You don’t have to be there writing; that’s the wrong way to think about it. Instead, you have the privilege to be there, typing words that peer back at you into your soul.

Set a timer for yourself. Write for fifteen minutes without any judgment. You can spare fifteen minutes. Just let the words flow. You’re not writing perfection. You’re writing the sinew of who you are. It doesn’t have to be good. You can fix that in multiple edits. Just for fifteen minutes—surely you can spare fifteen minutes—every day, bare your soul and pour it out. The only thing it must be is the truth, your truth.

Today’s tip: make that promise to yourself and, more importantly, keep it.

You’ll be amazed at what you discover about your writing. You’ll be even more amazed by what you discover about yourself.

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