Three life lessons every writer should learn

There’s something magical about the transition from one year to the next—a natural pause that invites reflection. As I look back on my writing journey, I find myself less drawn to tracking word counts or celebrating publication milestones. Instead, I’m captivated by the subtle ways writing has transformed me as a human being.

This year has been peculiar. Rather than stumbling upon new revelations, I’ve found myself circling back to fundamental truths, experiencing them with fresh eyes and deeper understanding. Perhaps you know this feeling—the way certain life lessons seem to spiral around, each pass bringing new layers of meaning?

Let me share three profound lessons that writing has taught me—and continues to teach me, over and over again.

1. Embracing the beautiful discomfort

Writing revealed something unexpected about my relationship with discomfort. Like many writers, I began my journey with a romantic notion of the craft. In my mid-30s, when I first committed seriously to writing, I imagined myself channelling pure inspiration onto the page, each word flowing effortlessly from some divine creative wellspring.

Reality, of course, had other plans.

First drafts emerged like wild horses—powerful, untamed, exhilarating. But then came editing, that necessary companion to creation. Initially, I resisted it fiercely. Fresh from completing a first draft, drunk on the euphoria of creation, I’d read my words with uncritical eyes. “Pure genius!” I’d declare, ready to share my masterpiece with the world.

Then came the sobering light of a few days’ distance. Reading those same words, I’d cringe, my finger hovering uncertainly over the ‘send’ button. Editing felt like a punishment, a cruel tax on creativity.

This struggle puzzled me deeply. Why did the initial writing feel like dancing while editing felt like doing taxes? The answer, when it finally came, transformed not just my writing but my entire approach to life.

The key wasn’t in fighting the discomfort—it was in learning to sit with it. This simple yet profound shift changed everything. When you develop the capacity to sit quietly with the discomfort of a troublesome paragraph, you’re actually practising something far more universal: the art of being present with difficulty.

This skill translates seamlessly into life’s broader challenges. Whether facing grief, uncertainty, fear, or anger, the ability to acknowledge and sit with discomfort rather than immediately trying to escape it opens up new possibilities for growth and understanding. It’s created a deeper connection with my authentic self, making me more attuned to my intuition and inner wisdom.

The aliveness I feel when writing now comes from this place of acceptance—a willingness to be vulnerable, to connect deeply with myself and, through words, with others. It’s about showing up wholeheartedly, not just on the page, but in life itself.

2. The power of gentle persistence

My early attempts at writing discipline were exercises in self-sabotage. I’d waste entire days in elaborate procrastination rituals, battling my inner critic until late afternoon before finally beginning to write. My solution? Try to bully myself into better habits.

Spoiler alert: It didn’t work.

Instead of increasing my productivity, this harsh approach drained my creative energy and amplified my resistance. The breakthrough came when I learnt to approach my writing practice with gentleness instead of judgment.

Creative work inherently involves uncertainty. Every time we sit down to write, we’re stepping into unknown territory. The final piece will inevitably differ from our initial vision—sometimes subtly, sometimes dramatically. This uncertainty demands courage, and courage flourishes in an atmosphere of compassion, not criticism.

I’ve learnt to embrace the messiness of first drafts, seeing them not as failures of craft but as necessary stepping stones. Each “crappy first draft” (as Anne Lamott so perfectly phrases it) contains the seeds of something better. It’s not about getting it right the first time—it’s about giving yourself permission to get it wrong, then gently reshaping it into something stronger.

This lesson became even more crucial when Long Covid struck in 2023, dramatically affecting my energy levels. Once again, I found myself trying to force my way through limitations, pushing harder when I should have been easing back. The result? A near-complete writer’s block that only began to lift when I returned to gentleness.

The pattern is clear: We can’t force creativity any more than we can force healing. Both require patience, understanding, and a gentle touch. It’s a lesson I seem to need to relearn periodically, in writing and in life: Respect your limits. Be patient. Be gentle. The words—and the healing—will come in their own time.

3. Finding joy in the process

Recently, I came across a thought-provoking quote from Brian Eno in the Boston Review about his experiments with AI in art. He described feeling simultaneously “intrigued and bored,” noting how quickly the process became tedious. This resonated deeply with my observations about contemporary content creation.

In the content marketing world, there’s an endless pursuit of shortcuts and ‘hacks’ to produce more content faster. From keyword stuffing to AI-generated articles, the focus is often on quantity over quality, metrics over meaning. It’s a purely mechanical approach to what should be a deeply human endeavour.

I’ve always resisted this industrialisation of writing where I can. While I understand the practical needs of content marketing (especially in my role as Director of Communications for an AI startup), my personal writing follows a different compass. It’s about finding joy in the craft itself.

Eno captures this perfectly when he says, “The joy of art isn’t only the pleasure of an end result but also the experience of going through the process of having made it.” This rings especially true for writing. There’s an incomparable satisfaction in finding exactly the right word, crafting a perfectly balanced sentence, or discovering a new insight through the act of writing itself.

The psychology self-help books I write emerge not from market research but from personal necessity—lessons I need to learn, insights I need to process. That they find readers who connect with these journeys is a wonderful bonus, but it’s never the primary goal.

The real magic happens when we stop obsessing over metrics—likes, shares, comments—and instead focus fully on the work before us. It’s about paying attention to the small moments: the satisfaction of a well-turned phrase, the surprise of an unexpected metaphor, the quiet triumph of clarifying a complex idea. The getting away with not using adverbs.

This mindful approach to writing parallels how we might best approach life itself. In a world that often feels overwhelming, joy lives in the details: the first sip of morning coffee, a magpie’s warbling song, an unexpected handwritten letter from a friend, the golden light of late afternoon. These moments are always available to us; we just need to pay attention.

Writing as radical presence

In our accelerated world of productivity hacks and AI assistance, choosing to write mindfully feels like a radical act. While my professional work in AI communication demands speed, prompt, and algorithmic awareness, my personal writing follows a different rhythm entirely.

But if you think for a moment I am a ‘purist’ when it comes to writing creatively for myself—that I don’t use artificial intelligence to help me—you would be unutterably mistaken.

Claude is my writing assistant, in the same way that many of the blockbuster authors who sell books by the millions have writing assistants. I’m a tactician, which means I’m good at getting into the nitty-gritty and playing with words to achieve an emotional and satisfactory story end, no matter how noir that novel might be.

Yet I acknowledge that I have never been a strategist in any of the jobs and entrepreneurial activities I have been involved in since I started working at age 14. Which means I am not a plotter, I am a pantser.

But Claude is brilliant at coming up with the red herrings, plot twists, story- and character-arcs that I struggle with. Being AuDHD, my brain is just not wired to successfully engage with such ‘big picture’ stuff. So Claude helps me out immensely by looking at what I have written thus far and suggesting improvements, from which I choose those to take up and those to ignore. This process occurs multiple times a chapter, and sometimes I’m still not happy with the chapter and we start all over again. And you have to believe that the constant to-and-fro between Claude and I on what rabbit hole to go down and what happens when our protagonist gets there is pure and unadulterated joy.

True writing—like meaningful living—requires us to slow down, pay attention, and engage deeply with our experience. It asks us to resist the constant pressure to produce more, faster, and instead focus on producing something true, something real, something human.

In this way, writing becomes more than just a craft—it’s a practice of presence, a way of connecting more deeply with ourselves and with others. It’s a reminder that in a world pushing us to speed up, sometimes the most revolutionary act is simply to slow down and pay attention to the words we choose, the stories we tell, and the lives we lead.

What lessons has writing taught you? I’d love to hear about your experiences in the comments below.

[Author’s Note: Feel free to share this post with fellow writers and readers who might resonate with these reflections on the writing journey.]