Have you lost your scholarly identity and THIS is what is holding you back in your writing?

Writing is a confidence game and that is why momentum is key. When you are doing it all the time, writing becomes easy, routine and dare I say it, pleasant and for some even joyous. Can you imagine that?

When you stop doing it and have no momentum, doubt, imposter syndrome, procrastination and a whole host of unhelpful writing narratives raise their medusa heads and freeze you in place, stopping you from making any progress on your writing projects.

So what to do? Well, first let's take a step back. Why did you stop? This can sometimes be something you don't want to admit to for self protection reasons, or have not thought deeply about, or refuse to see. Deep down though, if you examine it hard enough, you will find the reason, or combination of reasons you stopped writing. It is rarely just one thing, though for sure, one thing usually dominates.

It could be a whole host of reasons, but let me give you some examples from my own clients:

• Writing is hard and everything else you do in your job is easier, so you chose the easy

• Change in role - from Professor to Head of School - and thence to Dean

• Change of teaching: more classes, new classes

• Change of admin role/responsibilities - whether chosen or forced

• The apocalypse and on-line teaching, and you never recovered

• Refusal of promotion, study leave or something that you sought 

• Refusal of grant / other funding you felt were crucial to support your research

• Rejection from a journal / publisher

• A collapse in the alignment between your job and your values

• A recently diagnosed neurodivergence, physical illness or change of life circumstances which has left you questioning everything and in particular how you work

• You collaborative partners have moved on (physically or intellectually) and with it your accountability and motivation to write

• You don't like the project you are working on because [insert any number of reasons] and now you associate writing with this particular project and refuse to do any, because stuck between knowing you have to finish this thing, and not wanting to write, you refuse to write anything at all

This list is just indicative, not exhaustive, but I wanted to give you an inkling as to what you should be looking for if you are in this situation. Some of these reasons are about time, and your relationship with it, some are about your feelings being hurt and how you deal with criticism or rejection, and some are about your motivations. All of these are curable, with the right assistance - frameworks of task execution, coaching around and reframing your motivations and developing new ways of working in new environments. 

If this is you, and you want to make a change, the first thing you can do is - honestly and without judgment  - investigate the origin of why you stopped. Write down your feelings about it. Journaling has been shown repeatedly by research to provide the safe and critical reflective space to help you answer these questions. Once you know, then you can work out how to begin again and recover your writing identity.