Running, baking professionally, and writing have become very similar for me in a few ways. Namely, the fact that I don’t always WANT to do them until I start doing them.
There’s the “work”/required aspect to them now- the feeling that all three of these things that I unequivocally love to do are now in some way required to be done on a regular basis raises a low-key kind of cold dread, and I have lately found myself trying to put them off or do something else first.
No, it’s not the best discipline to be sure. Discipline is a muscle. It needs to be exercised and flexed in order to stay strong, so when I’ve gone on runs or sat down to write lately, I haven’t been “in the mood.” There’s been an attitude of “Ok, I said I was going to do this. I want to do this. I need to do this and will feel bad if I don’t, so just do it.”
That’s how it starts… and then something clicks.
The sound of my fingers clacking on the keyboard, the cold air in my face, or the buzz of a busy kitchen and people asking me questions somehow reroutes my thoughts. It stills them. Focuses them. It’s no longer a question of “mood”- just a fact of being.
When you slip into flow state, (a.k.a. “The Zone”), the past and future vanish. There is only the Present, and the Work- and it’s different for everyone.
The Black Hat Baker 