How You Do Anything Is How You Do Everything

There are no double standards in life.

That’s why how you do anything is how you do everything.

A person isn’t lazy at home and hard working at their job. They are lazy wherever they are and whatever they’re doing.

Likewise, a person isn’t mean to animals and kind to people. They’re just mean all the time, even if they try and come across differently in different situations.

I remember years ago saying to a friend of mine that a man we both knew was a really nice guy and that I couldn’t understand how he could be married to the woman he lived with becasue she was so nasty and was always upsetting people and causing trouble.

My friend instantly said to me, “He’s not a nice guy. He’s just as bad as she is.”

“How do you know?” I asked, perplexed, because the guy always seemed so smiley and friendly.

“Because he stays with her and she’s a nasty piece of work through and through. A decent person could never live with someone like that. They wouldn’t get along. He has to be as bad as she is to be able to live with her all these years.”

And then she gave me a warning that I’ve never forgotten and it’s always turned out to be true. “Never think that a nice person is married to a nasty person. If one’s bad, they both are, so trust neither.”

And she was right. Whenever I met someone who I thought was a really decent person but found out the they’re married to/living with someone who is despicable, it always transpires that they are both as bad as each other.

And just as a person can’t be as nice and nasty, it logically follows that how we do anything is how we do everything. We are the same no matter who we’re with or what we’re doing.

So what does this have to do with writing?

Everything. :)

You see, you can’t be a bad writer sometimes and be a great writer other times.

This is because how you do anything is how you do everything. So don’t get into the bad habit of doing anything BUT your best with everything you do.

Whenever and whatever you’re doing, always do your best work.

It doesn’t matter if your writing a blog post, doing the dishes, making the bed, cleaning the car or writing an ebook.

Always strive to do the best you can with EVERYTHING you do, and this will flow naturally into everything you write.

Just imagine that every blog post you write is a guest post for someone else’s blog.

Would they be satisfied with what you’ve written or would they expect better?

And if you had to submit the manuscript you were going to self publish to a publishing company instead. Would you send it as it is or would you have written a bigger, better book?

Now is a good time to cultivate good habits with everything you do, whether it’s writing your next best seller or mowing the lawn.

Never be satisfied with less than your best.

As the novelist Dean Wesley Smith said, “Do the best you can with everything you write. Write clean copy, no second drafts. If you write sloppy first drafts, you are not doing the best you can.”  http://www.deanwesleysmith.com/entertainment/

Your writing should always be good because you don’t want to get into sloppy/lazy habits because how you do anything is how you do everything.

Diligence in all you do, no matter how small the task, means diligence in everything you do, which, strangely enough, makes everything you do so much easier.