I'm a big fan of awful first drafts (草稿). All of my writing starts with a bad first draft with grammatical mistakes and half-finished sentences. No one else sees those drafts. I tear up (撕毁) that awful first draft and start again — and that's when things start toclick. That's when sentences become complete, when ideas make sense, and when the real work gets done.
Too often, when it comes to self-improvement, we create idealized plans with unnatural rules. We suppose that we will stick to our plans. Monday might be leg day in the gym, but if your kid falls off the bike and needs stitches (缝针), your carefully made eight-week exercise plan isn't going to get a look.
Every plan starts off like an awful first draft. You make stupid mistakes, things you thought were a great idea turn out to be dead ends, and at the end you just need to start again.
When a plan fails, the solution (解决办法) isn't to give it up and try a new one next time. It's to build on what worked, cut what didn't and start straight away on a much-improved second draft. Trying to run three miles every day while eating nothing but vegetables might be a terrible idea—but running a few days a week isn't.
The benefit of an awful first draft is to use it to get everything down on the page. It doesn't matter whether you think it's good or bad, you're trying out different things to find out what works and, more importantly, what doesn't. You have to read over your first draft and make changes to write the second. The second draft is where you build on the strong points and cut the weak ones.
Sara loved running outside but hated the indoor strength training in her fitness program. How could she make changes to write the second draft? She looked back and saw which part she found fun and easy to stick with and which went wrong. By building on what worked for her, she slowly developed a health plan she could stick with.
If your second draft doesn't work out quite as planned, you tear it up and write a third. And, if needed, a fourth. But if you build on what's good and cut the rest, finally you will have something that works.
