So Reader,

For someone with a Bachelor’s degree in Nutrition and Dietetics, I have a number of less-than-ideal eating habits.

Yesterday, for instance: the only “food” I ate was a bowl of cornflakes.

I wish I could say yesterday was out of the norm, but that’s just a regular day for me.

(In fact, my stomach has gotten so used to it that I can go a full day without eating and feel nothing.)

And it wasn’t even a case of “I’m hungry but too lazy to cook” (though I’m also EXTREMELY guilty of that as well)

There was literally jollof rice in the fridge.

And not just any jollof. Fayo’s award-winning jollof rice, which has been scientifically proven to cure anorexia.

* clears recent Google search of “What’s the medical term for loss of appetite”? *

I’m not kidding: a couple weeks back, we had some guests over and literally every one of them asked for more. My niece, a certified picky eater and who (according to her mum) hadn’t been eating well at home, had 3 servings.

So yes, my jollof rice is that good.

Anyway…

Where was I again?

Oh, yes. I had jollof in the fridge. All I needed to do was pop it into the microwave, or warm it up on the cooker.

But I just didn’t feel like eating.

That’s the type of person I am have become.

Now, imagine I woke up tomorrow and decided I wanted to start eating three square meals everyday.

What do you think would happen on the first day? My body would revolt. Maybe I’ll feel bloated the whole day.

Why? Because I’m not used to it. I’ve trained my body system through sheer consistency (or should I say the lack of it?) to not expect food regularly.

But after a week or two, I’d start to adjust. And eventually, I’d become the kind of person who gets cranky if she hasn’t eaten breakfast by 9am.

The thing is, our brains get used to whatever patterns we create.

If you hardly flex your “storytelling muscle”, you’d get to a point where you’d think you’re not a good storyteller. Just like how if I didn’t know any better, I’d probably be saying, “I’m not a good eater”.

But that’s not exactly the truth.

All I need to do is to eat consistently for a week or two, and I’d be singing a different tune.

The point is, when you tell stories (think writing/making a video/recording a podcast/whatever it is that you do) “once in a while” or only when you feel like… you’re training your brain to treat it like something to gear up for.

Something that requires conditions to be perfect before you start.

So you wait for “inspiration”, for the right mood, or till you “have something to say”.

And time passes without you creating anything.

But when you show up consistently, even when your mind is convincing you that you have nothing clever to say… even when you’re basically just telling people about what you ate…

Something interesting happens: You start finding it easier to spot ideas in the wild. And eventually, you, Reader, become an expert in turning those silly ideas to masterpieces that people can resonate with.

Storytelling is just like eating. The more often you do it, the more natural it becomes for your brain to do. But when you miss too many meals (think of “meals” as “opportunity to tell stories”), you eventually stop feeling hungry at all, even when there’s award-winning, hunger-inducing jollof in the fridge.

Don’t let that happen to your stories.

Fayo

PS: Btw, I finally ate the jollof rice shortly before I started writing this email, and I’m just wondering, “How could I ever not feel like eating this goodness????”

PPS: Oh and you should take what I said at the beginning of this email as descriptive and not prescriptive. By no means should you think I’m encouraging you to join me in my voluntary hunger strikes.