At the end of September, I challenged myself to post on my blog every day for one month, and I am pretty dang proud of myself. The plan was to write every day from September 27 to October 25. I made it to October 23. I missed only two days, and I am thrilled with those results. The dates on my posts don't look like I posted every day since I posted after midnight on some days and before it on others, but I assure you, I did. And I have to say that I feel very accomplished!
There were several nights when it would have been very easy to tell myself to forget it, to just watch a show instead. There were other nights that I was lying in bed about to drift off to sleep, and I thought, Crap! I didn't write tonight! And still other nights when my husband probably thought I was crazy that I would rather dink around on my phone rather than talk to him. But I did it. I wrote my posts and hit Publish. Yeah, it was difficult, but I can do hard things.
I want to keep writing regularly, but writing every day is a bit much (I think I haven't written over the past couple of weeks because I just needed a break from it!). So I'm going to evaluate what I learned from this experience and come up with a new goal for myself.
First, I noticed that the hardest days to write were definitely the nights Brian had off. Not only was I physically tired on those days after working, but I would rather spend time with my hubby than have my nose glued to a screen. So I would like to reserve those nights for him.
The second thing I learned was that even though it's good to turn off the TV and use my brains a little bit, I really do enjoy watching something that doesn't constantly break the fourth wall and directly ask the audience obvious questions (you know the perpretrators: Jake, Daniel, Mickey, etc.), so I need nights where I can watch my shows without the kids harassing me to put on theirs.
Another thing I learned was that even though writing at night is the best time for me to do so, I cannot stay up too late doing it. I was on a pretty good sleep schedule before this challenge, but now I'm staying up way too late again and not getting enough accomplished during the day. So I need to limit the time that I write and give myself a bedtime.
The last thing I took from this challenge is that I truly do love writing! I mean, I already knew that, but I guess I was doubting myself about it since I've been procrastinating my novel and had such a poor track record with this blog. If I love it so much, then why don't I just do it?
But this project reminded me of the joy that putting my thoughts in print really brings me. I've noticed that I've been less stressed, more patient with the kids, and feeling happier with myself. I've been doing something that I love, every day, for no other reason than the fact that I love it. I've been filling my own bucket; taking care of myself. What a world of difference it has made, not only for me, but for my family as well.
So considering all of these things--that I want to take off the nights Brian is home, I need some nights to watch my shows, I can't write all night long, and that I really want to keep doing this!--I've decided to publish posts on two of the four nights that Brian has to work the next day. That'll be two or three posts a week. That should be few enough to not overwhelm me but regular enough to being me joy. I'll try it for a month and see how it goes. I'll reevaluate my progress then and see if I need to make any changes.
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