At the end of last year, I set a goal of blogging every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. I’ve been very proud of the fact that I’ve kept that up each and every week since December 27, 2010.
Yesterday, I jumped off the carousel temporarily. I’d had a 13-hour day, it was 8:30 p.m. and I just wanted to stop working for the night. (I did get my inbox down to zero, though!)
So I gave myself permission not to blog. It felt okay. It was mildly anxiety-producing to break my chain, but I really wanted to just relax and I knew the ramifications of not blogging were next to nil.
Tonight, my friend and colleague, Margaret Lukens arrives in St. Louis to stay with me for two nights. She’s here to facilitate the NAPO St. Louis board retreat tomorrow. So I won’t be posting tomorrow, either. I’ll get back into the M/W/F groove on Monday.
I think habits and routines are very important and I’m delighted that I’ve been able to create this habit. But I also recognize that flexibility and self-care are also important.
When a habit is entrenched, I always worry about backsliding when it’s broken, even once. I think consciously breaking it, for a good reason, and knowing how I’ll get back to it will stop that from happening.
What are you going to do to be kind to yourself today?
Tagged with: blogging, habits, margaret lukens
Thank you, Sheila! Three times a week is a good goal for me. Strangely enough, I find it’s easier to blog more frequently than more seldom. There’s less pressure to write something brilliant!
Janine Adams August 26, 2011 04:38 AM
What a huge accomplishment. Brava. I started my blog in May 2011, www.sheilacallahan.net, via Michelle Raftners’s May Blogathon. I came in late, and participated as I could, (the Blogathon’s goal was to post daily for the entire month.) There’s nothing I’d like to do more than blog every day, but alas, I’m a meandering thinker, highly distractible and a slow writer, so that’s a rather unreasonable goal.
Congrats on setting a reasonable, though still ambitious goal, and hitting it. Keep up the good work and the good words.
Sheila Callahan August 26, 2011 02:26 AM