I’ve written before about the power of habit…
You know what? This started out as a post about another key factor in achieving your goals: the matter of actually having a goal.
Fitness is a good example. I know precisely what weight I’m aiming for, what body fat percentage I want to achieve, what runs I’d like to be able to easily accomplish… in short, I know exactly where I’m heading, why I’m doing it, and when I want to achieve things by.
I’m a big believer in constantly questioning yourself: making sure you know who you are, what you think, and why you’re doing what you’re doing. Honestly? I have no fucking clue why I’m still writing my one-a-day entries.
Getting to post 365 is not a goal: it’s a number of repetitions. There is no community. I don’t feel like my writing is improving. The words feel like wasted words which, more crucially, makes the time feel like wasted time… Time I have in increasingly short supply. Time I could be spending achieving more productive goals.
When I reach my target body composition, I can picture exactly how that’ll feel. When I pass my driving test, I know exactly how it’ll impact on my life. Reaching post number 365? All I can envisage is what I feel now: an overwhelming sense of wasted time and effort for the sake of a handful of people who’ll get along just fine without me!
Habit plus goal is a hard combination to break, but in this instance I think the healthiest thing I can do is just that. The sheer fact I’ve actually wasted an hour of my morning trying to write my one-a-day today, leaving me half an hour to run around frantically trying to get ready for work and absolutely no time to myself tells me this is no longer something positive to have in my life.
When I started I was recovering from a major illness. I was unemployed. I was friendless. I was bored. I was hopeless. I was desperately looking for something meaningful to do with my day and, if I’m honest, hoping perhaps somebody might like my writing enough to employ me for it.
I’m fully recovered now. I have a good, if stressful and shockingly badly paid, job. I have a heartwarming number of friends: some I’ve met online, some I’ve met through work, all are absolutely precious and vital to me. I have no time to call my own, and desperately need some downtime. I have no time to write something somebody might employ me for!
In short, life’s moved on. I need to move with it. I’ll keep blogging as and when I actually have something worthwhile to say, but this will be my last one-a-day.
230/365
Aww that’s a shame
Although if that’s how you feel, it makes sense really. Shame though as I’ve enjoyed reading your OneADays
Despite current appearances, I do still plan on writing in the blog… just been a hellish week!
Sorry to hear about the #oneaday posts, but you’ve got to do what’s right for you. If you’re not getting anything out of it, then it’s perfectly sensible to stop.
Please keep blogging though – I suspect I’m not alone in enjoying your musings, and I do read all of them, albeit usually in chunks via my RSS reader.
I suppose you need to think about what you want to get out of having a blog – is it to improve your writing, or to start conversations, or something else?
Personally, I like having somewhere online I can wax forth about Stuff In My Head. Not all of it requires a response, but I’ve found that when you ask questions of your readers, you’re more likely to get a response than a regular ‘this is what I think about [x]‘ post.
Keep blogging. Please?
Very much planning on still writing as and when I feel like I have something to say… or at least something which doesn’t break all my NDA agreements, heh.
Thank you for the lovely comment!
Have been back and forth about how to feel about this, as I shall miss your #oneaday posts to be sure.
Really though, this is about what’s going to work for you. There’s no point you feeling like you’re wasting your time slogging out a blog post when you would rather be doing other things. I expect that you’ll quickly find that you start to enjoy blogging again once the pressure is off to produce a post a day, and that you’ll be able to quickly write the occasional post about something as and when you feel like it.
That’s exactly what I’m hoping, yes. Unfortunately it’s not been the greatest of weeks, but once things (hopefully) settle down again, I’m definitely looking forward to writing as and when I feel I have something worth saying!
Aww, sorry to hear that. But I totally understand! It’s been a time of many transitions for you from the sound of things. And it certainly sounds that having time to call your “own” is of increasing importance to you.
I’ll echo the sentiments above, though; please do keep writing. I always enjoy your posts!
Thank you! Alas that time has instantly been swallowed up with any number of other demands, but hopefully eventually I’ll be able to carve out a little time for myself!
For what it’s worth I know exactly how you feel. I’m determined to try and see this through, but I have to admit I’ve been doing my #oneaday entries more out of a sense of duty than because I’ve been enjoying it.
You need to do what’s best for you, so I’m not going to try to convince you to carry on, but you will be missed.
Of course I’ll still be reading your blog as and when you do update it, so make sure you do keep writing whenever you feel the need!
Thanks Chris – that means a lot. I think if you feel like you’ll get to post number 365 and at least feel a sense of achievement for having made it, that in itself makes it worth the slog. I just realised I wasn’t going to feel that. At which point it all became a bit pointless…
Glad to hear you’ll still be reading when I do have time/subject matter to update though!
It’s a shame that you are calling it quits, but I totally understand your reasons. To be honest the whole one a day feels a little pointless nowadays, to me anyway. I hope you enjoy your extra time that you will acquire.
Ah sorry it’s been feeling pointless for you too. Genuinely lovely idea, though.