I missed a day of Blogmas for the first time. I even prepped one post before flying off for the holidays to give myself a little leeway, but when I arrived home, I was simply too tired, and then I spent the whole next day at a hair salon, away from my laptop. Besides that, the internet situation in China is proving to be more difficult than I anticipated. I always seem to underestimate how slow the internet can truly be. It’s mostly that my house has especially bad connection, but the internet in China overall is still pretty slow. So even though I said that being in China wouldn’t affect the content I produce, it might and it has.
Part of me is tempted to cut Blogmas short, to not have to deal with the Chinese internet, and to not be frantically writing posts up until midnight every night. But the other part of me, the part of me that is eager to rise to the challenge of Blogmas, resonates deeper. It’s not just about doing it because it’s the festive season and it’s trendy to do so. It’s because it’s important to me to get in the habit of blogging consistently. It’s because it’s important to me to rediscover that wonder I had for life when I first started blogging five years ago and would always be searching for inspiration wherever I was. (During Blogmas, I’ve already written some of my favourite blog posts all year!) Ideas fed more ideas. It was so ingrained in my every day that I never had to sit around trying to brainstorm blog posts, because I was already doing it as I was living my every day. People wondered how I had time to blog and keep up with school; it was because it became part of who I was and how I lived.
Serendipitously, I stumbled upon this article in the New York Times right before flying off for the holidays about the morning routines of high achievers, and it couldn’t have come at a more opportune time. It suggested habits for everyone to try, one of which was to not beat yourself up. These high achievers didn’t consider missing days of their morning routine failures, as long as they got back to it as soon as they could; they recognised that sometimes they would miss their routines, and that was okay.
This is why when people say to “be kind to yourself” or “be more forgiving of yourself,” they aren’t just saying empty words to comfort and coddle you. When you are kind and forgiving of yourself, you can pick yourself back up and carry on.
The article also compared this strategy to Jerry Seinfeld’s “don’t break the chain” method for productivity, in which “if there’s a certain task you want to do every day, you can keep yourself accountable by putting a red ‘x’ over every day you complete this task on a large wall calendar,” soon creating a chain for which your only job will be to not break it. It questions the efficacy of this method because “it doesn’t allow for occasional, yet inevitable, failures.”
This resonated deeply with me because there have been so many times that I’ve given up on a habit-in-progress due to this perceived failure. I’d give 30 Days of Yoga with Adriene a go, last for five days, miss one, drop it for a year, maybe give it another try, but only to drop it again. I’d give learning French on Duolingo a try, puff up with pride as I saw my streak go up every day, then deflate and give it up as soon as I missed a day and my streak went back to zero.
But Blogmas won’t be one of those failed challenges. Instead of building a habit with rigor, I’ll be building it with kindness and forgiveness. And so even if I miss a day or two or five, you can count on me to keep on keeping on.
Got any habits or challenges you’re working on?
PS: I’m giving Blogmas a go! Let me know in the comments if there’s anything you’d like to see on the blog (ू•ᴗ•ू❁)