Encouraging Myself
Well, that took less than two weeks. I started out the year trying to set up some new routines, hoping to get more productive and work on health stuff. Tonight, I'm sitting here staring at the computer willing myself to come up with story so I can write... And feeling like crying because I'm not making a lot of progress, I'm probably forgetting stuff I should be doing, I'm a flaky artist, and why am I trying to do this again?
I'm a mess. You all know that if you've read this blog for very long. And that first paragraph notwithstanding, I'm really not whining (well, trying not to) here today. Instead, I'm writing to let you know that it's ok to feel the feels, it's ok to ask for help, it's ok to fail... You can always get up and take another step forward. You just can't not try. That's all. A little better every day.
Me? I'm feeling crummy tonight because one of the things I was attempting was to move to one meal a day, at least on weekdays, as a way of controlling my caloric intake. At the two week mark, I'm going to say that doesn't work for me. I come home at the end of the day, having only had a light snack during the workday, and I can't even. The guys aren't ready to eat, and when I come in hangry, I wind up eating crap just to try and balance it out and... so. That experiment failed to accomplish it's intent. Time to recalibrate and try again, with protein bars while I'm walking on my lunch break. I can and I have for years now, done intermittent fasting. Just can't do twenty hours of that. It's ok.
What is working: having a very small accountability group, and not the same people for each item on my personal challenge. Touching base with someone outside my own head keeps me grounded, and I'm terribly grateful I have friends who don't mind me melting into a sticky puddle of incoherent goo from time to time. What's also working for me is using my spreadsheet daily journal to keep track of myself. I can look at that every evening, fill in the squares, and it makes my lil' nerd heart happy. Everyone is different, but this works for me. I'm trying to exercise every day - took a couple of days off while sick, this last weekend. I'm making art every day. That's easy, I've been doing it for about six years now. Writing every day - fiction, I've gotten every day in, and missed one day of non-fiction (this blog or MGC) - but that's a small wordcount for now. I'm not worrying about how many words, just that they happen. Setting up routines, setting habits.
Things like alarms to remind me of my daily devotional are still a bit shaky. I need to recalibrate timing on that. I also need to reconsider my current status of 'every moment of every day planned' as that leaves me with no time to have... down. Just not doing anything. I'm not working non-stop, but I did put things like 'husband time' in the schedule and that's staying. Important.
It's about momentum. Once a couple more weeks have passed, and these routines have settled into habits, I'll add more balls to juggle. And I'll keep reminding myself that I'm going to drop balls from time to time. The trick is picking them back up while keeping the other ones going!
So don't beat yourself up when you fall off the wagon. Pick yourself up, dust yourself off, run to catch up, and plan a little rest in somewhere. You can do it.
Yeah, I am talking to myself. What of it?