How to Keep Going

Warning: this does get a bit self-help-y.

I'm writing this at exactly midnight on Sunday night/Monday morning. Another week has come and gone and I feel a bit crap because I haven't done my weekly blogpost again. Loyal readers - all eight of you - will know that one of my New Year's resolutions was to do one post a week, but so far I feel like I just haphazardly rush something out before bed, or else don't get it done until a couple of days late. Looking at the publishing dates makes me feel like a failure.

But then I look at them again and I think - well, this is my sixth post of the year. And it's been six weeks. Okay, so if you discount the one where I literally just wrote "tuna sandwich" there's only five. And if you discount the one that was only a couple of lines, it's only four...

...and if you discount whatever this is, it's three.

But that's three more than nothing. And it's following on from nine months where I didn't post at all. For a hobby that I'm balancing with a full-time job and various other life demands, it's actually not that bad. Maybe I need to stop feeling so guilty all the time for not committing myself 100% to everything when I only have 100% of me to give (85% if you allow for naps).

As I said in my last post, I have an all-or-nothing tendency where a key part of being productive is feeling like I'm being productive, and riding the wave of that energy, if that metaphor doesn't make me sound unbearable. If I waste a day sitting around, it lowers my mood and makes me feel guilty and useless, which tends to create a self-fulfilling prophecy of convincing myself I can't do anything and perpetuating the cycle of doing nothing again and again. If, on the other hand, I get lots of things done, I feel like I'm capable of more. I can keep going. If I could have that feeling all the time, I know I'd be so much better at life. So: maybe part of being productive isn't just about doing everything right away. Maybe it's about forgiving yourself when you don't do everything right away, so you don't feel worse and get worse. Maybe I have to get a more accurate picture of how much I should expect myself to do, and realise that there are only so many hours in a day. Maybe the trick is, instead of punishing yourself for failure, to give yourself the privilege of letting it go so you can keep going.

Even right now, with this blog post, focusing on the positive of how much more I've posted in the last few weeks has spurred me on to finish this post. I was originally telling myself just to start it, do a couple of sentences, see how it goes, and yet now I'm finishing it within 27 minutes of starting it (sorry about the unedited feel). I feel like this is probably a healthier way of going about things than my usual all-or-nothing tendencies - managing my goals and breaking them into smaller pieces when I don't feel totally up to them. Of course, I want to draw a line between letting go of failures and outright complacency, but I'm also going to accept that finding that line will take some time. We all struggle with that to an extent, I think, so I shouldn't expect myself to get the balance right instantly.

I'm going to bed now. It's 12.27 and I'm really tired. Happy though. Happy I kept going.