16 Weeks Later
+ A round up of the most read posts so far
I’m sitting here scrambling to put together a post for this week.
I’ve started three or four drafts for what I think might be interesting or helpful articles for people.
I have nothing I’m happy to send out and my (self-imposed) deadline for finishing the newsletter is VERY near…
My mind is saying things like:
“You should have written this during the week”
“You actually have nothing to say”
“You do this every week! How have you not learned by now?!”
“Why are you like this?!”
I know full well this is just my mind’s way of motivating me to get things done but it’s not very helpful right now.
So what would I suggest to someone else if they came to me in this situation?
Acknowledge whatever thoughts are present.
Take a pause to ground yourself.
Ask yourself “what would be helpful right now?”
Taking My Own Advice
I took a moment to acknowledge the “encouragement” my mind was giving me to get this done and thanked it for trying to help (it might not seem like it sometimes but all our minds ever try to do is help or protect us).
I stepped away from the laptop, made breakfast and a coffee, taking the time to actually enjoy both and then came back to writing this.
I asked myself what would be most helpful now in writing?
I had a flick through my notes for ideas and realised this is the 16th week in a row that I’ve posted (or it will be very shortly).
The initial plan was to write once a week for three months and see where I was then. I assumed I would run out of steam around week 5 or 6.
So I’ve gone a month beyond the original target and still feel like this is something I actually enjoy (mostly!) and want to keep doing.
It’s not a huge achievement - I haven’t grown a massive readership and won’t be asked to write for a big paper or website any time soon but it is something that gives me a sense of satisfaction.
Looking back at the list of old posts and being able to say “I made all those” is pretty cool.
Part of me is saying “Yeah cool, now get on with things, finish the bloody post and go about the rest of the day there’s loads to do”.
But if a friend came to me and said “I’m after achieving a goal I set for myself, it’s nothing major but I’m happy I did it” what would I say?
“Yeah cool, now get on with things… there’s loads to do”. Probably not!
I’d probably congratulate them, ask them more about it and encourage them to savour the fact that they had achieved something they set out to.
So once this is posted I’m going to spend some time practicing what I preach - congratulate myself on achieving something I set out to do a few months back and savour whatever positive feelings might come up.
And hopefully this time next week I’ll be slightly more organised and have a new post and a guided meditation ready to go but in the meantime…
Most read posts
Here are links to the most read posts I have put out so far. If you find these interesting then consider subscribing if you haven’t already or sharing the newsletter with anyone you think might be interested.