In which I stop eating Christmas cookies for breakfast & start writing again

It's hard to start doing something again that you haven't done for a while.  For example, it's hard to start eating healthy breakfasts again when you convinced yourself that it was okay to eat Christmas cookies for breakfast over the holidays.  Those were some sweet breakfasts!  Thank goodness the cookies were gone before I completely outgrew my wardrobe.  It was a close call.

These are not breakfast food.

Neither are these.

Also, it may be hard to start writing again after getting out of the habit.  You will come up with a million ways to avoid it, if you're me.  In fact, before writing this post I spent five minutes googling "back in the saddle," "back in the game," "it's hard to start doing things again," and other variations on these idioms or ideas.  Excessive research is a common avoidance technique of mine.  Of course, the only way to start doing something again is to do it.  So, I'm back on oatmeal for breakfast.  I started journaling again last week, and I'm posting to my blog today.  

I haven't blogged since October 17, 2014.  That's over eleven weeks ago.  My last post was about National Novel Writing Month.  I participated in NaNoWriMo 2014, but I did not "win" by reaching the official 50,000 word count.  Still, I managed to write 22,000 words between November first and twentieth.  Then I quit.  I forced myself to keep at it for a while in the hopes that inspiration would come, but the truth is that I don't have a novel in me right now.  I don't regret quitting NaNoWriMo.  What I do regret is that I gave up writing altogether for the rest of the calendar year.  I didn't write in my journals, nor did I write a single blog post.  And the longer I didn't do it, the harder it became to start up again. 

I completely dropped the habit of writing, a habit that is very good for me by the way.  Writing, along with exercising, flossing my teeth, and reading (as a few examples) are good habits that keep me healthy or happy or both.  I'm fortunate to have an exercise partner, which keeps me on track with that habit.  Flossing my teeth is something I started forcing myself to do on a nightly basis several years ago.  (If you know me, you know that I'm a little bit afraid of going to the dentist and that's part of my motivation.)  Now flossing is part of my nighttime routine, and I very rarely skip it.  I love reading, so I'm not inclined to avoid it.  What about writing?  I can see why I let blogging slide, because it sometimes feels "hard" to me.  But I'm not sure why I let my journal writing slide.  Maybe I didn't have an established system to keep my writing habit on track.   For example, many writers write at the same time everyday no matter what.

Recently, I read an interesting blog post by James Clear about the difference between goals and systems, and it really made me think.  Goals can stay in my head, but systems (or habits) are actions.  I find this idea helpful in terms of aligning my actions to what I say is truly important to me, rather than just randomly moving from task to task while maintaining vague goals.  When my children were smaller, I aimed for us to have a rhythm to our days.  It was flexible, but it helped us all navigate our days.  And then...seasons change, rhythms change, schedules change, children grow older.  Sometimes we adjust well to changes, other times not so much.  Sometimes new routines are easily established, other times we flounder.  With two children in high school this year and one still being homeschooled, I felt sort of scattered and pulled in different directions these past few months.

Perhaps this was more of a transition for me than I thought it would be.  Maybe I took too much of a wait and see attitude about things.  Oddly, I have also been feeling like I'm "on call" all the time.  For example, sometimes I feel like I'm always doing housework.  That's not true at all.  But perhaps if I'm tossing in a load of laundry here and there, instead of having a system of sorts - then it does feel like I'm doing it all the time.  I'm not talking about rigid systems here, but rather guidelines.  I think we all - no matter our work/family/home situations - benefit from re-evaluating our daily habits and routines from time-to-time, particularly when we are in transition in some way.  Otherwise, we may not be intentional about how we use our time.  Often it's easier to choose the (seemingly) urgent (housework, checking e-mail, paperwork, etc.) over the important (whatever meaningful tasks help us reach our goals).  I originally read about this idea many years ago in Stephen Covey's book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.  Many have reiterated Covey's basic ideas.  I found a nice distillation of this concept in an article written by Martha Beck for O, The Oprah Magazine. It's an idea worth revisiting.

So, at the start of 2015, I am committed to establishing systems that will help me use my time to do the things that are most important to me and my family.  Have you thought about your own goals for 2015?  How might you establish systems or habits that help you work toward those goals?