Routines and Fear

Dear Friend

I’m afraid.

I’m afraid I won’t have the consistency needed to run my writing business, to keep up my blog, to do the YouTube channel I keep talking about, to learn a foreign language, to keep my apartment clean, to maintain my health.

Perhaps I idolize consistency and routines and habits too much.

Change is constant.

Am I any less serious about my goals if I don’t do all of them daily?
Can I find a way to take daily steps without overwhelming myself?
Is a sprint just as important a race as a marathon?

I can take those leaps ahead when I have the energy, and the rest of the time I’m conserving energy.

Steps forward, no matter how slow they feel, are still steps forward.

Will I ever be a person with daily habits that bring efficiency and snowballing steps forward?

I don’t know. But I need to let go of that fear, that expectation that consistency means “always” and “daily”. Consistency is “more often than not” and “don’t stop me, I’m on a roll”. It’s also ten minutes or five minutes, or whatever I can handle at the moment. Why make myself miserable when I can be having fun?

If there is no passion behind my writing, why am I doing it? To educate? That becomes a thankless energy drain if there is no heart behind it.

I am afraid of myself.

Do I love what I do enough?

What happens when the joy fades away?

Can I stick to my goals and dreams and passions when the days are hard and the emotions rampant?

I believe I can.

Heather

(Originally written August 1, 2021)