Welcome to the first, real weekend of 2023! I hope you’ve been enjoying it.
Ok, it’s the tail-end of the weekend, but there’s still time for relaxing, and refilling the well, and I’ll take every second I can get.
Last Week, I talked about how I was going to dedicate 2023 to getting as much – Quality – sleep as I could. Well, I’m here to tell you that I fell off that wagon almost immediately. Now, it was for good reasons (Which I won’t get into), and it was also the result of external factors (Normally, I’m not one to mind it when the weather gets unseasonably warm, but it does tend to mess with the blanket/insulation levels on the bed) so I classified them as deliberate decisions and as “problems” to be solved. That took some mental effort – which I was suspecting. The warm weather/blanket thing, like I said, was something to solve/adapt to. The real effort came from defending my decisions to the part of me that wants to be “Perfect.”
Later on last week, I started deliberately (but in small increments) to shift my routine. I got a few days under my belt and am feeling pretty good.
That’s the point of this – this desire to have a different definition of yourself at the end of the year. If you try to be Perfect, to do the thing every day in exactly the same way no matter what, you’re going to fail. You’re going to either get frustrated at all the sameness, because there’s no flexibility built in, or you’re going to miss a day and give up, because you’re no longer perfect.
I read somewhere that, by the end of February, or thereabouts, 80% of folk who make “Resolutions” at the beginning of the year have already failed. That’s because they’re trying to be perfect, but not consistent.
Technically, perfection implies consistency, but if you miss – even once – you’re no longer perfect. Not even machines can do that and you, Reader, are no machine.
Sidebar: If you are reading this, and you are a machine, Welcome to the Blog. It may come as a shock to you to discover that you’re not, in fact, perfect but hopefully it will come as a pleasant surprise to hear that it’s ok for you not to be.
Consistency is not about being perfect, but doing the thing more often than you don’t, and that’s where you make progress. Already I can feel the loopholery brain-weasels are nit-picking away at that statement, but it’s true.
Progress is like that. Sometimes you’re sprinting, sometimes, you’re taking slow, faltering steps. Either one moves you forward and brings you closer to your goals. The one thing guaranteed to keep you from reaching them? Stopping.
So don’t give up on the work – even if your resolution didn’t last the week. Start again. Get up one time more than you fall. That’s all it takes.
Thanks for reading. Be safe out there. Be Excellent to Each other – and yourself.
I’ll see you on Thursday.
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