I committed to writing this daily blog 25 days ago. Since then, I’ve wrote one blog post each day without fail.
There are two main things that I’ve learned since starting:
1. It takes more than 25 days to form a habit
2. The key to the daily blog is to sit down and write
Lesson 1: Blogging is not Habit forming
Habit formation is more difficult than attempting to reach some mythical milestone of days. At one point, I was convinced that there was a 21 day rule to create a habit. It turns out that this is a myth.
The reality is that you just have to force yourself to do what you said you were going to do. When I sit down to write a blog post it has nothing to do with it being habitual. Since my family life requires flexibility and adapting to change, there is no way I can set a specific time of day to write everyday. As a result, the only thing I can count on is that sometime between 12:00 am and 11:59 pm I must FORCE myself to sit down and write a post.
I put “force” in all caps because this is literally what I must do because it’s often very hard for me to overcome this inner voice that tries to talk me out of it.
There is nothing magic about it. It’s sheer will power to drag myself into my office and put my fingers to the keyboard. After 25 days, I don’t notice anything with this process changing or getting easier. It’s brute force today just as it was on day one.
Lesson 2: Just Sit Down and Write
When I sit down to write, at least 50% of the time I have no idea what I’m going to write about. Today is the perfect example. All day long I used my idle brain cycles to think of a topic. Nothing stuck. Nothing motivated me. I just couldn’t think of anything I wanted to share.
So when I sat down at my computer at 7:53 pm to start writing this post, I was flat out stumped. I gazed at my screen for a little over 30 seconds, then I just started typing. Then, waalaa!!!
This is not the first time this has happened either. Time and time again I sit down thinking I have nothing to share. All day my anxiety builds with thoughts that I will end my daily blog streak without breaking my 45 day in a row personal best.
Then I force myself to just start writing and suddenly I get inspired.
After 25 days of doing this, I can now say I trust myself. Not only do I trust myself, I trust the process.