it took until day 74 for me to change the schedule. for 73 days, i got up and wrote first thing. afraid that it wouldn’t happen otherwise. and didn’t want it on my to-do list all day in case something else happened to hijack my time.
then on day 74 i changed things. it didn’t seem like a big deal (it was only 3 days ago) but now i realize – duh, of course – it takes time for the new thing to feel reliably possible, to not feel like you’re pushing a truck uphill.
i might have thought it would be around 60 days, but – well, in this case, it’s 73.
last week i had very busy catering, and still wrote every morning, first thing. one night i was in bed, writing out my plan for the next day, i thought: what if i ran first, then wrote. what if i got up, no headphones, no podcasts, no distractions, no email. just get up, run and then write.
did that sunday and monday and again today. and the difference is subtle, but impactful.
and you might say, well no shit sherlock, everyone feels better after 10 minutes of exercise.
and i would say, yes, but to begin, i could only do one thing at a time. i could only write. i couldn’t vary or alter the schedule. I wrote first, then ran.
Now i can run first, then write.
i had something that was working (writing, sobriety), and i was too nervous to fuck with it. when you don’t allow yourself even one failed day, then you HAVE to come up with coping strategies, and this was mine: don’t change anything.
get one successful day and repeat.
repeat for how long? until you know that it’s ok to move the schedule around a bit.
how long does that take? in my case, this time, 73 days.
day 76 of continuous fiction writing today. never been here before.
Interesting.
I’m working on a series of streaks in self-care/development, but I’m doing most of them at night. In order to not miss a day, I end up pushing bedtime back. Not great, but I haven’t missed a day. Yet, I’ve been feeling that annoyance at myself to “do it right.” Do it in the morning. Or in the afternoon. Just do it earlier. I can’t. Yet. Maybe after 60 or 73 days I’ll be able to shift things around? Maybe now I just accept that the schedule isn’t perfect, but it’s getting done, and that’s more than I could say a 21 days ago.
Thanks for sharing. I always learn something when you share your process.