Like a poorly held New Year’s resolution, I have already seen myself declining in my writing.
There are two problems here. One is my level of commitment. There are days where writing is lower priority than my family, my music, or just reading a book. The second is the imaginary bar.
High Bar Hinders Progress
When I created a place for thoughts, I intended to put a lot of thoughts out there. This is visible to me by all of the drafts of posts; however, invisible to the world by the limited published content.
I had a goal of writing anything each day. I could even scribble one word with a pen as long as the intent was to get a thought out. This seems like an easy target, but then the imaginary barriers started coming up. I raised my own bar, hoping for these great and well thought out articles each day.
Not being able to do something right has prevented me from doing anything at all, but doing something is better than doing nothing even if it is not the right thing.
Lowering the Bar to Raise the Standard
Complex and well organized thought takes hours of commitment. Small actions, being easier to do, are easier to perform consistently without getting discouraged. This was the reason for my original goal being so small!
Although they are not the end in themselves, these small habitual goals can create a habit from which the real destination will emerge.
So this post is an attempt to do something rather than nothing.
Pick a Small Piece of the Whole
I’d like to write, so here is some writing for you.
A drop in the imaginary bucket that will fill up over time.
What’s your bucket? What is a single drop that you can contribute today?
For me, it’s intentional daily thought and some quick writing about it that I would like to get back to. I can’t get down because I don’t have hours to spend in one sitting.
I cannot hurdle over a high bar today. Rather than stop and be sad, maybe I can step over a bunch of small bars and get somewhere.
It will take lowering the bar to raise the standard.