So, why start a blog now? It’s a question I have been asking myself since I’m a serial blog starter. I’m fantastic with the good intentions, but I dwindle when it comes to the follow through. In order to understand how I can be successful in maintaining a blog, I have had to soul search and analyze what keeps me from doing so.
First, I get hung up on writing style, grammar, punctuation, so on and so forth. I am letting that go. I am going to write how I think, just put ME on virtual paper. I’ve reminded myself, and I undoubtedly will need to continue to remind myself, that I’m not attempting to publish a professional piece of writing; I’m merely trying to connect with others who are on the same journey that I am. I want to connect with those who are struggling with taking the first step of their journey. I want to connect with others who have stumbled along their way. I want to connect with people who have had nothing but the utmost success. I just want to connect, and so, to do so, I’m letting go of my need to be “perfect,” to write perfectly, that drive to abide by all of the literary rules. I want my blog to be a place where I can be candid, open, and just ME, not bound by any confines, even those that I have set for myself. I am the one that puts myself in the box, and I know it.
Second, I always write thinking about my audience, even when I do not have one. In order to be successful in keeping this blog, I am accepting that it is perfectly acceptable to do it just for me. Write because I want to write. I have spent the majority of my life doing for others. It’s who I am. I am a giver – giver of gifts, giver of myself, whatever I can possibly muster to give to someone else, I do.
Finally, my own accountability and motivation are worth the effort. Daily, I spend the majority of my time in my own head, my own thoughts. I have come to the realization that I am not learning from my mistakes, my bad days, by letting these thoughts just roll around and bump along in my head. My fear of writing about my bad days (food fails, lack of exercise, no “fox” left to give) is that it will make the bad days ever more real. Well, the trips and stumbles are just as real, even when they are merely jostled about in my own brain, yet I am not learning from them. The missteps are important strides along the path to success, and I will no longer hide them, not even from myself. I am the very first person to tell others NOT to give up, that stumbles along the way are OKay, and that tomorrow is a new day, an opportunity to try again.
Epiphany: I do not afford myself the same kindness that I invest in others.
Goal: I will learn to be kind to myself, for I am worthy of the same kindness I bestow upon others.
Idiosyncratic Unicorn 