When I started this blog I promised myself that I would post a new blog at least twice per month. I have plenty of content. I have plenty of ideas and topics to write about whirling around in my head just about every day. For a while it went smoothly. If you look back through my blog history you’ll see I’ve kept up with that promise for the most part, for at least a few months. Then, something happened in the midst of the holidays. No blogs for nearly three months.
Well, it’s been about three months since I’ve posted a new blog to the Thoughtwriting website. Since the 2015 holiday season I’ve been confronted with a number of financial struggles, personal challenges, difficulties in my businesses, etc, etc. I could give a list of really decent, truthful, completely rational excuses as to why I haven’t found the time to blog, but none of that really matters. The truth is, regardless of any life challenges I’ve had to face, I could have found a half hour, here or there, to devote to my blog. But that didn’t happen. I let it go for a while. I let my own challenges get in my way so much that I put blogging on the furthest most back burner of important things to accomplish in my life. The result? No blogs for nearly three months.
Bravo, Chris. Great going. That’s one hell of a blog you’ve got going there. Who’s going to bother to read a blog by someone who doesn’t even post regularly? And why would they read it anyway? You’re barely even promoting it. Who cares? We all have challenges, who cares about your challenges? Why even bother to post a blog anyway? Who is it you’re trying to reach? Who even cares to read it? What the f*** am I doing? Am I even a blogger at all? Who cares? Why should I care? What is it that I am even trying to say? Sigh…..is it worth it? No blogs for nearly three months.
And the cycle of negative thought continues. This is very interesting to me, because my business is in what stops people and what motivates people. Actually, I’m interested in what has stopped people and what they can do to turn their lives around, be motivated, create results, and move forward. Obviously for the past three months I have been stopped in posting my blogs. I’ve been stopped. I’ve let myself be stopped by life’s challenges. I am a failure in the very thing I am trying to teach others. No blogs for nearly three months.
And then I started to get down on myself. Some ancient, deeply seeded identities I have in my mind, in my subconscious, in my past, began to surface, to remind me that what I’m doing is pointless, useless and simply not worth my time. I have to admit that amidst other challenges I was distracted from at the time, that I bought into that nonsense for a while. For a time I actually bought into that negative thinking and reverted to what pays my bills instead. My dream was on hold. Despair. Uselessness. No blogs for nearly three months.
So in the aftermath of some of those personal challenges, and in the midst of some others, I’ve woken up in a sense. I’ve decided to no longer give into those pesky, denying, negative influences in my mind. I’m going to pick up my blog again and move forward as I had decided to do in the beginning. “This time things will be different” I said. “I am reevaluating myself and my journey”. “I am going forward with my intentions, my intentions are clear and my blog is going to work from now on”….I said. No blogs for nearly three months.
And then today I put all of that behind me: All of that negativity, all of that bullshit, all of those questioning, doubting thoughts behind me, and I simply sat down to write. No blogs for nearly three months. Great. So what? Now I am going forward. I am posting a blog now, because there have been no blogs for nearly three months. No big deal.
So what I decided to write when I finally decided to continue my blog is what you have read here. I’ve gone through a number of mental gymnastics in the past few months in reestablishing this blog. I think the key takeaway from this article is that your past does not impact your future, but what you do in the present is most important. For example, I started this blog some months ago. I fell off. Now I am back. Now I am blogging again. That is what is important. The fact that I failed to post blogs for nearly three months is irrelevant. What matters most is what happens today.
What matters most is what happens today. Today is the day you are gifted to accomplish whatever it is you want to accomplish today. Today. Every day. Really. Really think about that for a moment. Every day you live is a gift, and how you live it is how you receive it. It isn’t about what you receive, what you have to deal with, what you are called to do. No blogs for nearly three months. Ugh.
Why no blogs for nearly three months? Easy. Because I did not write them. Once I decided to write a blog (this one), guess what? It got written. By me. Rather than ruminate and punish myself over not writing blogs, I made a shift and decided to write blogs and you know what? A blog got written. This blog got written. Right here, right now. Why? Because I said so, and because I decided to start writing again. It began with a decision.
What’s the take away here? Starting a new habit or a new practice isn’t always easy. We begin with an intention, we hit the ground running and things go well for a while, then life throws us a curve ball or we trip on something and faceplant. The new habit gets broken – but it doesn’t have to be. We sometimes decide at some point to give up – just temporarily!! We’ll get back to it tomorrow. Tomorrow. Tomorrow. Tomorrow. Next week. Next week. Next month. And before long, the habit truly is broken. The truth is, the habit wasn’t broken by the unexpected life circumstance that got in our way. It was broken by our decision to let it go, compounded by the repeated decision to keep letting it go. And then I think we start beating ourselves up over it, either consciously or unconsciously, which then ironically begins a new kind of habit of self scrutiny, born out of an old habit of self scrutiny or even self violence – maybe even a deeply buried habit of self hatred. A classic example of this is the enormous pile of failed promises that result from New Years Resolutions. The technique of saying “Tomorrow will be different from now on and forever” doesn’t always work. In fact it usually doesn’t.
The solution to this isn’t to ruminate on your wrongdoings. The solution isn’t analyzing yourself to death to figure what is wrong with you so that you then know what to do to make it right. The solution isn’t focused at all, in any way shape or form on the past. At all. Get this – the past does not exist. The only place in which the past exists is your own mind. The future doesn’t exist either. The future is simply what is coming from what is going on. The only thing that exists is what is going on right now. Oops wait, now it’s gone. Now is what exists. Nope, that’s gone now too. What are you thinking right now? What is going on right now? It’s already gone as soon as you notice it. Tricky shit, huh?
So the only thing that matters is what you do right now. In this moment. No, this one. No that moment’s gone now; focus on this moment. Now this one. Now this one. And so on and so forth. For me, coming full circle to realize this truth, again, is that the only thing that was able to pull me out of a self defeating pattern of beating myself up over skipping a simple blog post that ended up lasting 3 months….was to just sit down and write another blog post. And now, here I am, living moment to moment typing away at this keyboard, writing this blog post.
So there you are. No blogs for nearly three months? That is in my past. What now is (or what now was?): Here is a blog. I hope this message reaches you as it has reached me. I’ll look forward to my next blog. I hope you do too.