#2 — If you fail, start again
I woke up this morning and opened my inbox as I do nearly every day of the year. (Why do we think it’s important to check our inbox every morning?). It was at that moment that I had a moment of anguish. UGH! I forgot to schedule the publishing of my newsletter. Issue #2 and I’ve already failed. I didn’t set the article to publish at 8 a.m. this morning because I’d not finished collecting all the little bits that go into the newsletter.
I’ve experienced this moment of anguish at least a hundred times just in the last month — maybe even in the last week.
- UGH! I forgot to start the laundry
- UGH! I forgot to unload the dishwasher
- UGH! I forgot to pick up cheese while I was at the grocery.
These tiny failures riddle my life. I imagine that you might relate. And, in reality, they are tiny failures. Not getting on the exercise bike is a tiny failure in my relationship with myself and it is that area of failure I experience more often than any other. I am, in the words of Gretchen Rubin, an obliger. I readily meet outer expectations but require external accountability to meet inner expectations. I have not yet established in my own accountability framework that I have subscribers (hello — and thank you!) and therefore I need to stay accountable to publishing this newsletter each Monday morning.
I then remembered that even when I fail, I don’t need to fail with abandon. First, chances are, you might not have even realized I’d failed. That said, my values include authenticity and integrity. I own and admit my own failures to myself and others. And, more importantly for me as an obliger, I’m constantly looking for ways to make myself more accountable to myself. So, as you experience those little failures this week, I hope you recognize that you also don’t need to fail with abandon. Just start again.
What I Published This Week
My regular publishing this week was overshadowed by the efforts to collaborate with my bestie Gayle on our Disney Cruise trip report. It’s not quite done yet but it’s been fun to relive this trip and try to mesh together our two writing styles and images into a coherent whole. We should be ready to start publishing the various posts from each day a little later this week.
Adapt a One Line A Day for your Life Timeline — iwannabemewhenigrowup.medium.com
I love the concept of a one line a day journal, but I’ve never really been great at keeping one. Then, the amazing Jill Metcalfe commented…
Come Learn With Me
Join me in the March 2022 cohort of Ship 30 for 30. Writing daily and beginning to publish daily is an important habit I want to redevelop. I’ve done it for as many as 400 days in a row and I want to get back to that level of commitment.
Learning is my #1 strength. I love to learn. To help develop my writing habit again, I’m going to go through Dickie Bush and Nicolas Cole’s Ship 30 for 30 again in March. This terrific course is one I’ve done a few times. I get new insights out of it each and every time I do it. Care to join me? Use this link and get $50 off.
The VERY BEST THING about Ship 30 for 30 has nothing to do with writing. The community around this course is incredible and it gets better with each and every cohort.
Diversion
I’ve been listening to the latest book by Bill Nye, The Science Guy. The book, Everything All At Once is a call to critical thinking and taking action on topics that you care about. I was not quite the right age to benefit directly from Nye’s science curriculum. That said, I’ve enjoyed digging into his videos and the curriculum lessons on his web site. I also really wish Disney would put all of the old Science Guy episodes on Disney+.
