Image description: Veganuary logo, which is the word “VEGANUARY” in block letters of a variety of fonts, and a little “v” up in the top right corner that looks like a heart.
I’ve blogged about Veganuary before, and in the six years since then the Veganuary web resources have just gotten better and better. If you want to take the January challenge, it’s certainly not too late to sign up. But you don’t have to sign up to gain access to all that the Veganuary website has to offer. It’s not just for vegans or even just for people who want to try it for the month of January. It’s really a wealth of resources for anyone with some curiosity.
Maybe you just want access to some recipes. The website has that, broken down into categories (breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks, and sweet treats). It gives you some tips for getting started. And it has a really great blog with more recipes, articles recommending great vegan books to read, how to survive Christmas or Diwali (bookmark for next year) as a vegan, and even a whole post about vegan bacon alternatives (for the UK — here in Canada I can vouch for Lightlife Smart Bacon).
If you sign up, which you can do for free, you will get a daily e-mail through Veganuary, a free cookbook, a nutritional checklist, and three meal plans — low calorie, medium calorie, and high calorie).
Veganuary is a non-profit, and they’re doing good work worth supporting. So there is of course an opportunity to donate to them. They make it easy to do, but it’s not a requirement.
Whether you want to try it or not, I recommend taking a look at the website and picking at least one recipe that looks good to you. There are lots of delicious-looking recipes and I would be shocked if even the most fervent omnivore didn’t find at least one thing that looks worth making.
As someone who struggles the most with missing eggs, I’m going to try the Tofu Benedict. What do you want to try?
I don’t love running or jogging. I’ve never felt naturally good at it, and without practice I don’t get good enough at it to start to enjoy it. It’s a self-fulfilling cycle of inactivity.
I have gone through spurts of jogging, a couple times a week for a couple months, usually with other folks to spur me along. Often, though, I don’t stick with group running. I like to chat more than run, and I can’t do both at the same time!
When I run also I can’t seem to concentrate on spoken audiobooks or podcasts. I used the app Run with Zombies for a season or two, but I stopped because I wasn’t compelled by the story and I didn’t have the energy to build the virtual world on the app.
What does seem to keep me moving is fast music played at top volume. This website advises me that for jogging I need 120-125 beats per minute and for running 140-145 beats per minute. (For the latter, I don’t think I’ll ever go that fast, but it’s nice to know.) Natalie wrote about working out with Lizzo, and I’m going to add her to my list.
Here are a few of my fave playlist songs that are about getting up and getting moving. Warning to non-mid-lifers: they are old.
Because We Can (Fatboy Slim). From the soundtrack Moulin Rouge, this song has simple lyrics that inspire me to keep moving: “because [I] can (can can)!”
I Like to Move It (Real 2 Real). Like the cancan song, the simple lyrics repeat as I run until I have no choice to believe them.
Momentum (Amy Mann). Another soundtrack song, from Magnolia, about moving despite (or perhaps because of) how one is feeling. I appreciate the song’s honesty.
The Distance (Cake). Like Momentum, for me this song is about dedication to the race, regardless of winning, losing, or anything else.
Get Up (Technotronic). Classic 80’s vibes. Pairs well with Gonna Make U Sweat (C&C Music Factory) and Let Your Backbone Slide (Maestro Fresh Wes).
Pump It (Black Eyed Peas). This song (or any of the remixes) make me feel cool, even when I am overheating.
Body Movin’ (Beastie Boys). 90s vibes. I normally spend this song trying to remember the lyrics, so I pay less attention to my own tiredness.
Perhaps it is better to run in silence and focus on my breathing and body feelings, but sometimes it’s too much fun to revisit these oldies while being blasted to distraction.
Of course you have noticed that there aren’t enough cis/trans women artists—so please suggest some for me that you love to run or move to in the comments!
Thanks to some combination of ADHD and personality, I often have trouble getting started on things. Whether it is starting a project in the first place or starting my work on it for the day, I find it really challenging to begin – no matter how much I want to do the thing.
This executive function ‘task initiation’ problem gets even more tangly if the thing I am trying to do feels important (to me or to someone else), if it involves many steps, or if the task is not clear.
Starting new habits often involves all of those things and the only way I have found to counter my inertia is by setting a limit – in time, task, or effort.
So, I agree that I am going to do just one task, or to work on the project for 10 minutes, or I am going to go gently.
And that can usually* help me find a way to get started.
If you are having trouble getting started with any habits you want to plan or develop, maybe setting a limit will help you, too.
Note: I’m NOT suggesting that having trouble getting started automatically means that you have ADHD/executive function issues. But, hey, you might as well borrow a technique from someone who has a lot of practice with the problem.
If you are having trouble getting started with your habit-related task for today – try setting a time limit or choosing a version of the task that feels accessible to you today.
If you are having trouble making a plan at all, try choosing a time limit and low-key task for this aspect of the plan. For example, you could say something like ‘I can’t set a plan for the whole month, that’s too big. I’m going to do 1 minute of meditation each day for the next 3 days and then reevaluate.‘
If you have repeatedly had trouble getting started, with your plan or with your habit tasks, the problem is not you – it’s a mismatch between your plan and your capacity. I’ll get into that in tomorrow’s post but in the meantime, please be kind to yourself about the whole thing.
And, of course, I have a gold star to offer you for your efforts today – no matter what they are.
Good luck out there!
*Not always, unfortunately, sometimes ADHD wins. I just have to be kind to myself about that and try again another time.
A small painting of a gold star with gold dots radiating out from it in all directions
I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m still processing 2022. 2023 can wait a bit longer!
2022 rocked me in more ways than I’m prepared to list. I truly don’t know how I would have survived without my friends and community care. Nonetheless, I managed to photograph some truly magical moments throughout the year.
I am deeply grateful for the many wonders I experienced in the midst of what sometimes felt like non-stop curveballs. Profound kindness; unexpected moments of connection; sunrises; sunsets; hammocking under a blanket of stars in the crisp spring air; listening to distant loons while falling asleep on the beach; and that time a beautiful yellow bird (a Philadelphia Vireo) landed so close he was practically on my head… I could go on and on.
This first collage of images are all from London, Ontario. Read on for stories and images descriptions.
1. After an intense thunderstorm, this tiny bright green frog slid along the zipper of my hammock before perching atop my black cooler bag in the dark of the night.
2. On a windy morning, I snapped this photo looking directly up at the blue sky from amidst a grove of trees at St. Peter’s Seminary. Four tree trunks stretch skyward, alongside multiple tree tops.
3. One morning when I was hammocking near Sanctuary London’s food forest, I woke up in time to witness this spectacular sunrise. I grabbed my camera, rushed out of my hammock, and started snapping photos.
I know that years of community tending have led to the robust food forest in the foreground of this image. A tall stadium light shows evidence of the baseball diamond which is mostly hidden behind the food forest. Large deciduous trees tower at the edges of the park.
The colours in this photo are simply magnificent! The bright sun had just risen above the lowest trees in the distance. Yellow streaks of light emanate closest to it, then orangey-pink, then a neon pink, and finally above the tallest trees the sky became awash in lavender.
4. A thick tree stump covered in bark rests in a garden bed of wood chips. Directly in front of it, a yellow-ish orange bird (a female Oriole) strides purposefully and swiftly. She appears to be in a rush to attend to some sort of very important business.
5. An adorable female house sparrow is looking directly ahead, pausing to check her surroundings as she searches for food. She is on the ground in the middle of a low lying juniper bush. Several sprigs of green clover are poking through the foliage in front of her. This photo brings back fond memories of watching house sparrows who were nesting about a foot away from my hammock for a few weeks during the summer.
6. I witnessed this final London image at Fanshawe Conservation Area as I looked out across the Thames River, through the silhouettes of deciduous leaves. It was early in the morning and the sun had risen halfway above the forest along the opposite shore. In this sunrise the gradient shifted subtly from yellow, to orange, and finally pink. The reflective water visible through the leaves sparkled vibrantly in contrast to the soft sky.
This collage is of images from the West end of Manitoulin Island.
7. Kagawong is a beautiful little municipality that I adore. I spent this fall in Kagawong and enjoyed a few peaceful days at this beautiful beach. Coniferous trees border the far end of the sandy beach as it curves to a nearby point in the water. In the fading sunset, the sky transitions from a soft yellow, through pink, and finally blue, before being mirrored in the still water.
8. A friend and I went kayaking in Pleasant Valley on Thanksgiving weekend. After watching a Great Blue Heron for a bit, it was fun to get a closer view. As it soared above us through the clear blue sky, I twisted in my kayak seat and snapped this photo seconds before it sailed over the brightly coloured autumn deciduous trees.
9. Misery Bay is the furthest I’ve been West on the island yet… going here this fall was very exciting. I had been hearing about it’s beauty since before I left London in August 2021. Misery Bay did not disappoint! And yes, I overdid it and had a massive symptom flare after. I should have turned around part way rather than doing the full “short” loop. I’ve decided that I need to find a super light portable chair for seated breaks throughout hikes; let me know if you’ve found something like this that works well. I also should have set up my hammock for a rest earlier than I did… lessons for next time. But damn it was an amazing adventure!
The solitary thin green stem is barely visible amidst a foreground of dry reedy brown stems. Yet the delicate violet hued bluebell stands out majestically atop it, in full bloom despite the late October chill. The ground in the background is dark bedrock with soft green moss covering large areas it. Bright sunlight adds sparkle throughout the photo.
This collage is of images from North Eastern Manitoulin and Islands.
10. Little Current is the biggest city on Manitoulin Island… it’s still tiny, but it has all the amenities within five kilometres, making it a delightfully bikeable and walkable community. On a sunny fall day I noticed a small plant with red berries growing out of the cement in the water at the edge of the harbour. Deep blue water stretches out into the distance where the Little Current swing bridge separates the water from the blue sky.
11. Sheguiandah (mentioned in One Way Bike Camping) is on the North Eastern end of Manitoulin. This bay photo taken about 5 minutes before sunrise is one of my favourites from the spring. The colours have a soft and gentle feel to them with a thin line of reddish orange fading to yellow before enveloping it in greyish blue. Mid photo the horizon line shows where the sky meets the calm sheet like water that mirrors it. On the right a silhouetted forest of trees stretch into the water, the gradual thinning of trees narrow and combine with their reflection in the water to form an arrow. Surrounding and paralleling the tree arrow is an arrow shaped cloud, which points directly at a small silhouetted duckling family mid photo. In the upper left corner of the sky is a soaring silhouetted seagull.
12. It doesn’t feel like Christmas for me without a snowy bike ride! In the midst of a symptom flare this year, my energy was low and I knew I couldn’t go far without harming my health. Lucky for me, there are picturesque spots like Goat Island within a few kilometres. Having beautiful places close by means that I can get out to enjoy nature more often than would otherwise be possible when chronic illness symptoms are flaring.
Several centimetres of fresh snow had recently fallen. But for a single set of tire tracks, the unplowed side road looked like a giant fluffy pillow. Several leafless deciduous trees could be seen to the left of the road, increasingly so in the distance. Bare ground revealed where had snow rolled down the steep hill. To the right, the serene snowy expanse was dotted with a handful of small, but inviting evergreen trees. In the distance, several clouds melded into a large mass; in contrast, the sky in the foreground was completely cloudless. The sun had begun to dip closer to the horizon, positioning the insistent light in just the right place to sneak through every tiny break in the clouds.
I didn’t notice them as I rode, but when I stopped to take in the view from Goat Island a large flock of birds took off from the tree above me. They danced collectively over the icy water before disappearing into the distance. I’m grateful for these moments of beauty and wonder in the midst of cold dark days.
I started this “Ask Fieldpoppy” feature last year, but haven’t written a column since June for various reasons (My mother died, I got covid, I got a new job — <vague handwaving at the world>). But here I am again, ready to answer all of your questions about movement and life and life in movement. Ask a question for next month in the comments!
Dear Fieldpoppy,
It’s the start of the year and people are making commitments and taking up challenges all over the place. But something is bugging me — how do we strike a balance between making commitments to yourself about things that matter and having that be a force for good in your life, without having it end up in a sad puddle of shame and self blame if you fail as we all occasionally do? I got into this conversation with a friend about how to motivate yourself with challenges — but how do you know when a thing isn’t the right sort of goal for a challenge– e.g., two date nights a week!–or that it’s not a good time in your life for challenges, sick kids and busy at work.
And — when is a challenge too small? I like the idea of scaling back but have a friend doing damp January. No drinking on weekdays. Another friend doing Veganuary on weekdays only. What do you think of this kinds of scaling back? I guffawed about damp January but maybe given where this person is that’s a huge challenge.
When is goal setting a meaningful thing?
Dear Goals,
The answer is buried in your question — “things that matter.” I believe that life is most meaningful (and survivable!) when we are in touch with the things that matter to us. Truly in touch that with the things that matter to each of us, individually.
Because January is so full of challenge this, resolution that, hashtag this, it can be easy to get swept along in commitments because other people are doing them, and they seem like a good idea. And most of the challenges that have flicked past me are hard to argue with in terms of their inherent goodness — I’m sure not going to suggest that going outside for 23 minutes every day or having a centring word to focus on is a bad idea. (In fact, I wrote a pretty impassioned post a little while ago about how the idea of having a drishti — focusing point — that helps us balance is as important in life as it is on the yoga mat).
BUT. To make any of these things meaningful — and to set yourself up for success – you need to know what “meaningful” means to you.
In my work as a coach, one of the most powerful foundations for clients is to really examine their own values, and to begin to connect it to a sense of purpose. What truly matters most to you? When do you feel most yourself, most in flow, most like you matter (even a little bit), most connected with a sense that your presence on this earth is a little bit sacred, has meaning beyond yourself, is truly alive? Go deep — what words are unique to YOU to describe that?
When you capture that, even a whiff of it — roll it around on your tongue. Find words or images that have meaning for you. And structure your challenges or commitments around that. Who do you most want to be? What version of you do you want to live into the most? What sense of yourself do you want to bring to your relationships, your work, your community, the quiet moments alone with your own head? How do you want to BE in your life? What commitments will help feed that?
One of the most memorable moments in my life was when a massage therapist said to me, on my 50th birthday— “you’re so strong — what are you going to do with that strength?” That’s what challenges should be about strength to give you the capacity to do things that matter.
For me, challenges aren’t about flawless completion (despite my reputation as a completist) — they are about creating a reflective experience of what it feels like to do that thing. What are you learning about yourself? What might you learn by “dampening” your relationship with booze or shifting your relationship with meat, just trying to be a bit more intentional? How do you incorporate that learning into your sense of self and how you make decisions?
I’m doing a few of the more external challenges, because I like to have a framework to structure my movement around. But my relationship with movement? What I make of it? That’s the real purpose. How does my body feel, in early January 2023? What makes me tired, what makes me feel alive, what is happening in my lungs and heart and guts? Riding my spin bike through fake Italia is a means to that understanding — not the purpose in and of itself.
Dear Fieldpoppy,
I need to let some shit go. Close the door. I’m struggling with the last push and the latch. How can I get there?
Dear Latched,
I feel the anguish here — and how hard you’re working to get here. So… take a breath for a moment. Drink a glass of water and sit down wherever you yoga or meditate or look outside at the sky. Imagine it’s two years from now, and you are free of this. Who are you? What are you doing? What is making you feel alive? What is making you laugh? Don’t define your future in relation to the latched door — not “I am free of this thing” — but what is fully present around this freedom? How are you relating to yourself? To other people? What colours are in your world and what air is in your lungs?
Don’t try to close the door — leave it open, it’s part of you. But move away from it and toward that future self. Give yourself a few habits and decisions that will help you feed the you of two years from now. Let the door get further behind you and matter less.
Big light to you, Latched. Happy new year.
Fieldpoppy is Cate Creede (she/they), who lives and works on the land we currently call Toronto, the traditional territory of many nations including the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishnabeg, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee and the Wendat peoples, and is covered by Treaty 13, signed with the Mississaugas of the Credit. Cate is a coach, auntie, educator, consultant and general thinker about relationships, meaning making and bodies. Here they are meditating on their own future six years ago almost to the day in Laos.
Awhile back Tracy and I were interviewed for a piece to appear in Chatelaine magazine about body positivity and midlife women. The article Where’s The Body Positivity Movement For Midlife Women? by Lisa Mesbur appeared today online. Lisa has lots of great things to say and not just the quotes from Tracy and me. You should definitely go read it!
Sadly though one reader of the blogger wasn’t happy with the ads she got served up along with the article. It’s kind of unbelievable. Now I know the ads are personalized to some extent. I don’t get these ads. My ads clearly don’t know I’m continuing my no shopping commitment. My ads are all Fluevogs!
But blog reader Kimberly got this mess of awful advertising which is about the opposite of midlife body positivity.
Argh! Whether it’s the magazine or the browser that’s serving up the ads, they certainly give you some idea of the challenges to body image in midlife.
UPDATE: My son looked at the article and he got a lot of ads for thyroid, aging, and weight gain!
New Year Challenges can be fun. Or at least that is what every single media outlet is trumpeting, from Self Magazine to the Tricycle Buddhist Review.
Cardio and strength challenge!Meditation challenge!
Honestly, I shouldn’t be complaining at all. Gone (at least from my media view) are the Do-100-Burpees-A-Day and Become-a-Contortionist-in-30-Days challenges. Or rather, they’re taking a backseat to what seem like more well-being and happiness-directed challenges. Not that there’s anything wrong with, say, doing a Plank Challenge. Sam wrote about hers here in 2020.
Things I like about it: It’s a short time commitment. I can do it while supper is cooking. I’ve got a yoga mat in the living room and I can do planks in my work clothes. The gradual increase in difficulty is good so far. I’m just at the beginner level. My view might change when I go up to moderate or advanced.
Cheddar, the ever-present and ever-loving golden retriever, helped, which I think made it even more fun. Click on this link for photos.
I’m doing some challenges this year, swept along by a) the general feeling of new-year-new-you-ness; b) an atmosphere in which friends and colleagues are doing challenges; and c) the more reasonable and relevant challenges that are out there now. Recall a recent post by Sam about some interesting new year challenges: Some New Year Challenges We Recommend.
Here are the ones I’ve signed up for so far:
223 workouts in 2023
Yoga with Adriene, Center, a 30-day challenge
The New York Times 7-Day Happiness Challenge
The Dalai Lama’s Guide to Happiness (on the Ten Percent Happier App)
Buy-Nothing-Until July 1 Challenge (with a few exclusions and some fine print)
I don’t list Meditation-Every-Day as a challenge this year because it’s now just something I do. It’s probably the most important contributor to my well-being and mental health, and it’s taken a while to get it locked into my day. But it’s there now. Having an app helps me keep on track (yes, everyone knows I use Ten Percent Happier. But But it’s really good and I love it…:-)
On to the reflections (and one complaint).
Last year I did the 222 workouts in 2022, and it was my hardest year for getting across the finish line. I had to to two workouts a day for the last ten days to make it. What happened?
Uh, I dunno. Wonderful image by Oyemike Princewill on Unsplash.
Rather than do a lot of post-game analysis, and in the spirit of new-year-newish-me, I’m starting again, with the new 2023 challenge. I’m resolving to pay more attention to my activity during the winter this year and see where things stand in April.
Yoga-with-Adriene’s 30-Day January Challenge has never actually worked out for me. I always get started– yes, I did day 1– and then speedily poop out. I’ve done days 1 and 2, but failed to do day 3. Today is day 4. I’m starting to think this challenge isn’t for me, which is to say that I’m not actually committed to doing it. That’s fine. But I’d like to make a decision one way or the other in the next day or so. Letting challenges fall by the wayside doesn’t feel great. Deciding to eschew them or replace them with something else (challenge-y or not) seems like a better idea.
Time for my challenge complaint. Just for fun, I signed up for the New York Times 7-day happiness challenge. It consists of taking a relationship quiz to see where your deficits are, and then following a week’s worth of tips for improving connection and the good feelings that come with it.
I took the quiz– a 10-question survey– and got my results. Not to brag, but I aced this one.
My results: I’m in tip-top social shape. Go me!
I kind of knew this already; my greatest resource is my strong connections to friends, family and community. I’m a phone person (that is, talking real-time with other people on their phones) and I do social and activity and cultural and creative things with others regularly. Not that I don’t have my problems, but this isn’t one of them.
And yet. After totally nailing this quiz, the Happiness Authorities are telling me to do EVEN MORE. They say this:
Even if it’s a bit outside your comfort zone, consider ways that you can be even more proactive in broadening your social universe and staying connected to people you value.
What?! But But I aced the relationships test! You are telling me I need to do better than tip-top? What’s beyond tip-top?
Climbing to a cloud above the tip-top is implausible and in this case ill-advised.
Maybe sometimes it’s okay not to do more, in particular when what you’ve done or are doing is good enough. Honestly, from taking the quiz, it seems to me as if I should cut back a bit from my socializing and being-in-touch schedule. The quiz people generated this graphic representation of me and my relationships. Frankly, it looks dizzying and scary.
Tiny Catherine in the middle of a psychedelic swirl of social patterns, closing in on me in tenacious concentric circles. Help.
For the record, I’ve followed the first three days: 1) take quiz– did I mention I killed it? 2) make an 8-minute phone call: done! I talk to at least 4 people a day on the phone just to chat; and 3) make small talk with people I don’t know as I go about my daily life: done! My good friends make fun of me for my habit and obvious enjoyment of talking to people I don’t know. What can I say? I’m a textbook extrovert.
The Dalai Lama 10-Day Happiness Challenge hasn’t started yet, but I’m looking forward to it. I’m guessing that it is more focused on cultivating moments of happiness and recognition of joy or beauty. That’s very different from chit-chatting on the phone. And, it’s something I’d like to work on, as it’ll help with mitigating anxiety, rumination and distraction– all issues for me. I’ll report back later.
Finally, I’m doing the Buy-Nothing Challenge, along with several FIFI bloggers. I followed in Sam’s footsteps starting last July, and it was great. I’m signing on for another half-year challenge, with the following special conditions: I can buy used clothing at my favorite consignment shop Wearovers when I bring some of my own clothing to consign. I can replace worn-out or wrong-size workout gear (e.g. I bought a new helmet to replace my very old one– a safety thing). I can buy clothing gifts for my family. Other than that, I’m good with what’s in my closet and dresser drawers.
It surprised me how much I liked this challenge. It’s a relief not to have to think about whether I really want some bright-patterned top that flits across my computer screen. I can look, which it turns out is still fun. In a way, it’s more fun, as I don’t have to worry about whether to buy anything. I’m not.
You, dear readers, will be hearing back from us as the year unfolds about our challenges: how they’re going, why we’ve kept them up or abandoned them, and what new challenges present themselves in 2023.
What are you doing, challenge-wise, this year? Are you taking a break from challenges? Are you aiming for heights above the tip-top? Let us know– we’d love to hear from you.
I woke up alone on Sunday morning (January 1st) for the first time since I was 19 years old. I had a lovely celebration with friends the night before and even in the days leading up. And the day of the 1st itself was rich and full—I wrote, I went to a three-hour 5Rhythms event, talked to a friend on zoom and had dinner with another friend. But it’s clear that this will be a very different year. How different and in what ways is still an unknown.
So, my word of the year (WOTY) is WELCOME.
Every year (as many of you do, no doubt, and many of us here at Fit Is a Feminist Issue) I choose a WOTY (here’s about last year). Sometimes the word is aspirational and other years it is a beacon. This year it is the latter—a lighthouse to indicate the shoals, when I fall out of alignment with its intent; and a north star to guide my speech, actions and spirit. Last year was a hard one and this year coming will be … well, January 1st is at its core, just another day, the next day following December 31. It is not a magic wand or a reset button. It is a continuation of what already is, with the added seasoning of a societally reinforced moment for self-reflection and taking stock. All of which means, this year will be hard, too. At least for a while. How I approach it is where I can make a difference.
Other contenders were words like resilience, grit, open and heart. None of those quite captured the full essence. Resilience and grit were too anchored in the challenge, too much about survival. Open and heart did not feel robust enough, like they were too easily crushed. Then Nicole proposed greet and my mind immediately jumped to welcome (Thank you for the prompt!). I can greet something with pleasure or dismay. I wanted a word that included the dismay, invited it in. I want to welcome the dismay, the grief, the fear, and all the everything hard and unpleasant. Just as much as I want to welcome the love, the heart, the kindness, the connection and all the everything pleasurable and joyful the year has in store. Welcome contains flow and ease, dynamism and stillness.
Good. That’s settled then.
As for my annual challenge (not a resolution!), I had some initial resistance to this staple in my new year habits. My being protested, “Just getting through the year will be a challenge! Isn’t that enough?” Yes. And an annual challenge will redirect some focus. I’m sticking with my habit. This year I’ll return to a challenge I undertook 5 years ago—to not shop for clothes, shoes, accessories for the year. I had an initial instinct to change the challenge a little from last time and allow myself vintage or second-time around shopping, but even in just thinking about it, I quickly realized that I appreciate the challenge not only for its environmental aspects (which Sam talks about so well here in her piece about how she’s continuing her no shopping challenge), but also for the mental hygiene, keeping my mind space clear of my tendency to crave a new piece of clothing. To wit, I almost didn’t take up the challenge, because I had this thought, “But I’ll need the pressure release and/or the solace of buying something new!”
Exactly.
This year I’ll work on welcoming the discomfort, instead of burying it under a new pair of pants and a fresh top.
When I coach writers, we always end up taking about inspiration and I always break out this quote from the author of Call of the Wild:
You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.
Jack London
Sure, inspiration plays a part in writing but you can’t depend on it to just show up when you need it. If you wait to be inspired, you may never make your way to the page.
The good news is that you don’t have to wait for inspiration. Instead, you can take London’s advice and go after it with a club.
Luckily, that rarely involves using an actual club.
‘Going after it with a club’ means creating good conditions for inspiration. That could involve just showing up and getting down to work or it might involve research or conversations with writerly friends or going for a walk or using writing prompts. Doing any or all of those things can help inspiration find it’s way to you.
And in fact, if you show up and get down to work, you will discover that you can write a lot of words without any inspiration at all. You may not keep all of them in the document later but they will get written and you will finish ideas occurring to you as you go.
So, you might ask, what does this have to do with motivating yourself to develop new habits for your well-being?
Ah, well, you can’t wait for inspiration or motivation on that either.
You have to go after that motivation with a club as well.
If you are still in planning mode, like me, it’s a good idea to schedule some time to think about what you want to do and how you might make that happen. Otherwise, you (and I!) could end up just winding our way through the next little while hoping we will just suddenly think of the perfect plan.
If you have your plan in place but you wait until you ‘feel like’ putting in the effort on any given day, you may find that you never feel like it. In this case, going after motivation with a club would probably look like picking a time to work on your habit and getting started at that time, whether you feel like it or not.
Now, to be clear, I’m not saying ‘push ahead with your plans no matter what.’
Sometimes we need rest, sometimes plans change, sometimes we need to let ideas cook before we can turn them into a plan.
But, most of the time we know the difference between those things and the times that we need to go after our motivation with a club.
And if you *can’t* tell the difference right now, try resting for a while and then pick up that metaphorical club for a few minutes. Hopefully trying both will give you a sense of which one you need more time with.
Wishing you ease and self-kindness today and always.
Here’s your gold star for your efforts. 💚
Image description: a drawing of three small gold stars hanging from the top of the drawing on black strings. The piece of paper is outlined in black at the edges and the background is white with small black dots. My initials and the year are in the bottom right corner.
Whether you are already working your plan, still formulating your plan, or if you are continuing with what’s already working, it’s important to celebrate every single thing you do that’s related to your plan.
This is one of the reasons that I give gold stars (like the one below) for efforts instead of for results.
When you are working on a plan or working toward a goal, the end is a long way off – in time or in effort. And while it is good to keep our eye on that prize, it can be disheartening to compare our current position to that far-off result.
If we do make that comparison, we can end up feeling like we are behind or like we are not working hard enough.
To combat that feeling, I’d like to remind us all to also take a good look at what we have done so far.
When we consciously choose to notice our efforts, it helps us to see that our day-to-day practices matter, that they are adding up to something.
It keeps us from focusing on any gap between what we hoped we could do and what was actually possible.
It reminds us that we are all out here doing the best we can with the resources we have.
Noticing our own hard work helps us to be kinder to ourselves as we develop new habits and maintain the systems we have in place.
A drawing of a small star made of triangles of different shades of yellow and gold. The background is composed of horizontal black lines at the bottom 1/5th and slanted black lines for the top 4/5ths of the drawing.
