A Life Made Up of Days

Days made up of habits

I haven't posted for a few months so I obviously want this one to be exceptional, I have to prove something or make up for my silence with a profound piece of writing. Something to counter that niggly little sense of failure. Does this sound familiar? Well...this is simply me writing about my journey back to a nighttime routine, doing it because I want to write and because I have created space again. Doing it because I know there is nothing I can write that can counteract that sense of failure, I just have to call it a lie. Doing it despite it probably falling short of the profound piece in my imagination. Funny how our expectations of ourselves can be paralyzing? How often our self imposed standards stop us before we start.

Courage to start (again). Courage to show up. Courage to accept mediocrity sometimes (that was actually physically painful for me to type). But I want to get back on top of things, that takes consistency. And that means I am going to be posting, exceptionally or not, because over time this counts. The consistency of showing up, creating space, creating habits. This is how our lives are lived. What they are actually made of if we are honest, the things we do daily.

Creating Space
I know that creativity doesn't just happen, that getting to-do lists checked-off doesn't just happen. What wasn't so obvious to me is that it is not simply a question of willpower either. Sometimes enough willpower can be summoned to have a burst of productivity and sometimes it simply cannot. There are different and controversial theories for this, such as the Willpower Fallacy or Ego-depletion. I think it is a mixture of how we see ourselves and what we can do, our subconscious feelings and baggage towards the task we need the willpower for and our mental and physical health on a basic level (sleep, nutrition, hormones). Some of these things are easy to pinpoint and solve, others are nearly impossible. What I do know is that I cannot rely on willpower alone. I also know that not having the willpower to do everything I need to do does not make me a weak person...Repeat to self. I need to create space to get things done. I create the space with routine. Routine will carry me when I cannot summon the willpower to get me from the couch to the desk because I would be walking there out of habit anyway. The question then is, how do I make a routine? You show up, friend.
"...there is no such thing as a habit or priority that doesn't happen consistently. Create a ritual. Choose an ordinary place to become sacred- ordinary Holy ground." Tyler Staton in his book "Praying Like Monks, Living Like Fools". He is talking about prayer but he says it well. You keep showing up.

Showing Up
We need to take the pressure off, otherwise there is a part of us that will either rebel or lose motivation. Especially if we know we can't show up the way we want to. After having my daughter I managed to keep a routine for a while and it was so good for me, but then I lost it. Evenings were a mess and the lack of predictability makes routine difficult. This is totally OK, it is just not sustainable. Finally there was a predictable rhythm in our house. A similar bedtime for the three year old and the baby. Insert happy dance. Space to breathe. Of course, I then used the time before I went to bed to do numerous things that neither helped me really rest nor helped with the constant uncomfortable feeling of never being on top of things. This is totally OK too, but at some stage I knew I needed to get back into routine. I was still generally pretty tired and often at the border of my capacity. So I made some ground rules to take the pressure off:
I simply had to show up at my desk and stay there for thirty minutes.
I had to have a list of possible, easy to access options (breath-work, plan the week, read the bible, pray, journal,write to-do lists, do things on those lists, blog, simply sit).
It is totally fine to only do one of those things.
It looks like this: I sat at my desk today, simply breathing. Look at me go! I did one thing on my to-do list- replied to one message. Killing it! I prayed for my friend. Insert more dancing.
Celebrate the showing up, it is enough. You are enough.

Grace and More Grace
Now, time for some honesty. I did not go from unstructured evenings that involved a lot of screen-time, to spending thirty minutes at my desk each night. It started off slow. Um, it started off at the dining room table because the first night I could not reach my desk due to a mountain of washing and other random objects barring the way.

I could have folded that washing right then but I didn't have the energy so I just took my journal and sat for thirty minutes at the dinner table, I wrote half a page. At some stage I mustered the energy to clean my desk, then the office. Until then I used the table. I also fell short many times, missing the goal of doing it every night. Two day weeks, then three day weeks and over time its mostly everyday. I simply refused to feel guilty about missing a night. Of course I wanted to do better, but guilt would not help me in that regard. Guilt won´t help you either. Your worth is not tied to your performance. You are so so loved. Start from there. Grace for yourself and then more grace. It takes courage to do that, to trust that over time you will continue to do better without bullying yourself into it. Courage to trust that you are enough, even when you slip up. You are enough, it is alright. Try again tomorrow.

That's it from me for today. We have the beautiful gift of shaping our days, using our time as well as we can. For whatever habit or rhythm or routine you are trying to establish, I wish you courage. Create space, show up and have grace with yourself. And then keep creating space, keep showing up and keep having grace with yourself. You are enough.