This blank page has stared back at me for the entire week. Posting has been getting harder and harder over the last month. The ideas have been more difficult to come up with and I seem to be deleting as much as I am writing.
I’ve been complaining that I have no idea what to post about and nothing seems good enough (let alone better than good enough). For months, sitting down in front of my computer with my notebook and a cup of coffee was something I looked forward to. Now, I’m avoiding it and at times wondering if I should take a week off.
Wanting to take a week off is a red flag for me that signals something is wrong. At this time last year, I would NEVER have dreamed of skipping. So, while I don’t feel like posting, I know it goes deeper than just needing one week away. A one week hiatus will not magically make me want to post again.
So, what changed? Well, I started thinking more about posting for the sake of accomplishing my goal than about why I made the goal in the first place. Without me noticing it, I let a goal get in the way of my purpose. I didn’t start the blog to prove I could post every week, I wrote the goal of posting every week so that I could start the blog. And, lately I’ve been more worried about my streak of posting, which has made it more difficult to come up with what to post.
I think most of us have experienced this. We have great intentions for why we start, but if we aren’t careful, we lose them along the way. We become blinded by the end goal and begin to live for the achievement rather than the purpose. We become bored, burnout, or overwhelmed not because we need a break, but because we need to realign with our purpose. Chasing an accomplishment or achievement will cause burnout, chasing our purpose will sustain us long-term.
In 2018, I hope we keep our purpose at the forefront and our goals as a supporting role. As we continue our goals and resolutions for this year, I hope we all remember why we started.
Why did you start?