Every Day.

I knew that writing 500 words every day for 31 days would be a challenge, but I didn't expect it to feel so hard on Day 3. Yikes.

I keep thinking I need a list of topics to help me know what to write, but that's not true. I mean yes, I'm sure that's helpful, but it's not the reason I've been putting this off today. 2pm is not super late, but I was wanting to get this done before lunch and I ended up doing a bunch of other things before this that didn't really need to be done. Don't ask me how long I've been on Pinterest or Instagram.

The truth is it's hard to do things every day.

Whatever it is you are working towards, it's hard to do a little (or sometimes a lot) of it every single day. In my false reality, I think it would be easier to become a better writer, a better athlete, a better artist, a better ______________ , if only I could spend giant chunks of time on it. I think that if I wasn't homeschooling and had a few more hours to myself every day, THEN I would surely accomplish all the things on my list.

So not true.

I've had to fight off a lot of guilt this Christmas break. I've spent a lot of time on things just for me. Which isn't wrong to do in and of itself. And I'm not saying I've been wrong in it either (thus, fighting off guilt). But I am realizing that I am living my life a bit backwards from a lot of others and that I can't look at what they are doing to dictate what I ought to be doing. For people whose children are in a typical school setting, Christmas break is some of their only time to chill out, spend time with their kids, and go on adventures together. For me, it's some of the only time I get (besides parts of summer) to really do whatever I want. And I know this time is rapidly coming to a close.

But back to the every day idea. Doing things in large chunks of time is great. We often can get huge tasks finished and large jobs tackled in times where we can really dedicate ourselves for a longer period of time than we usually have. But from everything I've read and observed, the great artists became great because they work toward becoming better in their craft every day.

Sure, they take days off and go on vacations, but they don't wait to move until they have the large chunk of time to really make a dent. They use the ends of their hours, days, weeks, and months and fill it in with small progress. And that is hard to do. It's easy for a week, or a few days, but to march ahead knowing that to gain skill in your desired field will require lots of continual little baby steps, where progress will be slow and you might have little to show for it for an extremely long time... it's a little daunting.

I think that's why I am a bit crazy today, a bit paralyzed in my efforts. And I know it makes zero logical sense. Any progress is still progress. So, I'm still here. I'm writing. And I'm going to do my best to keep trusting that doing a little something every day, no matter how small, is still something worthwhile.