I spent some time just now Googling: “Does Seth Godin blog on holidays?”. (Un)fortunately for me, there weren’t really any results, at least not any that would allow me to write myself a permission slip to take today (Canada Day, here in Canada) off from my daily writing practice.
Of course, I don’t really need a permission slip – this is my habit, which I’m establishing for my benefit, which affects almost nobody besides me. I could stop whenever I wanted to! I could never write another blog post after today! I could throw in the towel on the whole thing, and almost nobody besides me would care.
But I would care. It would matter to me, and if I skipped it often enough, I would get back to the place I was when I decided to establish the habit in the first place: feeling like I was missing something in my life. It makes me wonder: why do I constantly want so badly to “get out of” the habits that I put in place for my own benefit? Meditating, writing, exercising: these are things that improve my wellbeing. Why are they always the first to go?
This reminds me of a blog post I wrote several years ago now: Who Are You Doing a Favour? Upon re-reading it just now, I realized a couple things:
1. I’ve been struggling with this for years, and probably will for years to come.
2. Some of the habits I mentioned in that post (like washing my face!) I no longer EVER try to “get out of”. They’re an established part of my routine and I never question them or skip a day.
It seems like the solution is to stick with habits long enough that they become a mundane part of your day that you never even think to question, let alone skip. So, here we are. It’s Monday, and this is my weekday blog post, holiday be damned.
