Habit Forming

August is typically a crazy moth for me. It's a time when work shifts into something even higher than super high gear. When days are long and full and to-do lists seem endless. It's a month where I struggle to find enough energy to keep up with social commitments or personal convictions. I may journal from time to time. I enjoy blogging. I like getting together with my friends and being part of a regular small group. But in August, all of the time for these things seems to dry up. None of it really ends up happening.

But I like my crazy job, I like the feeling of accomplishment I get as I push myself a little further, make sure my work this year is just a little better than last year. I'm weird, okay, and I like a challenge.

This year I decided to add an additional challenge. I challenged myself to blog every day for the month of August. Every day for a month. And not just any month, but the hardest month. The month when the odds of me getting out any blog post at all are something like...non-existent to none. And yet, somehow, I came pretty close to pulling it off. Look at my August archive. Aside from one day, that I took off on purpose (to spend one day completely free of modern "conveniences"), and one day when I just plain passed out (before I had a chance to even thinking about blogging), there is a post there every day. Thirty posts for the month of August. One post (nearly) each day.

And I realize that I really liked it. That I've weathered this August much better than usual. There have been moments of exhaustion, but they've been manageable. There have been emotional breakdowns (well, only one, actually) but much fewer than in recent years. I'm not prescribing blogging as a cure-all for any woes, but it has certainly helped keep me saner this past month. And I find myself feeling an itch to post everyday, even though my one-month deadline has come and gone. So I'll probably keep posting, maybe not on the weekends, but certainly close to something like everyday. Every week day, maybe. Definitely with more regularity than before.

They say it takes 21 days to form a habit. So now I guess I have a new one. And since I really am weird, and really do like a challenge, Keith and I have started setting the alarm at 5:45 a.m. to get up and go walking every morning at the butt-crack of dawn. Not sure yet if this will prove to be quite as addictive. But there are some definite benefits, so I'm going to try to keep up with it. At any rate, wish me luck.