Better late than never?

When I started my writing streak in December of 2020, I also committed to publishing a blog post every week. I decided that Sunday would be the day I would post, and I did so for several months. But I was usually writing on Sunday nights after The Bearded One went to bed, and I was often clicking the “publish” button just minutes before midnight. And then one night I didn’t quite get it done by midnight, and ended up publishing just after midnight. I justified it by telling myself I hadn’t gone to bed yet, so it was still “Sunday night” for me. And then that happened a few more times. And then, last night, after a busy day that didn’t feel like a Sunday, I got my 15 minutes of writing in and went to bed. I woke up this morning and realized that I hadn’t published a blog post on Sunday, or even on “Sunday night”, and I got sad for letting myself down.

I thought about trying to write something to publish quick before I did anything else today since I was up before 5:30 this morning, but the reason I was up so early was because I had to run, feed the dog, shower/get ready, drop the dog off at doggy daycare, and make it to work (40-ish minutes away) by 8:00, and I didn’t want to be late on my second day at my new job. So I decided that I would take care of everything else I needed to get done today and then publish a post when I got home tonight.

So, here’s a late blog post about being late with a blog post. I may have let myself (and my regular readers, if they exist) down a little, but I could have let that disappointment color my whole day by continuing to beat myself up about it. I have goals that I want to reach, and I’m consistently working towards them most of the time. But sometimes I mess up–I make a bad choice, or I forget something, or I just don’t get something done when I intend to. And I could let negative self-talk invade my headspace about it. I know I’ve written about this before, but that used to be my norm. I would focus on my mistakes, which made me feel worse about myself, which led to a lot of wasted time and energy that could have been spent working on my goals.

Thanks to all of the self-improvement books I’ve read and work I’ve done in the last few years, I’ve learned to recognize when I’m starting to spiral into that negative cycle. I try to reframe my circumstances, remind myself that mistakes happen and that they don’t define me or my worth, and move on with my day. And then I continue to work towards what I want. In this case, I want to be a writer. I want to have a blog that’s worth reading, and I want to post regularly. When I first started this blog, I was still in that negative headspace. I posted weekly for about four months, then I missed a week and posted about every two weeks for a couple of months, and then I just stopped writing completely. For almost two years, I didn’t publish a single blog post because I was ashamed. Then I decided it was time to get over that–I started my writing streak, and now I’ve been posting pretty regularly for more than seven months. Yes, I justify posting a few minutes late sometimes, and this one is almost a whole day late. But now it’s almost done. Because I want to be a writer, and to be a writer I have to write. And even if I miss a self-imposed deadline sometimes, it doesn’t make me a valueless human. I write because I want to write, and I have a goal of posting regularly. But posting a little late sometimes is better than not posting at all. And just look at the sunrise I got to enjoy this morning during my run because I wasn’t beating myself up about having not published! As for having a blog that’s worth reading…well, I’m working on it…