IT'S OVER!

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 It's over. Hallelujah, it. is. OVER!

I don't know what I'm more impressed by; my own consistency, the ingenuity it took to power this consistency or the lessons I learned throughout the experience. 

Chief among them? 

  • Getting out of my own way; The other way you could put this is learning how to embrace imperfection. I do not like publishing something until I am 100% confident in it. Unfortunately, I am rarely that confident in my work because I recognise that my standards change as I grow into a topic, and become immersed in its complexity. As a result, this makes me hesitant to start something because I know it won't be good enough for me. As I began to write consistently, I adopted a "fuck it" attitude to get me past the hurdle of publication, or the finality of completion. At some point (around Day 17), I learned that it wasn't so much about saying "fuck it" as it was dispensing with the idea of finality. Things are only final when I say they are, so why not allow myself the grace of reinterpretation and re-examination. 
  • Embracing all my creative efforts, even those whose outcomes I may disparage or be disappointed with. Creativity doesn't mean I'll always like the outcome. But it does mean that I will have something to work on and learn from.  
  • The importance of setting different kinds of goals; specifically means goals and ends goals. End goals are grand and vague. They challenge us to pursue happiness, seek peace or health or chase fulfilment. In order to achieve these goals, we set "means goal." These are the steps we need to take to achieve the end goal; scheduling leisure, journalling, exercising for 30 minutes a day or trying new hobbies are all examples of means goals for the aforementioned ends. 

When I began this exercise, I had confused my means for my ends. Writing every day was not an end, it was a means to an end. The end of getting comfortable with writing and writing frequently and learning to lower my own barrier to publication. When I realised that writing every day was a means to an end, I loosened the reigns a little bit and allowed myself to go with the flow; as it were. This freed me up to explore a variety of topics, as I tried each on for size. This enabled me to write posts that were, at times, three words full. Or a piece on one of my favourite Disney songs: "In Summer." 

  • The importance of dedicating some time in your day to allowing your mind to wander. Whether or not you catalogue your journey is up to you. 
Will I do this again?

Probably not for another month or two, as it is exhausting. Having said this, I am taking a bit of a writing break so that I build up my desire to write. In the final stretch of this challenge, I struggled to find the motivation to write which probably suggests that my brain could use a bit of a time out here.

I'm going to take my own advice here, and let my mind wander off screen and off page. 

See you in two weeks, and thank you for staying with me this month :) 

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