A Moment in My Life – Friday, November 6, 2020
There is never a good time to begin a big project. Some times are better than others, but ultimately, you just have to pick a day and start. Otherwise, you never will. I know I’m preaching to the choir. This is probably my self-pep talk, but I’m sure I’m not alone, and many of you are nodding your heads along with me. Although, since the Pandemic, I think there are fewer of you than before spring because I know many of you did tackle your forever unthinkable projects like cleaning out your closets. I applaud each of you for having done that already. I would have been one of them right along with you, but alas, everything I do requires a large chunk of time, effort, and dedication, which kept me at the sidelines cheering you on instead of working alongside you.
While you chose to tackle your closets, I decided to begin my writing career, which I can humbly say that today marks 26 weeks of my living a writer’s life. I may not have the downsized closet to show off, but instead, I have, including this column, 85 pieces of completed works to show for it. If I were reading this about someone else’s accomplishment, I would be so impressed, but when I realize that this was my accomplishment, my mouth drops open, and I am speechless that I would accomplish this in my lifetime, but I am in awe that I did this in 26 weeks. Do you know what this means? This means that if I put my mind to it and set a course, and apply a massive amount of discipline, I can do anything.
That is a nice segway to my new plans. Now that I’ve launched my writing career and formed a good solid writing habit, I am ready to tackle those other areas of my life that I put on the backburner while I was busy writing. November is national November writing month, aka NaNoWriMo, which is considered a writer’s holiday and is a big to-do in the writers’ world. It’s funny; usually, holidays mean taking the day off. This holiday, writers worldwide write, every day, to win the 50,000 words challenge by November 30, 12 a.m.
I was nervous juggling 2,000 words a day on a new novel with writing my daily column, but so far, so good, and today is day 6. This encourages me to add more habits to my day, and that’s when I decided that this month, I will tackle the other areas of my life, starting with my wellness, i.e., diet, exercise, sleep, and stress relief. With the time change, I caught up on sleep. I decided to take advantage of that by turning in earlier each night, and once I did that, my day went by smoothly, and task after task fell into place. I appreciate all the advice to get a good night’s sleep. It truly does make all the difference.
After a week of implementing my wellness habits, I am now ready to take on a big project like the closet. Initially, I was waiting for my wellness results before I tackle my clothes because that determined which piece of clothing stayed or got tossed. Now, I am approaching the project with the mindset that it’s never going to be the right time to address my clothes if I wait for me to be my ideal size. Instead, I need to just do it. Go through my clothes, decide who lives and who dies, and that’s the only way the project will get done. I may regret some of my choices, but that’s life. It needs to be done. Now feels like a golden opportunity to capitalize on cleaning out closets of the mind, body, and surroundings because the time change to fall back is as good a time as any to reset our lives.
