December 11, 2020 – The Twenty-Third Blog of the RestorationAge

I haven’t posted in two weeks. Maybe you’re aware, maybe not. The first missed Friday was the day after Thanksgiving. I was officially off work on Wednesday and Thursday that week, and by Friday had lost track of what day it was. More than that, because memory escapes me, I assume there was a turkey coma involved. Despite not being able to travel and spend time with family, Thanksgiving was a lovely day. I saw all of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade and I got to ride my bike (on the trainer) – two things that don’t normally happen on that day. The kids were both home and we were able to sit outside on the back deck and share a drink and conversation. And we were all here to pick out a tree and decorate it, which hasn’t happened in over four years.

Last Friday I had a sub-par first draft written earlier in the week to post, but something happened. I don’t even remember. It was nothing spectacular, but I just literally FORGOT to rewrite the blog and post. The beer went in and the memory of the blog went out. In fact, it didn’t even register until Sunday afternoon that it hadn’t been done. I was amazed that I had just plain forgotten to do it.

Doesn’t it always happen like that? You have a habit of doing something regularly and it’s a good thing and then you forget to do it just once or twice and then not doing becomes the new habit. Not only that, but when you finally think about restarting and getting back at it, you’ve lost the mojo you had before. I swear, just thinking about writing a blog this week sent dust bunnies screaming across my brain. Whereas the blog seemed close at all times this summer, two solid weeks off made the creative process seem so far away. Sometimes taking a break is a good thing, it refreshes you until you are excited to start again, but when you just plain forget, the mojo goes with it.

This blog is not the only place where losing mojo has happened for me. I venture to say that for all people, if they fall off the good habit wagon for just a second, the struggle to get back on real. Personally, I’ve had it happen in exercising, in eating right; I’ve even had it happen in my weekly Friday morning calls to my mom. I’ve been doing it for years, but then I forgot to call for several weeks in a row and I didn’t even notice. But she did and mentioned it my sister, who of course mentioned it to me. I was convinced maybe I had missed one week, but upon reflection, realized it had truly been three weeks. Talk about feeling terrible. And now there is a reminder on my phone to call her until I develop that habit all over again.

Forgetting is okay. Falling off that wagon is forgivable. We’ve all done it. But not picking up those good habits again immediately and moving forward is not okay. Forgetting once or two times is not a good excuse to give up the habit altogether. If you were getting benefit out of any practice: going for a walk every day, cutting out things like sugar or coffee, meditating, writing a weekly blog, put aside any feelings of failure or laziness, stop being hard on yourself or too embarrassed to start again, put down your purse, and get at it. The only person you will disappoint for giving up is yourself (unless you have forgotten to call your mother on Friday mornings, too).

I’ve lost my mojo on so many things through the years that I think about where I would be now if I had just HTFU* and picked up where I dropped off. My advice to you and to myself is don’t give up. Good habits are gifts to yourself. Why wouldn’t we all want to shower ourselves with gifts every day? Living a purpose driven life full of positive habits can’t be bad, right?

What good habit do you conveniently forget about during the holiday season? Don’t do that this year. We usually give ourselves too much leeway during this time of year thinking that we’ll start again on January 1st, but don’t listen. Studies have shown that approximately 80% of New Year’s resolutions fail, Start again today, then the pressure of starting on January 1st is gone.

Okay, whew…first draft done. Own butt kicked. Back on the wagon. I promise not to forget to post this. And I won’t forget to post next week. I’m looking to expand or morph this blog in the next year. I don’t know how yet, but I have been putting some thought into it. You’ll be the first to know.

Until next week –

LLM

*HTFU = Harden The Fuck Up