It’s been nearly 3 full months of blogging every other week. I started off strong. I had a plan in place. Wednesdays and Saturdays were the days I worked on a blog post. Brainstorm, Draft, Edit, Proofread & Finalize. Two weeks between each post. I was on a roll. I felt good about it. But this month has knocked me off my horse.
And it’s not just blogging. My meal planning and prepping every week fell off. I started eating more sweets. Staying up later, sleeping in a little, then rushing. I stopped journaling. I stopped reading. I stopped listening to my regular podcasts. Everything just felt off.
But it’s ending. Mercury is out of retrograde. Daylight Savings has come. Spring is here. A new month is beginning. And while I don’t feel like writing this post, I’m doing it because I made a promise to myself that I would post every other week for the entire year. I’m not going to let myself down. I am going to power through.
I recently listened to a podcast by Kalyn Nicholson where she spoke about the Rule of Three. This basically means that instead of judging things individually, it is more beneficial to look at things in sets of threes. For instance, the example she uses is that she slept in today, which she would often beat herself up for in the past. But while using the Rule of Three, she looked at the past three days and saw that she had gotten up on time 2/3 days and been very productive, etc. So, that one day she slept in really isn’t the worst thing from this perspective. Take a minute and look at the past 3 days, or 3 weeks, or 3 months, or 3 years – the last 3 meals, 3 workouts, 3 business meetings. Or even extend it to the last 7 days, the last 4 weeks. Bottom line: Don’t judge your performance based on just one experience.
Another thing Kalyn mentioned that I found very profound was pertaining to change and the atmosphere. She mentions that we are all part of the earth, the air, etc. It takes the atmosphere 3 months to change seasons – why should we expect a big change any faster? If we are made up of that same atmosphere.
There is a saying that “the only constant is change.” You’re never standing still. You’re either moving forward or backwards; growing or shrinking; learning or losing; getting better or worse; healthier or sicker. Even the seasons are changing day-to-day – it’s just that those changes are miniscule, which is why it takes 3 months to change over to the next season.
So, we’ve just completed the first “season” of 2019. The first 3 months are over. This is a great time to reassess your goals. What’s working for you? What isn’t? What needs tweaking? What needs to be abandoned for something else? How can you work better, harder, smarter? What needs more of your attention? What needs less? How can you shift your focus?
Use the Rule of Three (or Four or Seven or Twelve!) and look back at these last three months and see what needs to be shifted or replaced for this next three-month season.
Raising LeBar 