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Posts Tagged ‘habits’

How Curious

Posted in Writing, tagged , , , , , , on May 7, 2025| Leave a Comment »

“The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.”

— Carl Rogers, psychologist

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Photo by note thanun on Unsplash

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On Resurrecting Habits

Posted in Writing, tagged , , , , , , , on July 18, 2024| Leave a Comment »

A lot of my work relies on habit. Be it the day job, chores, calling the parental units, these daily posts or other creative work, I made space for everything in my week. When the time came, I’d do the thing. Easy and good, a puzzle with all the pieces in place.

The problem with a system like that? Change. When one of those pieces breaks, is lost, grows in size, or (running out of puzzle-related associations, but you get the idea) otherwise shifts in ways that alter the system, the associated habits can break too.

For a long time, my habit was to spend an hour or so writing with breakfast, then shift over to the day job. But when my work schedule changed, my dedicated writing time disappeared too. 

In sum: I’m not writing enough. Grr.

Time to get back to basics and rebuild my schedule. 

Step one? Remember that urgency isn’t everything. Make time for what’s important.

“Everything is habit-forming, so make sure what you do is what you want to be doing.”

— Wilt Chamberlain

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Photo by Elena Koycheva on Unsplash

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Habits: On Making and Breaking

Posted in Writing, tagged , , , , , , , on April 23, 2024| Leave a Comment »

Some habits are good, some not so much. How do you break a bad habit (just as a totally random example, like jumping straight into day job work instead of carving out a bit of time for creativity)? 

It’s National Poetry Month, so here’s a poem on the subject. And while I don’t necessarily agree with the slightly depressing penultimate line (“unhelped, alone”), I do think the larger message is a good one: if you made it, you can break it.

Habit

How shall I a habit break?

As you did that habit make.

As you gathered, you must lose;

As you yielded, now refuse.

Thread by thread the strands we twist,

Till they bind us, neck and wrist;

Thread by thread the patient hand

Must untwine, ere free we stad;

As we builded, stone by stone,

We must toil unhelped, alone,

Till the wall is overthrown.

— John Boyle O’Reilly

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Photo by K. Mitch Hodge on Unsplash

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Queen of Meh

Posted in Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , on October 8, 2021| Leave a Comment »

I’m bouncing from project to project again, doing some work work and some practice work. I’ve also started about half a dozen posts but nothing feels right, because none of them said what I was really thinking, which is that today I am the Queen of Meh.

This is not to say that things are not a-ok, I’d just prefer to be making more progress.

Mood: pretty groovy, thanks for asking.

Fine, let’s roll with it.

I did nothing amazing today but do things I did. The project I had the most fun with was practicing photo compositing. Here’s a chimera that is not very good but I like anyway: Behold, the Winged Buffabear!

Original photos by Steven Cordes and Mathew Schwartz on Unsplash,
daguerreotype overlay from Spoon Graphics

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I think I’ll try to follow this advice by Christine Carter, and my own, and aim low:

The 1-minute secret to forming a new habit

Here’s why we need to be willing to be bad: being good requires that our effort and our motivation be in proportion to each other. The harder something is for us to do, the more motivation we need to do that thing. And you might have noticed, but motivation isn’t something that we can always muster on command….

The goal, remember, is repetition, not high achievement. So let yourself be mediocre at whatever you’re trying to do, but be mediocre every day. 

— Christine Carter

That I can do!

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Look at all those minutes!
Photo by Alexander Schimmeck on Unsplash

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