Better

This morning I did not put my ass in the chair to write my morning pages, and I did not make it to barre class under the dubious excuse that I needed to write. Which I did not, in the end, accomplish, because I was caught up in endless small tasks around the house. (Read: got sucked into Twitter, Facebook, and endless small tasks.)

Whenever a day goes astray from the plans I had made, I sit down at the end of the day and reread my notes on my goals for the year, and my page in my journal that talks about my “one word”, which is “re-engage“.

And every night I promise myself that tomorrow I will do better.

That’s really my secondary word of the year: Better.

Because what it all comes down to, in terms of getting my life to move more in the direction I want is to simply do better at all the things on my list.

Be better at ignoring distractions. (This includes being better at using my Freedom app to block out online distractions.)
Be better at sticking to my schedule (or, heck, at working to find one that works).
Be better at prepping meals so that I don’t succumb to fast food or skipping lunch.
Be better at just putting my ass in the chair and words on the page instead of being afraid that it will all be crap. Be better at allowing myself the time for the things that seem less important (to others) but that are things I need to do for myself. (My writing books are staring at my accusingly.)
Be better at sticking to the lists I make.

Although, isn’t that the gist of nearly any resolution? We just want to be better – better at starting a new habit, better at sticking to our goals, better at self-care or care for others.

There is a section at the bottom of my planner that has room for making Notes and for writing a daily gratitude. I’ve in the past ignored the latter and used the former for scribbling things like phone numbers and addresses (no wonder I can never find them later) but I’ve started writing down what went wrong in the day – where I lost the plot – and what I should have done so that I can hopefully break the bad habits that pull me away from my goals.

I’m sure someone out there will tell me that writing down where I went wrong is not the way to go, so if you have a better idea, let me know.

This post was inspired by the Five Minute Friday flash writing prompt “Better”, where we write for five minutes, no stopping or editing allowed. I’m not much for rules so there might have been a bit of editing and I probably went over five minutes.
I don’t always link up because they are a lovely group of Christian writers and a swear a bit much, but they have wonderfully inspirational posts, so I invite you to go take a look for what are probably more motivational posts.