#328. I Cut Myself Some Slack & It Wasn't A Big Deal
One of the many joys of celebrating anything in Wisconsin... brandy old fashioneds! Last week, I talked about how mornings are the most productive time of day.
However, the holidays catapulted me out of my normal routine.
I’ve slept in every day for the past week until at least 8 o’clock, one time until 10 am.In the past nine days, we’ve spent every night with friends and family. We’ve driven over 700 miles. We’ve eaten so much delicious crap. We drank brandy old fashioneds. It’s been really fun, but incredibly exhausting.
I’m so behind on the blog.
By "behind" I mean "not on the schedule I set for myself." Personally, I’m feeling really sad about it because this December, I gained a lot of momentum. More traffic! More comments! And now I fear if I take the day or two or three off, I’m going to watch all my hard work go down the tubes.But life, family, holidays were more important than writing for a few hours every day. So I took a deep breath and dialed it back.
I must admit, taking a break felt really good.
It wasn’t a big break or anything. I posted three days a week instead of six. It was just what my brain needed. And it felt good.I am probably the only person that cares or even noticed that I posted less. I mean, don’t we all have better things to do than tool around the Internet for the last few days of December?Even when I posted less, people still came to my website and read stuff. And even if they hadn’t, I realized that I am confident enough to not base my self worth on web traffic.It’s fine. I’m happy.
This last week was a really good lesson in learning to cut myself some slack.
Don't worry what other people think. Don’t get caught up in artificial deadlines I set for myself. Who am I writing for anyway? It’d be a bold faced lie if I said I wasn’t personally getting a ton out of Hey Eleanor. If I was mainly writing for other people, it sure would be hard to get out of bed every day.Next month, I am going to Australia and New Zealand for my slightly delayed honeymoon. We’ll be gone for 16 days. I will inevitably fall behind on the blog because, hey, I am on my honeymoon.But it’ll be okay. It’s just a blog. It’s not my real life. All I do here is write about real life.I'm looking forward to a January full of adventures, scary stuff, and hanging out with my husband. I will tell you all about it when I'm not busy SCUBA diving at the Great Barrier Reef, camping on the south island of New Zealand and probably paragliding or something over Milford Sound.I can't wait.
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So, speaking of blogging and travel, any advice on blogging from the road? How do other people travel and keep their websites going? Just curious.
PS Here's the craziest stuff I've done in the past year or so.