I’m starting a blog! I know - it feels very early ‘00s. I’m only 20 years late to the party. That’s ok - that’s about how long it took me to embrace leggings too.
What is my blog going to be about? That is a great question, and it’s one that I feel like I should have an answer to. But I do not have a specific topic, area of focus, or even plan for this blog. And that is intentional.
I was recently reading James Clear’s book, Atomic Habits, which was published in 2018 and I’m now reading it for the first time in 2024 (see above re timeliness). He makes a distinction between motion and action. Motion is doing things, being busy, making a plan. I envision it as sort of hovering near your goal but not… quite… actually doing the thing you set out to do.
Action, on the other hand, is doing the thing. If your goal is to start running, motion would be looking into local running clubs, researching the best sneakers, signing up for a 5K. Action would be lacing up whatever shoes you already own and heading out the door.
I am not prone to idleness. But I am ABSOLUTELY prone to being in motion and staying there for longer than serves me. I love to plan. There is a part of me - the part that feels VERY comfortable in a state of motion/deliberative non-action - that says in order to start a blog I should have a schedule for releasing my blog entries, and perhaps there should be 52 of them (one for each week), and I should go ahead and make a list of the topics I plan to blog about each week for the next year.
That feels exhausting.
How does sitting down to write my first blog entry feel? Surprisingly, it feels easy. I don’t know what time I sat down to write, but I know that I saw the old man who walks his dog every evening go whistling down the street, and now he is heading back home.
So I took action in the span of a dog walk.
We will see. We will see what this blog turns into. I will test James Clear’s thesis that action is more conducive to habit formation than motion. That by actually doing the thing I set out to do, I am creating some muscle memory in these fingers typing away. That the next time I sit down to write a blog entry it will feel even easier, and a little bit more routine.
With gratitude,
Natalie
Fabulous logic I understand. Keep blogging.
I also have Atomic Habits on my bookshelf & haven't read it yet. :) Great post & look forward to following along!
I, too, am prone to being in motion and staying there for longer than serves me. I resonate with this post deeply! Can't wait to read more.
I'm looking forward to reading more. You are clearly a natural writer. Yay! -Wendy
You're off to a good start! (Do you have a goal of adding posts on a specific regular basis? Or just when the keyboard is in front of you and the spirit is willing?) And yes, there are a lot of things I could measure by the coming and going of Morgan and his dog! :>)