In the endless stream of stuff that comes at me in various news feeds, I recently saw an article about how, instead of making New Year's resolutions, you should choose just ONE WORD and basically use it as a mantra for the year, reminding you of whatever your other goals might be. Turns out this one word idea is A Thing (just google 'one word for the year') so clearly I'm not the only one who thinks it makes some sense.
The word that immediately came to my mind was "DO" - as in, I need to stop talking about all the things I need/want to do and just go do them (yes, like getting back to blogging - see, it's working already!). One issue I'm having is that it's hard to think "DO" without my mind expanding that to "Just Do It", and while I have nothing against Nike (especially after the Kaepernick ad campaign :-)), it's sort of annoying to think of a brand's ad slogan every time I am trying to motivate myself. And yet... I think this is what I need. There are so many things I have been saying forever that I 'should' do, from little things like getting a broken necklace fixed to bigger things like blogging more and re-learning Spanish. Now, when I think to myself, "OK, so DO that," I feel like I have to either make a specific plan to get it done, figure out what is stopping me so I can get past that, or decide I'm not going to do whatever it is but then also stop saying I should.
I should point out that I am not typically a procrastinator so if I'm putting off doing something, I tend to think it means something else is going on (that's what I mean by 'figure out what's stopping me so I can get past it'). Like, I have realized that I keep putting off writing for this blog because I don't feel like I can write the same sort of stuff I wrote about for the first several years of this blog's existence (i.e., teaching economics) but I feel like that's what people 'expect'. And I still worry about that. But it has also occurred to me that given I keep feeling like I "should" be writing more, and that I WANT to be writing more, my choices are A) continue saying "I should really blog more" but not actually do it, which doesn't help anyone and makes me feel bad about myself; B) stop blogging but also stop saying I should, which at least is consistent but also means I'm not doing something I actually want to do; C) shut down this blog and start blogging somewhere else, which would require figuring out what THAT blog should be and having to do a bunch of work to build a community of readers, which I could certainly do but it would be more of a pain; or D) just write what I want to write here, which could mean that a lot of people get annoyed with me and decide to stop reading / following / subscribing but then they also would not be any worse off than if I weren't writing here at all, and it's the least cost/highest benefit to me. So, the Pareto optimal outcome is obviously D and as a true economist, who am I to mess with that? :-)
So all of this has been a long-winded way of saying that I am planning to blog here more often. I'm not sure how much more often but at least now, every time I think to myself that I want to write, I will also try to tell myself to go DO.
Do you choose a word for the year? Or make specific New Year's resolutions? Would love to hear your plans in the comments...
The word that immediately came to my mind was "DO" - as in, I need to stop talking about all the things I need/want to do and just go do them (yes, like getting back to blogging - see, it's working already!). One issue I'm having is that it's hard to think "DO" without my mind expanding that to "Just Do It", and while I have nothing against Nike (especially after the Kaepernick ad campaign :-)), it's sort of annoying to think of a brand's ad slogan every time I am trying to motivate myself. And yet... I think this is what I need. There are so many things I have been saying forever that I 'should' do, from little things like getting a broken necklace fixed to bigger things like blogging more and re-learning Spanish. Now, when I think to myself, "OK, so DO that," I feel like I have to either make a specific plan to get it done, figure out what is stopping me so I can get past that, or decide I'm not going to do whatever it is but then also stop saying I should.
I should point out that I am not typically a procrastinator so if I'm putting off doing something, I tend to think it means something else is going on (that's what I mean by 'figure out what's stopping me so I can get past it'). Like, I have realized that I keep putting off writing for this blog because I don't feel like I can write the same sort of stuff I wrote about for the first several years of this blog's existence (i.e., teaching economics) but I feel like that's what people 'expect'. And I still worry about that. But it has also occurred to me that given I keep feeling like I "should" be writing more, and that I WANT to be writing more, my choices are A) continue saying "I should really blog more" but not actually do it, which doesn't help anyone and makes me feel bad about myself; B) stop blogging but also stop saying I should, which at least is consistent but also means I'm not doing something I actually want to do; C) shut down this blog and start blogging somewhere else, which would require figuring out what THAT blog should be and having to do a bunch of work to build a community of readers, which I could certainly do but it would be more of a pain; or D) just write what I want to write here, which could mean that a lot of people get annoyed with me and decide to stop reading / following / subscribing but then they also would not be any worse off than if I weren't writing here at all, and it's the least cost/highest benefit to me. So, the Pareto optimal outcome is obviously D and as a true economist, who am I to mess with that? :-)
So all of this has been a long-winded way of saying that I am planning to blog here more often. I'm not sure how much more often but at least now, every time I think to myself that I want to write, I will also try to tell myself to go DO.
Do you choose a word for the year? Or make specific New Year's resolutions? Would love to hear your plans in the comments...
Comments
Post a Comment
Comments that contribute to the discussion are always welcome! Please note that spammy comments whose only purpose seems to be to direct traffic to a commercial site will be deleted.