Consistency: or the appearance of consistency
I wrote a couple of weeks ago about goals for the new year, and even hinted at sharing them. A couple of weeks later, I have decided that I do not want to set any goals for 2023. How’s that for a plot twist!
Instead I have decided that I would have a word for the year - and that word is consistency. I like the feel of having a word instead of a goal. It allows both accountability and flexibility. It also guards against setting arbitrary goals, many of which would likely end up on the unaccomplished pile, which can lead to all sorts of bad feelings.
Take running for instance. In 2018 I aimed for and (barely) ran 1,000km in a year. Since completing that goal, how many times have I done it since? None. How many times have I had it as a goal? You better believe I have it every year. Has this made me feel good about my running? Absolutely not. By reframing this as ‘I will try and run consistently’, all the pressure is immediately off in 2023. The upshot? I am running most days already and am enjoying myself again. This is not a new or novel concept yet it is paying dividends.
The goal, or more specifically the rigidity and achievability of the goal, was not setting me up for any success.
Speaking of rigidity…
I aim to write a new post each week, and so far this has happened on Saturday mornings. This morning (for it is Saturday in the future), I sat down to write at my usual time - consistency, or so it seemed.
But!
Last night I was at a gig and didn’t get in until nearly midnight (I average a bedtime of around 9:32pm), so was feeling pretty tired and not very coherent when I sat to write. The result? Absolute trash. I am prone to hyperbole but it was seriously some of the worst stuff I’ve written since I learned the alphabet. But dammit, I had written it in my writing window! That had served me so well this far, surely it would be ok to send this out into the universe?
You must be having a laugh mate.
So here I am, sat not only typing at 7.55pm, but also sitting with it being fine that I didn’t send out something this morning. I absolutely know that this post is all the better for it (which is a scary indicator of just how pungent draft one was). And also, I am all the better for it. No raking myself over coals, no negative self talk. Just me, sitting down and writing when it suited me better. I labour the point somewhat that this should not be new yet somehow, doing things on my own terms still remains so.
I’ve also been thinking a lot about sincerity, since a friend shared a link to a 2015 essay by Andrew Bailes entitled Practicing Sincerity in the Creative Process. Although I do not think of myself as a creative person per se (am I being insincere even saying this?), this essay lit something of a fuse inside of me for a number of reasons. I think this deserves something of a bigger post/response, so I will telegraph now that next week will be about sincerity, identity, self-deprecation and tall poppy syndrome.
Maybe sincerity can join consistency as my word(s) for 2023. However, it is now 9:07pm and I should really wrap this up (I have not been sat at my laptop all this time). Not the meatiest of posts this week, but I am consistent. And sincere? I hope so.
Onwards,
Richard
Thank you for reading - if you haven’t signed up, you can get these posts each week for free just by typing your email in the box below. I also wanted to say thank you to the people who sent me nice feedback on last week’s post. I appreciate you all.
