Happy New Year!
2018 was honestly a great year, and I’m thoroughly excited to take on 2019.
To kick 2019 off, I’m going to do a month-long challenge. A few challenges, actually. I’ve done/attempted a few monthly challenges before (NaNoWriMo, primarily), but I realized most of those were a little closer to “Finish this in 30 days” as opposed to “Do this thing every single day for 30 days straight.”
This month, Praxis is giving us a challenge. Write a blog post every day. Doesn’t matter if it’s a dream you had last night, a book review, or three lines of ranting, just write and publish something every day.
On top of that, we have to read part of the book ‘The War of Art’ by Steven Pressfield every day until it’s finished.
Honestly, I’m actually really excited about this month. Writing is something I already do pretty well, but I’m curious to see how it evolves and how my ideas flow after doing this challenge.
Praxis talks about getting over our fear of shipping, meaning getting over our fear of publishing something on our blog for the world to see. Luckily for me, that’s not too much of a problem. I realized a long time ago that something was better than nothing, and that a lot of the stuff I originally thought was crappy was actually my most popular work.
However, one area I am still a little worried about is the weekly part of this challenge: submitting to a third party. Here is where the pressure increases for me. Yes, I publish things for the world to see all the time, but to submit it to one specific person/group of people to decide whether or not they want it on their website or blog is a little more nervewracking. Still, as I say on my homepage, sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do.
Another thing I know I have to work on is focusing on content creation. I can’t just have a personal journal on my blog for 30 days, I have to provide something valuable. For example, I don’t think this blog post is the most obvious source of value. I could have formatted it differently to create more value, and perhaps I’ll rewrite it in the future doing so. However, I’m keeping it like this for now mainly so I can gather all my thoughts and put them together. There are still nuggets of wisdom and value here, they’re just a little less obvious because they aren’t prefaced with titles like “Why You Should Do a 30 Day Challenge in 2019.”
Since I already have these two challenges given to me, I decided to add a third daily challenge for myself. I’ve been trying to work out more often, and I find I can do lots of simple but effective exercises while watching Netflix. I know it may sound odd, but watching Netflix while working out actually motivates me more. I see Netflix as more of a “lazy” thing to do, so I have to counter that with an active thing to do. It also gives me a chance to let my brain chill out at the end of the day.
I’m going to start working out for at least ten minutes every day, and I think doing all three daily challenges will help me stay on task and become part of my “daily routine” so to speak. You know, wake up, brush teeth, have coffee, write
All in all, I’m extremely excited for this month. If I don’t continue the daily blogging, reading, or exercising challenge after January, I’m still going to find something else to do for 30 days. However, I think it’s very likely I’ll continue at least one of January’s challenges.
Bring it on, 2019.