2012 will be the year I...

Hmmmm. Is it my imagination or are these questions starting to sound repetitive? Or is it my answers that are repetitive? I've written about my aspirations to pay off debt, plan more activities with my hubby, conquer my fear and get back on my bike, improve my diet, enjoy my new role as grandmother, reconcile with my brother, plan for retirement, and widen my local circle of friends. I feel tapped out on goals! Plus I have a fear that, just as with a long daily "to-do list," if I have too many goals, I'll end up unable to focus and will attain none of them.

So let me just say this. It’s my goal in 2012 not to worry about these prompts! There’s been a whiny little voice in my head lately that nags, “You’re a week behind on your blog” or “You left those two unanswered prompts last month,” etc., etc. You get the picture. To that voice, I’d like to say, “Knock it off!”

There are so many positive qualities to my blog. I love the insight it provides into problems and events in my life. It helps me to flesh out and develop how I really feel about issues and situations. Not to mention that it’s a great creative outlet that allows me to practice writing without having to come up with my own topic every day. But here’s the rub: writing in my blog can take a lot of time and energy, and thus can easily turn from a passion into an obsession for me. And if that should happen, it will tragically lose all sense of joy.

So here’s the short list I’ve come up with to prevent that from occurring:

·    Return to my initial practice of strictly spending 10-15 minutes a day on the prompts.

·    Realize that everyone gets writer’s block from time to time, and there will be prompts that don’t inspire me or that just plain don’t evoke any significant thoughts or ponderings.

·    Likewise there will be prompts that I’d love to write about but that aren’t presented. As these come to mind, keep a list, pull them out and choose one when the given prompts seem repetitive or unmotivating.

·    Remember that it’s an exercise meant to be fun! I control the blog, it doesn’t control me!