Back on the horse

I fell out of the rhythm of writing blog posts. I moved house, gained a lot more responsibility at work, was handling my DECRA application, and started lecturing first-year chemistry. I never got into a new weekly routine. My running habit also suffered, with me making excuses that I hadn’t found the ‘right’ route. Staying in bed with my cat and partner won over getting up and pounding the pavement.

But habits are hard to form in their final state. If I go whole hog and try to have a well oiled routine overnight, then all of those unforeseen obstacles will become easy excuses to make, and the routine can be called a failure. So this is my declaration of starting afresh. I am going to commit to something achievable: one 30 minute writing session per week, and three 5 km walks per week.¹ These goals are achievable, and the intention is that the one weekly writing session becomes longer or more frequent, and that the walks becomes runs. I considered saying I’d commit to just one run, but realise that I would likely only do that one run.²

Once these two activities have found their way into my weekly routine, I will choose other activities to add. Writing is good practice, but also an opportunity to clarify my thoughts and assess how things are going. Running (or walking) is good physical exercise, but also provides an almost meditative time with my thoughts³ as well as practising discipline.

This post served as a form of ‘easy’ writing, a way to help my back into the habit. Just writing this has generated several ideas for future posts, so stay tuned.