As I close in on the end of a year of daily writing and a goal of writing 100,000 words in the process, I’m beginning to take stock of the things I’ve learned.
I’m not certain that every day that I write in this final month will include a takeaway, but I’m confident that many of them will, and today is one of those. So, takeaway numero uno from a year of writing every single day (so far):
Progress happens in different ways and at different speeds, but progress is progress.
I’d have to look back at all my writing stats, but I’m sure the word count between my longest post and shortest post is pretty significant. Some days I wrote a lot, and other days I wrote a little, but every day that I wrote moved me forward.
Our paces are dynamic, which simply means that the speed at which we do things changes, and often due to variables that we can’t control or stop. An older person is never going to run as fast as a younger person, but both of them can move. Seasons of celebration tend to move much too fast (“Wait, you’re already graduating?? When did that happen?”) while seasons of desolation seems to crawl along (“Oh, God, when will this pain end?”). One tends to provide energy and the other seems to drain it, and if we measure progress by how much we can get done or how fast we can do it, we’re never going to feel like we’re getting anywhere in the harder times.
But we can always choose to take a step forward, even if that progress is the actual choice to move forward that empowers us to actually move.
So, my advice to you after spending (almost) an entire year moving forward? Just move, and give yourself the freedom to celebrate the motion even more than the range of motion.
