Wednesday, July 18, 2018

Tortoise Practice

It seems I'm forever thinking of ideas that I don’t follow through on. That may not be entirely bad, as not all ideas warrant action. Still, I'd like to improve my idea selection process and do a better job of acting on my conscious choices.

I didn’t love the template I proposed for this blog in my last post. It didn’t feel comfortable for this space. I do like the idea of blogging, so I periodically decide to re-launch this one with high hopes, then fail to achieve lift-off.

Today, I'm humbly easing back in, with the image of a tortoise in my mind. Each January, I like to select a word to use as a theme for that year, and the year that I chose “Tortoise” was one of my most satisfying. I stuck with the theme all year. In fact, I would say the positive effects lingered well beyond that 12 months. It's a concept I continue to use to this day.

My ingrained tendency is to be more of a hare, operating in spasmodic bursts of energy, often immediately followed by exhaustion and/or overwhelm. Realistically, I may always be more hare than tortoise, but I have certainly found value in trying to balance those two qualities by encouraging my inner tortoise to make her way forward.

My hare sprints signal an unfortunate perfectionism/procrastination cycle which does not serve me or anyone else. It's all or nothing. When I'm in hare mode, if I'm not sure I can do something as well as I hope to, I don’t want to do it at all, so I put things off until there's not nearly enough time left to do it well. I guess it gives me an excuse. It also gives me insomnia—which is equally destructive to my creativity and productivity.

It's an unhealthy cycle that I'd like to break.

So...

This time, I'm NOT announcing that I'll be blogging every Monday or committing to a particular format. I’m going to let those details emerge (or not) over time. What I will do is simply state my intention to chip away at this whole perfectionism/procrastination thing, tortoise-style and imperfectly. Blogging may become a part of that process.

I’m gonna try some stuff. 
I’m gonna let go of some stuff.
I’m undoubtedly gonna forget some stuff. 
I’m gonna keep moving, no matter how slowly.
And I’m going to release the idea that everything has to be carefully polished before it can see the light of day.

I plan to nourish and encourage my inner tortoise and see what happens.

As a matter of fact, I've already taken a few recent tortoise steps: I joined Weight Watchers Online six weeks ago, and I've lost about 10 pounds, as a result. That qualifies as meaningful tortoise progress, in my book.

My mom was very much a Tortoise—in the best possible way. Tenacious and low-key, she got things done. She didn’t get hung up on being sure everything was perfect, and she rarely seemed overwhelmed by the size of the mountain in front of her or even what she did or didn’t know about climbing it. She just took a deep breath and started to climb. She accomplished so many amazing things as a result.

My tortoise mom is at the very top of my list of heroes. I miss her so much. I hope she knows how much I will always love and be inspired by her. I pray that her spirit is with me as I set out on the tortoise journey before me. 

Slowly, but surely. 🐢