Here we are already… Day 10 of Natalie’s 10 Day Freedom Plan Blog Challenge. And I’m stoked!
Not that it’s the final day. No. I’m stoked that I’m actually sad that it’s the final day!
I thought I would get to the end of this challenge and be glad that it’s over. I thought I’d be grateful for the push and accountability. Happy that I put new content on the blog and proud of myself for pushing through.
And while I am glad for all that stuff.
I’m also freaking out. (I’m rolling my eyes here. I can be so dramatic sometimes!)
How on earth am I going to keep this momentum going? Who am I going to be accountable to if I don’t have to have the link to my post up within 24 hours? Who’s going to tell me exactly what I need to write about each day!?!
Enough of the stressing. Here’s my roundup of the challenge and what I’ve got out of it…
Structure
What I have enjoyed most about this challenge is having a structured plan to work to. My biggest hurdle to date has been that I have so many ideas and topics flying around in my head that I just don’t know where to start. This challenge laid out some very simple questions, but answering them could be done in a myriad of different ways. So while the questions narrowed my focus, they didn’t narrow my creativity in answering them.
Clay pots
My favourite day is also one where I got the biggest takeaway. Where I think I had a bit of a knock to the head. I do mean, figuratively of course; but it felt so real and confronting that, for a while there, I was expecting a bump to start growing on my head.
On Day 7 we talked about ‘Imperfect Action’ and I shared the excerpt from ‘Art and Fear’ about the ceramics teacher. The lesson was about just churning out the work. No, it’s not going to be perfect. It never is for beginners. But keep churning out the work because THAT is the way to improve the quality of your work. Just keep producing.
That’s me and writing.
The Next Step…
This is the part where I’m freaking out… as mentioned above.
But I’m not going to let myself go into a spiral of overwhelm, stress, perfectionism and procrastination. For one, we’ve already been down this track! (See Day 7 for that reminder). And two, I’ve overcome that situation. I’ve seen the light, learnt from it, and I’m moving on.
My solution back then is the same as I’m gonna say now:
Write 200 words. Every. Day.
It’s kinda ridiculous how quick it is to write 200 words. And I rarely ever stop there; I keep going and before I know it I’ve knocked out 1,000 words without even remembering that I was gonna stress about it. 😛
I’m not gonna lie though, I am pretty nervous now that the challenge has ended. Nervous that I’ll lose my focus and not be able to reign in my thoughts without these clear guidelines to work to. So the second part of my ‘next step’, is that I’m going to write out the headings for my next month of blog posts. I’ll write them out as questions that I need to answer; much like how Natalie posed the questions for this challenge.
So I feel like NOW is the beginning of this blog. Everything prior to this was just a pre-cursor of what is to come.
Watch this space.
No Comment