Imperfect Habits
Slow progress is better than no progress
January and February are always the hardest months of the year for me. It isn’t just the gloomy skies and intermittent snow storms, but something always seems to go wrong every winter.
Let’s take a look back at the past few, shall we?
Three winters ago, I was struggling through a bout of depression (in part due to an undiagnosed Vitamin D deficiency) and could barely get out of bed in the morning.
Two winters ago, I caught two colds in rapid succession and felt sick for practically three months.
Last winter, Ryan got rejected from a job that he really wanted, which threw us into a funk for a while.
And this winter, it’s all about car problems, baby!
As I write this, I’m days away from getting my BMW towed to a dealership 40 miles away so they can diagnose the mysterious electrical problem that the car has had since mid-January. I can’t WAIT to get that bill! (And then promptly turn around and sell the car to the first person who will buy it.)
I can’t remember a year when January was the turn-your-life-around, put-those-New-Years-resolutions-into-action month that pop culture makes it seem like it should be. The last thing I ever want to do in January is focus on self-improvement. Most years, I’m hunkered down, just trying to survive the winter.
But when we turned the calendar to 2024, I did want this year to feel like a fresh start. January was the first month I decided to put 100% of my energy into freelancing full-time. I had big plans for my career and my personal life, with Ryan and I being engaged and all.
I didn’t write down any resolutions, but if I had to sum up my goals for the year, they’d be something like:
Learn how to have a healthier relationship with work.
Build a consistent, attainable exercise routine.
Make time to cook healthy, delicious meals (which I already love to do; I just want to do it more).
Be more mindful of everyday experiences.
My year began with journaling, going to yoga classes, cooking lots of soup, making big business plans, scouting out new clients, and training myself to take more intentional breaks during the workday.
But by mid-January, the reality of Midwest winter set in. It got cold, like, real cold. The snow fell in heavy blankets. And then my car broke down … twice.
All the careful focus and attention I had spent on my goals was suddenly redirected toward dealing with the car. I had to arrange for two tow trucks to pick me up in freezing weather on separate occasions. And lately, I’ve been in frequent communication with my mechanic as he’s tried to diagnose my car’s head-scratching electrical problem.
In the meantime, I’ve tried my best to arrange alternate transportation in a small city with a less-than-great bus system. I’m also planning to buy a different car after I deal with whatever is going on with the BMW, so I’ve been shopping around online for waaaaay longer than I’d like lately.
All this vehicle crap is extremely draining. It’s left me feeling exhausted and anxious and has pushed me back into winter survival mode.
The goals I set for myself around New Year’s have taken a back seat to my more immediate problems. But I’ve been noticing lately that I’m approaching the stress of this season differently than I did when I was younger.
In the past, when life’s thrown me curveballs, I’ve been quick to abandon the things that matter to me and give into anxiety while I try to get a handle on whatever situation is actively making life worse.
But as I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized that that approach doesn’t make a whole of of sense. Things can only work themselves out so quickly, especially when the things I’m dealing with are medium- to long-term stressors.
And while I’ll do what I can when I can do it, I’ve learned that I can’t focus 100% of my mental energy toward anxiously worrying about how a problem will resolve. I don’t really know when or how this car saga will be over, but while it’s happening, the rest of my life will happen, too.
I’ve accepted that I don’t have the same mental and emotional capacity right now to work toward my goals that I did just about a month ago. But I’ve also learned that I don’t have to abandon them completely until things get better.
Instead, I’ve just slowed the pace of my progress. I try to journal every few days instead of every day now. The 30-day yoga challenge I picked up on YouTube in early January has become more of an whenever-I-can yoga challenge. On days when it’s hard to feed myself, I let myself get takeout or eat something easy from the freezer instead of forcing myself to cook.
And on the days when I completely fail to move the needle on any of my goals, I forgive myself. There’s always tomorrow. I can always try again.
Making perfect progress toward a goal is something you only read about in gloat-y LinkedIn posts and abridged versions of some famous person’s career. But reality is a lot less glamorous. Life just does what it wants sometimes. Shit gets in the way.
The important thing, though, is to never give up completely. When life gets hard, scaling things back is fine. Putting things on pause is fine. But abandoning a goal completely — one you really want to accomplish — is the ultimate setback.
Right now, I’m trying to build small, imperfect habits that I can work on every day in order to reach my goals. If that means it’ll take a little longer to get where I want to go, then so be it. I’d rather get there someday, far in the future, than not at all.
Readers, I just have to say — you are the best!!!
Last week, I took a big leap and shared my new Ko-Fi fundraising page. Already, FIVE of you decided that this newsletter was worth supporting with your dollar. I am SO honored.
Huge shoutout to my January supporters:
Dennis T.
KRW
Grandma Gin Gin
Tara Y.
Murphy Kaye
❤️❤️❤️
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Ughh, you're so not alone! I started this year with COVID and am still recovering. Every year it's something.