First published January 18, 2021.
I didn’t publish anything in 2020. But I wrote more that year than ever before.
My goal for the year was to keep a journal every day. It was a hard year to start a habit. It was also a good year to have one.
How often I wrote
2020 had 366 days. I wrote on 357 of them.
The first half of the year was uneven. January was rough. February was a little better. From July through December, I didn’t miss a day.
Small things add up
When I printed my journal at the end of the year, it came to about 680 pages.
If I had set a goal to write 500 pages, I don’t think I would have done it. I only tracked one thing: did I write today? Some nights it was two sentences. Some nights I wrote at 1 or 2 in the morning. I just tried not to miss a day.
That’s the lesson I took from it. Large results usually come from small actions repeated over time.
The skill is to keep a big goal in mind without getting overwhelmed by how much work it will take. Keep the goal big and the daily step small.
Looking back on the year
On December 31, I wrote that I was ready to be done with 2020. Everyone was.
Then I remembered we said the same thing about 2019. We were sure 2020 would be better. So I asked myself why I was in such a hurry to live in the future.
As I wrote, I decided I needed to forgive the year. I had never forgiven a year before. Then I started listing what I was grateful for.
Gratitude doesn’t erase the hard parts. We still have to grieve what we lost. But it changes how you see them.
There was more to be grateful for than I expected. Gratitude made it easier to accept what was real and keep going.
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