I fell off the blogging bandwagon just as everyone else was hopping onto it. 

It’s not what I had planned. In fact, it was the opposite of what I had planned.

In the lead up to the New Year, I had been super focused on personal and professional goal-setting. I’d created lists of goals and carefully categorised them into colour-coded cards on Trello, each with an attached timeframe. Yes, that may make me the worst kind of nerd, but this optimistic nerd was ready to fully embrace the type of January society has set us up to aim towards. The month was going to be full of exercise, new hobbies, courses, and daily word counts for writing.

It had been way too much. 

I took a couple of weeks off work around Christmas, and, with it, something in the back of my mind said “nope” to my poor, deserted Trello board. I found myself mostly retreating from the online world into a hibernation of sorts. All my goals disappeared to the back of my mind. I only wanted to focus on real-life connections and rest.

So, you could say I had a somewhat “anti-January January”, with no goals, no resolutions, no “new year, new me”. I took things slowly; perhaps we’re meant to take things slowly in January. I used the time to rejuvenate. 

I know that I need balance, though I’ve always been pretty bad at consciously implementing it. It’s always left to some inner part of myself to say “nope” when I swing too far into goal-mode. 

At the risk of further upsetting my Trello board, I am going to resolve to be more conscious about balance and more flexible with my goals. I want to push myself, but not at the risk of losing a sense of enjoyment in what I’m doing or burning out. For blogging, that means I’m still going to aim for a weekly habit but won’t push myself beyond measure if I need to miss a week here and there.

And maybe next year, I’ll purposefully embark on an anti-January January. 🙂