Decided to add a little twist to my Now page and track things on it I’ve successfully focused on.
Finally got my sermon for tomorrow night written. Just final tweaks left while I practice tomorrow afternoon.
Nothing like a phone call to a great friend to bring a bit of clarity to some sermon preparation.
My housemate just decided to put some old school music on. He started with Sing by Travis, a song which came out while I was doing my GCSE’s. I am officially old.
Five weeks into the year and I just finished my fourth book. Apparently I’m reading a lot at the moment.
I’m finding that iOS, or my iPad, is the best place to write for my site. Whether it’s a link post or longer, it’s way easier than my Mac.
My third generation Apple TV is turning in to my most used tv box, makes me wonder about the new ones…
I don’t like the idea of giving Google the ability to track all the things I do, but I have to admit, there’s something oddly cool and appealing about Google Now.
A darkened room, four bibles, a book, a notebook and Ulysses. That’s my evening. An hour or two of sermon preparation.
One Twelfth
We’ve done it. All of us. Good job everyone. We’ve made it through January and we’re into February.
I always find January a bit of an odd month, it’s full of the initial hopes and dreams of the year ahead, yet it’s a hard slog. We spend the first week getting back into the swing of things, the second week doing our utmost to get new patterns of behaviour, thinking and habits off the ground. The third week pushing through the struggles of motivation, or lack there of; and the final week looking towards pay day to give us a glimpse that the slog has been worth while; and then before we know it, we’re into February.
February always feels like a month of transition. The weather and days start to show glimpses of spring, the evenings get noticeably lighter and we start to look forward to summer. Those new habits we tried to establish in January either live or die. We either stick by them and they become established, or they whither and die while we slip into our old established ways. Admitting defeat we move on convinced we’re never going to accomplish what we want to this year, resigning ourselves to another year of nearly but not quite.
Let’s make this year different. We’re a twelfth of the way through the year, and there’s 11 more months to go. It’s never too late to establish new habits, or find the focus we need to move on and make the year live up to the hopes we had at the start of January. Change doesn’t happen in 4 weeks, it takes work and turning up everyday to make things happen. The 21 days that it takes to establish a habit has only just passed, keep turning up and those days will turn into 42 and a well established pattern of behaviour.
I write this post as encouragement to myself as much as to anyone who reads it. Don't give up, focus and push through. Turn up and do the work, you never know what you can achieve, I’ll leave you with the words of Chef Gusteau from the Pixar film Ratatouille
If you focus on what you left behind you will never see what lies ahead!