The First Thing to Go is Yours

There was no June Failure File.

Not for lack of material. June was full. I just kept pushing the writing itself, one day at a time.

I told myself I'd get to it tomorrow. Then the next day. Then the day after that.

One day slipped. No big deal. Two days. Still fine.

But small delays don't stay small. They stack. Quietly. Until one morning I looked up and June was gone, and the window to write about it had closed with it.

So here's the June Failure File, filed in July, about the failure of not writing the June Failure File.

That's failure number one. And it points at something bigger than a blog post. The small things are the easiest to put off, precisely because they're small. No deadline with teeth. No one waiting. No one to hold me accountable but me.

Which brings me to failure number two:

Earlier this year I signed up for a professional development course. Something for me. A way to keep sharpening the work I do for everyone else. And for the last few sessions, I haven't been there.

It's been a full season. Good problems, mostly. Real work, real clients, real momentum. But when the calendar got tight, that class was the first thing I let go. Not because it didn't matter. Because it was the one commitment with no one on the other end of it but me.

I think we like to believe we can do it all. Say yes to the growth, the work, the class, the blog, all of it, and keep every plate spinning. We can't. Something gives.

And more often than not, the thing that gives is the thing we were doing for ourselves.

That's the thread between both failures. The Failure File and the class were both promises I made to me. And I'm good at keeping promises to other people. I show up. I follow through. I hit the deadline.

I just need to get better about showing up for myself too. Not with more willpower. With better systems. The kind I build for clients, pointed back at my own calendar.

Two or three days of delay never feels like a decision. That's the trap. It feels like nothing. Until the nothings add up to a something.

Filing this one under lessons I already knew and got to relearn anyway.

On to the next conversation.

— Danielle