One Road, Unfinished

I'm having trouble believing that it is almost December! These past few months have simply flown by for me. It's now clear that I haven't accomplished all (or even most) of the things I've been working toward this fall, which leaves me feeling discouraged.

For one thing, while I attempted NaNoWriMo, I didn't quite make it to the 50,000 word goal. I made a lot of progress, but just couldn't cross that finish line for a variety of reasons, none of which make me feel any better about not getting it done. Today, though, I have no choice but to smile and recognize that there's always next year. Which got me thinking....

With only one month left until the new year arrives, I figure it's time again to start thinking about what I need to do to kick myself into gear. Over the years, I've found that spontaneous New Year's Eve proclamations about what needs to change in my life have a tendency to stay in effect for about... a week.

I'm hoping to hit 2010 with a running start. Which means that now is the time to start planning, and beginning to build the routines that I want to stick to in the new year, and beyond. I've read that it takes at least twenty one consecutive days of repetition before a new behavior becomes a habit. Yikes!

One good byproduct of NaNo, for me, was getting in the habit of writing a certain number of words every day. Clearly, I didn't fully succeed in the endeavor, but every morning that I hopped out of bed and put fingers to keyboard marked another step toward a new great habit. I may not be destined to be a sprint writer, but those were someone else's rules to begin with. I'm not giving up on the marathon. I can't think of my NaNo attempt as a failure. It's just a road I started down, but haven't yet finished walking.