[1]Rach Smith [2]
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It's okay to lower the bar

Added: August 13, 2024

  • [10]#journaling

I had a journal entry in my [11]Hobonichi Techo Cousin for every day this year
until July, where I have a string of blank pages.

I was doing so well, and I was really in to the swing of journaling every day…
until I wasn’t.

The cause? Doing a little too well at journaling, actually. I got inspired by
the fancy spreads of other Hobonichi enthusiasts on Instagram, and started
making my own pretty layouts. My pages were looking beautiful until things got
busy and my mental health/energy [12]took a dive.

I’d raised the bar for my daily entries, and didn’t have the energy to meet it.
But instead of just lowering the bar and going back to boring/ugly entries,
perfectionist thinking kicked in. If I couldn’t make it good, why do it at all?

So I missed a couple of days, at which point the all-or-nothing thinking
started up. I’ve broken my journaling streak, why even continue? I’ve basically
ruined my Hobonichi now, for the rest of 2024!

Thankfully, I was eventually able to shake myself out of those thoughts and
come back to just getting something, anything on the page at the end of the
day. But there was a while there were I really thought I may as well put the
journal in the bin.

I had to remind myself that it’s okay to lower the bar. That an average version
of something is better than a perfect version of nothing. All I can do is have
a go.

Thanks for reading! If you'd like to share your thoughts you can [13]leave a
comment, [14]send me an email, hit me up [15]on Mastodon, or [16]add an issue
on GitHub.

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Acknowledgement of Country

I acknowledge the [25]Gubbi Gubbi people, the Traditional Owners of the land
and waterways where I live. I would like to pay my respects to Elders past,
present and emerging.

  • [26] codepen.io/rachsmith
  • [27]github.com/rachsmithcodes
  • [28] mastodon.social/@rachsmith
  • [29]contact@rachsmith.com

© 2024 Rachel Smith

References:

[1] https://rachsmith.com/
[2] https://rachsmith.com/
[3] https://rachsmith.com/
[4] https://rachsmith.com/tags/
[5] https://rachsmith.com/about/
[6] https://rachsmith.com/feed.xml
[10] https://rachsmith.com/tags/#journaling
[11] https://rachsmith.com/hobonichi-techo-cousin/
[12] https://rachsmith.com/mnnm-7/
[13] https://rachsmith.com/lower-the-bar/#comments
[14] mailto:contact@rachsmith.com?subject=re%3A%20It's%20okay%20to%20lower%20the%20bar
[15] https://mastodon.social/@rachsmith
[16] https://github.com/rachsmithcodes/rachsmith.com/issues
[19] https://www.markdownguide.org/basic-syntax/
[25] https://gubbigubbidyungungoo.com/gubbi-gubbi-country/
[26] https://codepen.io/rachsmith
[27] https://github.com/rachsmithcodes
[28] https://mastodon.social/@rachsmith
[29] mailto:contact@rachsmith.com