[Written while waxing nostalgic]
I have good intentions. Usually around the fall, I inventory my life and decide what needs to change, though it isn’t fall. We are days from the summer solstice, yet the prospect of reevaluating my life seems fitting since I’m shifting geographies, time zones, and lifestyles as we move from Texas due north(ish). And since everything else is changing, maybe my goals require a scrub—the mental purging to complement the physical extraction of all the things we didn’t wish to take with us.
If you’ve moved often as I have, you may feel like the months leading up to the move become a liminal zone where you are paralyzed, afraid to find anything outside of your comforts for fear of setting roots. This happened when I lived in Arizona: Six months before I left, I found a running club, made friends, and said goodbye to them soon after. I moved on as life moves on, but I still feel the dent where the scar tissue formed. And yes—social media has flattened our social circles, but there is a magic in presence (if you like people). And when you leave, you’d like to think you are still present or people speak of you fondly, but life fills the vacuum you left.
So my life is in boxes at my in-laws and on a truck. When we can finally move into our next home, I will stare at those boxes, overwhelmed by the prospect of restarting while my husband will unpack them and create something like home.* He can’t do the same for my schedule and goals, only contribute to the arrangement of responsibilities. And as a person with Big Ideas™ and dreams, I don’t want to be static for too long.
Fear is the mind killer per Frank Herbert’s Dune. Inertia is similar; it kills dreams.
People talk about waiting for motivation to act, but motivation is an internal mechanism requiring the initial shove to build momentum. (Yes, even goals are bound to physics.) Mel Robbins proposes the five-second rule when the seed of a goal appears: “The moment you have an instinct to act on a goal you must 5–4–3–2–1 and physically move or your brain will stop you.” The action does not need to be monumental, just something to nudge you closer to the person you want to be. This matches the 1% rule proposed by various thought leaders in the realm of habits, like James Clear: if you can improve 1% each day, the results compound over time. You advance.**
Since I have a few moments of silence,*** I may as well put Robbins’ advice to work by writing down the goals that the person I wish to be would accomplish. (Rough draft; the bones but no substance for now.) Marginal gains are better than nothing. Words to paper are stronger than the unwritten books within us. And you can do the same—take your goals and write them down. We can return to them and capture the subtasks needed to achieve the grand objectives. Turn mountains into molehills. Identify the outcomes and work backward to see what’s required to attain them.
For me, this is where I’m going:
- Rewrite my second manuscript. It was written in a white-hot fury and put away for a while. The general premise is good, but some of the plot elements need work. And sure, it’s okay as is, but if I were dying, I would hate for it to be my swan song in its current form.
- Drink more water. I’m a walking meme of poor decisions (she says as she drinks more coffee).
- Chain 12 pull-ups together. I like pull-ups. Strict pull-ups. The most I’ve done in a single setting is nine, but I chose 12 since that was—at one point—the maximum I would need for a perfect score on the Marines’ physical fitness test.
- Make blogging a regular practice. Blogging requires more work than you would think—content creation and utility nestled between all the other things I do. I have tradecraft on editing and writing that someone like you may find useful, and I’d like to make that content accessible so you can take it and apply it as you will.
- Revise my life schedule. I currently lack a schedule. I am timeless and transcendent. But I like structure to keep me grounded.
I can work through my strategy here, and you can steal what you will if you find it helpful. And if you need deeper guidance to help you set goals, I found the following books useful:
- Atomic Habits – James Clear
- Designing Your Life – Bill Burnett and Dave Evans
- The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People – Stephen Covey
- Stop Saying You’re Fine – Mel Robbins
- The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business – Charles Duhigg
- You Are a Badass: How to Stop Doubting Your Greatness and Start Living an Awesome Life – Jen Sincero
If you take away anything, understand that some movement is better than none at all.
* * *
* Tangent: The first time my husband—then-boyfriend—came over to my apartment, he asked how long I had been living there. Most of my apartment was still in boxes like Holly Golightly’s in Breakfast at Tiffany’s, and I couldn’t bother to unpack them, struck by the overwhelm of exchanging trees for cacti and shrubs. When I went overseas for a few weeks after that, he checked on my apartment, unpacked the boxes, and arranged my small apartment into a semblance of a home. And maybe that’s when I discovered love.
** In the link, James Clear describes how Dave Brailsford transformed the fate of the British Olympic cycling team from mediocre to exemplary performers by focusing on marginal gains.
*** Except there is a window open, and my in-laws’ neighbor sounds like he’s shouting at clouds.
Sarah E. H. Lyons 
First off, I love your current blog. I remember back in 2006, after the novelty of Livejournal had worn off for many people, you were still there on my friend list, just as active as ever (“melodikwahoo”, if I remember correctly?). I was in my early 20s having my own life for the very first time, and to say that it wasn’t going as well as I had hoped would be putting it lightly. Nearly every day I had was a bad one, with very few moments of rest. But in all that suffering was a blessing that I was unable to see until years later. During that time, I didn’t have the luxury of being able to have a thoughtless or automatic day. I had to fight hard against the encroaching dark. I had to constantly ask myself who I was, what I believed in, how I fit into the world, and where I was going. If I didn’t live in introspection and future aspirations, the present would consume me.
Writing in my LiveJournal was instrumental in my staying one step ahead of the present. And seeing you engaged with the same bigger thoughts about yourself and the world kept me motivated.
One evening in early 2006, I hit a breaking point. I took a knife and cut my wrist with it. The knife didn’t go deep, and I was able to stop the bleeding pretty easily. That night I learned that I wasn’t yet ready to die, but I was certainly willing to play around with the idea. Shortly after that night, you posted a link to an entry your friend wrote shortly before he killed himself. I remember being so hesitant about reading it. I didn’t want anything to influence me one way or another, but on the other hand, I HAD to know what the next step felt like. I ultimately read through it at least 10 times, poring over every word.
Eventually, things got better for me. I found my path out of the military, and in the years since I’ve become pretty content with life. I have a good job, a nice condo in Atlanta, and I live with my girlfriend who I love very much.
Still, there’s something absent these days. I seem to have lost my hunger and my ability to engage with the world the way I did back when I was in my early 20s. I don’t feel the same passions or drives, or the same burning sense of injustice. In a strange way, I think I’m sometimes nostalgic for that pain of my early 20s. I would never wish to go through it again, but now that it’s safely in the past, I can see how intensely it made life feel. I miss how it drove me and motivated me.
Which brings us back to you and your writing. I am so happy that you are still engaged in the reflection and introspection that you were doing 17 years ago. To be able to hang on to that fire, even if it is just a glowing ember that asserts itself a couple times a year, is truly admirable. It’s bittersweet for me because I am proud and happy that you still have it, but it definitely reminds me that I do not.
I love how your writing is precise, but personal. You’re taking us there with you in your thoughts and all the work you’re doing. It’s fantastic, and I hope that you continue to do this for a long time to come.
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