Confessions of a Sporadic Blogger

I have to say that I found myself in a bit of a quandary today. Over the last few weeks I had debated with myself, and had finally decided (or so I thought) to once again participate in the Ultimate Blog Challenge. I even submitted an RSVP to the Facebook event invitation. So you know I was serious.

Then this afternoon I discovered that I was trying really hard to talk myself out of committing to this. (Hence the quandary.) I was tired, and I had a headache, which made me cranky. And it seems that when I get grouchy I don't really like thinking about long-term plans. (Because it's so much more fun to just sit and have a pity party.) So that's when I decided that I really needed to just snap out of it and move on. Granted, that's usually easier said than done. But I'm trying.

As I'm sure some of you will recall, I participated in the challenge for the first time back in July. And after having been a sporadic blogger for eight months, I successfully posted 31 times in 31 days to meet the challenge. (Yes, I was amazed with myself.)

When I chose to participate last time, it was all for the sake of taking on a new challenge. I was excited by the idea of pushing myself to do something new, and seeing how I would grow from it. It was a great (albeit sometimes frustrating) experience, and I met some great people, and I learned some new things, and I had a lot of fun.

That being said (and here's the confession part) it turns out that I didn't really get everything that I had wanted to get out of the experience. You see, part of me - and I'm still not honestly sure how big of a part - had hoped that getting in the habit of daily blogging would somehow turn into a lasting discipline. Because it's not that I need to be a daily blogger, but it would be nice to know that I could be if I wanted to.

But it turned out that once I no longer had that daily deadline hanging over my head... I got lazy. And I have a whopping four posts to show for the last two months. It wasn't that I suddenly ran out of things to say. (I'm pretty sure that never happens.) But for some reason I just couldn't push myself to sit down and write. So all of my internal debate over the past couple of weeks led me to decided that I needed that challenge - and that motivation - again. Growth is a process, after all.

And with growth in one area comes the inevitable growth in others. I'm looking forward to sharing all kinds of wonderful things with you in the weeks to come....