Finishing What We Start

MY FEBRUARY WRITING CHALLENGE: DAY 6 OF 28

Is the writing I’m putting out during this month-long writing challenge my best possible work. No. Absolutely not. Some feels thought-out, some feels like it’s here to check a box that it got done. But I realized this morning that that’s the point. Because I felt frustration for so long about not sharing my work but I wasn’t sharing my writing because I was waiting for it to be perfect. To finalize, the last draft. And as a result it never got done. I never finished what I started and I have an Evernote full of beautiful yet unfinished pieces, that though deeply inspired in the moment, were never wrapped up and therefore never used of service to anyone but myself. 

This challenge I’ve given myself to share my writing once daily in February has forced me to put my writing out there, even when it isn’t my best. Things that I would have never thought of “publishing” before but that I’ve had to be ok with sharing. And it just dawned on me how synonymous this was with nearly every fearful situation in life. We hit a road block because we have self-doubt and so we keep our message to ourselves. We hold our unique geniuses in because we’re afraid to be judged or we know we can do better. But it’s selfish really, because you’re left feeling like your song is trapped inside of you, and that song is what you’re here to share with everyone else. It’s your gift to them. And so when you don’t share it, perfect or otherwise, your gift is being muted. The person that so desperately needed to see that quote, or hear that song, or read that poetry, or relate with you on the challenges of motherhood, or learn that tool that would have kept them from binge eating 3000 calories alone in the darkness, is left without it.

And for me, I know this... I would normally write this draft like I’m doing here in Evernote now, and then I'd leave it. Leave it for another time when it would get “finished”. Often it would be late at night that I’d come back to it, expecting to be able to go right back to that creative space inside me where the inspiration to write this came from in the first place. But that never happens because it was meant to be finished in that moment. And so as a challenge to myself I will commit to finish what I’ve started with these pieces. To write them in the moment that they are inspired from within me and to share them shortly after. To trust that what is meant to be said, is said from that place of light inside me that felt called to share in that moment. I know the difference between my writing when I’m being and when I’m doing. It’s the very difference between being inspired to do something out of your own will versus being forced to do something out of your own internal pressures or something outside yourself. And with that here it is. No summary. No over-editing. Just sharing.