My 30 Day Challenge

As I said in my previous post, I am challenging myself to post a newly written article a day on this blog for the next 30 days.

I am interested in a range of subjects so I’ll be bringing you a variety of things on a daily basis (that is the spice of life right?). To make it easy to follow, below is a list of possible subject areas I will write about on each day of the week:

Mondays – Finances, saving or general home life tips/Career Cranking
Tuesdays – How to…../on marriage and relationships/Did you know....?
Wednesdays– Personal Essays/ Motivational.

Thursdays – Articles beginning with a quotation or on Identity/Race/Gender
Fridays - Fun things you can do or dream about this weekend/relaxing/travel topics
Saturdays – Something about my Fatherland: Nigeria
Sundays – Giving back to the Giver/ Gratitude/General

So see you tomorrow as the countdown begins. Don't forget to leave your comments or tick a reaction box.(wink)

PS: Start small, start slow, whatever you do, just start!

Just DO it!

There is a sense of satisfaction that doing something brings which is seldom brought by anything else. Perhaps it is because as humans we measure our worth by our activity and achievements, simply put what we can or cannot do.

It begins from the moment we are conceived; routine scans check to see that the growing foetus is doing all that it should be doing. When born, the baby takes its first test: the Apgar score another check on the art of doing and thus it continues into adulthood at which point we are hardly aware of it but we continue to relish the feeling we derive from it.

This desire to ‘do’ becomes even more heightened after we have trained in a particular field or discovered that we have been endowed with a talent or excel in one thing or the other. We often hone these skills and find ourselves driven by it to the extent that every record we set or surpass becomes our motivation to strive harder and do more.

Creative people are worse for it because underneath this act of doing lies the fear that they will cease to exist if they are no longer capable of doing what it is they believe they were born to do. It is even worse when we fail to recognize other things we have achieved in the light of what we have not achieved. I should know after all for several years I was dissatisfied with just about everything else I accomplished because it wasn’t related to what I felt I ought to have been doing which is writing.

For as long as I can remember I have always written. Back in my Secondary School, when I was placed in Science classes because my grades were good enough for that class, I remember going to speak with the authorities and insisting I be put back in the Arts Class (something that rarely happened). It was because like Gertrude Stein, ‘writing and reading to me is synonymous to life’.

More than a decade later, I am not quite where I planned to be with my writing but I have come a long way from where I began. Perhaps the most important lessons I have learnt along the way is the importance of appreciating my non-writing related accomplishments whilst not giving up on writing.

Everyone can use learning to appreciate what we have now, those things we have been able to do and as for the dreams, talents or skills that have not yet been realized or are perhaps not being fully utilized, we should never give up on them rather we should continue to challenge ourselves and find new ways to overcome whatever obstacles may be in our way.

For this reason, I have started this blog and I am challenging myself to post a newly written article a day on here for the next 30 days. That is sure to knock down obstacles like procrastination, hesitation and good old laziness.

In what ways can you also challenge yourself where that thing you want to do is concerned? How about you just do it?