December and January are lost causes when it comes to social media. Between holiday preparations, birthdays, and high school wrestling, the last month of one year and first month of the next are post-less in my world.
I have a hard time getting back to it until I remember the importance of small things. Doing one small thing or making one small change can open the door to progress and all manner of good things including Facebook, blogging, Instagram and Twitter.
Just one Instagram post about my haunted office nudged me enough to think about others. One blog post after weeks of absence has me sitting here writing another. One trip to the gym makes it easier to head out a few more times a week.
If I get restless writing in my office, I take my laptop to the couch, or to the nearby Panera, or to Icons Coffee Bar, where my daughter is manager. A little change makes the creative juices flow.
Small changes can prompt big changes, small wins can make way for big wins. Small place changes made me open to a really big place change. I’m writing this on a retreat to Florida, made possible by a plane ticket that I couldn’t refund. Instead of letting it go to waste, I booked a rental car and a 1950s-era motel right on the Atlantic and headed out.
It’s costing a fair bit, but I sure needed it. And the place change is opening my mind to oceans and crashing waves and soaring pelicans and writing. It’s also preparing me for a mighty glut of writing between now and June.
What small changes might you need to make? Adding weight-lifting to your walking regimen at the gym? Yup, did that. Taking up a new genre in your reading life? Doing it. Decorating on the cheap with unique finds? Why, yes.
These are my changes. What are yours? And how will they effect your writing life and your living life? Make a list, stop the inner voices saying no, and take that first small step.
PS: There’s a gap between this and my last post. I’m putting my advice into action today, letting myself forget preparations for the Mount Hermon CWC and big writing projects. Instead, posting a blog about small changes even as I make one.