I Broke the Chain and Lived to Tell About It

I broke the chain! The chain habit, that is. I didn’t do my daily goal of one blog sentence, one book sentence on June 30^th or July 1^st. And there was no earthquake, as I feared would happen if I broke the chain, although it was ungodly hot in Seattle on the 1^st day of July. Not my fault! I don’t think….

I fully expected to repeat the chain until my book was finally finished or I died, whichever came first. But I got the stomach flu in the early hours of June 30^th, and that was it.

I’m not even upset about it. I started recovering and picked up where I left off. Better, perhaps, because I got a lot more writing done today than I did any other day in June.

It was a tough month. I hurt my wrist from overusing a standard mouse and keyboard instead of my ergonomic ones. Then when I tried to limit my wrist movements when using my computer, I activated an old carpal tunnel injury.

That meant weekly trips to the physical therapist and acupuncturist and as little time on my PC as possible. It also meant that my regular yoga practice was disrupted since I couldn’t put weight on my wrist. I went to a few classes but ended up doing more watch-asanas than practicing and stopped going. So I wasn’t exercising like I usually do, and that made me feel sluggish.

Then my poor cat got sick and lost 15% of his already tiny body weight. At first I thought it was stress because we’ve had a lot of upheaval on the home front lately, but the vet diagnosed hyperthyroidism.

Add to that planning a two and a half week trip to Italy, finishing my biggest consulting project and bidding on a series of new ones, and it was a long, challenging month.

Through all of that, I still accomplished my daily chain goals. Even on my worst day, when I was exhausted and everything seemed to go wrong, I completed two sentences before I went to bed.

On many days in June, two sentences were all I did. So even though I kept the chain going, I wasn’t making much progress. I comforted myself with the thought that some forward movement was better than none.

And then the flu.

My relentless determination met its match and in a way, I’m glad I broke the chain. I was getting by on the minimum and now I’ve had to reset and start over fresh.

So my little calendar has two days with no checkmarks. That’s ok. I’m back on my feet and neither Milo nor I have vomited in four days. Italy hotels are booked. My right arm is strapped with arm and wrist braces that make me look like a futuristic gladiator, but I can type without wincing. And maybe even yoga tomorrow.

Tags: chain habit, getting stuff done, motivation