One After Another

I'm writing here tonight because of what I wrote last month.

I went into the month of February assuming that I wouldn't make my goal of 13,000 words for the month. After all, it's a short month. With two or three fewer days, it certainly would be harder. Also, I knew that I'd be uprooted out of my house and off a normal schedule for a week for home renovations. It actually turned into two weeks. I also knew that I had a full officiating schedule for most of the month and that I would be spending every weekend either working on the house or out of town. I kept writing, but I had given myself several outs. I had many ready-made excuses for when I would inevitably come up short.

And then I didn't come up short. I made it. In five blog posts, two letters, and 14 pages worth of prayer, I limped across the finish line at 13,108 words. I posted my final words on the blog two hours before leaving town on February 28. A simple satisfaction soothed me as I hit the "Publish" button on the blog.

Because February turned out okay, I've decided not to give up on March. I had given up on March a long time ago, even before I assumed February was in doubt. We are leaving for a week's worth of vacation. The house still has work to be done. And I'll be spending many nights preparing for the sermon I'm delivering on March 22. There's also two family birthdays and the NCAA basketball tournament that my beloved Panthers are a lock to enter. March is far out of reach. But now it isn't.

I thought it would be pretty easy to fail in March after failing in February. While I wasn't excited to string together two straight months of not making the goal, I had logical excuses. A blemished record in February meant that March would just be one more blip. Perhaps, I thought, I could try to just average out 13,000 each month for the year. That's the same, right? But now I haven't failed in February. And it makes it that much harder to surrender in March.

This is how momentum works. When you string together a couple of mistakes, then next one is so much easier. The first time you give in, give up, fail, be irresponsible, blow off your workout, ignore your reading, or take a shortcut, it's hard. There's something in your gut that doesn't sit well. You try to drown that out with excuses and rationalizations. But the next time? By the next time, it's barely an afterthought.

But the same is true of success. The same is true of the first day of a workout routine, a prayer routine, a successful quiz, an uncomfortable conversation, or serving your spouse. Once you decide to do it, and then act on it, the positive momentum rolls as well. I put two months of my goal together. The second month was in less than advantageous circumstances. I really don't want to give in now.

I've got a student in one of my classes right now who had an awful first semester. He failed. Big. He did little of anything all semester. But the second semester he decided to change things. He started with one assignment. Then another. Quietly, steadily, he built positive momentum. Halfway through the second semester, he's standing with an "A." More importantly, I see an unwillingness to allow himself to give in and not do the work, just this one time. Momentum is carrying him in the right direction.

I hope it carries me, somehow, to another 13,000 in March.