The importance of showing up

…even when you really don’t feel like it.

This photo has 2.6 k impressions, 6 pins and 30 clicks on it on Pinterest at the moment I’m writing this.

It’s February 22nd, 6:50am, and I’ve been trying to talk myself into writing a blog post for the past hour.

This seems random, but stay with me, this thought is going somewhere.

Earlier this year, I decided that the best way to work towards a goal of mine that’s big and complicated and scary would be to write bite size blog posts, to push myself both to edit photos from archives or take new ones each week, AND to write something.

…and each Saturday morning I’m supposed to sit down at 5:30am and create a blog post based on my learnings and work from the week. Most Saturdays I’m excited to begin, but today I really, really didn’t feel like it.

I pushed my journaling and reading time, stretching into the time allocated for writing this, because I didn’t think I had anything worthwhile to write about. It has been a long and chaotic week, and I’m tired and I’d rather keep reading than actively do something myself, I wrote in my journal. So I read a few more pages from Atomic Habits by James Clear, until I reached this line:

“Anyone can work hard when they are feeling motivated. It’s the ability to keep going when work isn’t exciting that makes the difference”.

Boy, did this feel like a kick in the teeth! Here I was, unmotivated, dreading the very thing I couldn’t wait to do last week, thinking it’s not worth it to write anything if I don’t feel like it.

Now back to those coffee beans:

A few weeks ago, I had marked 3h in my calendar to walk to the coffee shop, and spend an hour taking some photos for our social media accounts. I thought I’d listen to a podcast on my walk, get my steps in and enjoy some fresh air, spend some time with my employees and catch up on any updates, capture some photos, walk back home knowing I did all the above, feeling accomplished. Cue in the morning: the weather was horrible, I was in a bad mood, I’ve slept poorly, and the last thing I wanted to do was…all the above within a 3h timeframe.

Yet I still showed up, camera in my bag, hands freezing, eyes teary from the biting cold, because I knew Sophie was expecting me, nervous to showcase her barista skills in front of the camera. Would I have showed up if Sophie was unaware of my plans? Probably not. Sometimes I need the pressure of not letting someone down in order to push myself to do things.

Lately, I’ve been trying to let me be that someone. I need to learn to show up for myself, even if ‘life gets in the way’, I’m tired, nobody cares if I write this post or not, it’ll probably slip into oblivion, in fact, why did I even wake up so early? I could be in bed now, I have no plans until it’s time to walk the dogs, so why on Earth am I up at this hour, forcing myself to type something when I’d very much prefer to be in bed right now?

Because this is important to me, even if it doesn’t feel like it right now.

Because, like that photo of coffee beans I took at the end of that mini shoot, and is now making a little impact on Pinterest (some people saved it to boards named ‘phone wallpapers’ or ‘vision board’ - how cool is that?), this work I’m putting in right now, is a little seed that will bear fruit later on. That photo shot helped me build a little gallery that I’ve bene using for a month now to post on social media without having to go to the coffee shop daily to snap a photo. Just because I clocked in even on a day when it felt pointless.

It’s 7:12am, I have showed up for myself, maintained my weekly writing streak, and proved myself that I never regret choosing to do the hard thing that will help achieve a long term goal. If I were in bed right now, I’d wake up full of regret for missing out on my weekly blog post, my ‘all or nothing’ mindset will remind me that I failed, and I would most likely stop writing on this blog, because I’ve broken the habit, and it’s pointless, and I’m a failure, and I’ll never achieve that long term goal because it’s so far away.

Instead, I made a cup of coffee, showed up at my desk, and plated this little seed. That goal has moved a little bit closer.