Calendaring: if you’re not failing, you’re not doing it right

When I first started calendaring,

My calendar looked like a Tetris puzzle:

Super packed with stacks and stacks of coloured time blocks all over the place and all glued together with barely a break in between.

It was pretty,

But totally ridiculous and unachievable.

When I unsurprisingly wasn't able to follow every block perfectly like a robot,

I decided that there was something wrong with calendaring,

Or maybe there was something wrong with me,

And defeated and annoyed,

I would just quit.

I would go through my tried and true cycle: get motivated, start calendaring again, not follow my calendar perfectly, quit. Repeat.

The problem wasn't calendaring, the problem wasn't me.

The problem was that I just forgot that failing was part of the process.

Of course that kind of intense planning wasn’t going to work.

Of course I was going to fail.

But by deciding that it was all or nothing, perfect or zero, I never let myself refine and discover a calendaring process that worked for me.

I never gave myself a chance.

I was basically telling myself:

If you’re not perfect, 100% of the time, then you’re not worth spending time on.

Total rejection of myself.

Because: I’m a human.

I’m going to make mistakes (both in ridiculously planning, and in execution of a plan, ridiculous or not).

And it’s not a problem.

When I leave room for that,

I can get curious about why I didn’t follow parts of my calendar.

Maybe a super packed schedule wasn’t actually right for me.

And that curiosity let me experiment and try different things,

And eventually create a calendar that was perfect for me.

Because I created it FOR me,

Rather than tried to fit myself into a ridiculous Tetris puzzle.

So here's what I want to offer:

You are not the Tetris puzzle.

You are the programmer.

Maybe Tetris isn’t even your thing.

What if you let yourself try things and fail so you could discover what your thing was - and then get busy creating it.

Have an amazing week.

Alana

PS: Calendaring is not a one size fits all situation. And its goal is never to fit the vastness of who you are into a tiny box that doesn't work for you: it's to create a structure that supports the life you want to live and the person you want to become. Work with me and I will show you how to create a calendar that helps you get everything you want done while living the exact life you want to live. Are you in?