You Are Enough, Even When You Don’t Feel It (Day 7)

Hi guys! Today is Day 7 of the 365 day challenge, where I challenged myself to publish 1 blog post every day for 365 days. My goal with this challenge was to be more consistent in my crochet business – posting and sharing more – while maintaining the quality of my posts and patterns. I have a habit of overthinking, prioritizing perfection over progress, and never feeling good enough to take up space in this community. In this post, we are going to be talking about giving yourself grace, and reminding yourself that you are enough, even when you don’t feel it.

I started this challenge on January 7, 2022, and these 7 days have taught me a lot about myself:

• This week, I learned that I CAN stick to a goal. When I say I am going to do something, I can do it. I have shown up for myself this week and have worked hard to achieve my goal.

• I learned that I can overcome my overthinking and perfectionist tendencies, by working and sharing. There were a few days this week when I felt like I did not have the “right” to share my thoughts or opinions. When I sat down to write, I thought, “Why would people want to read what I have to say? I bet anyone reading my posts will think, ‘Who cares? Stop talking. No one cares’. These negative thoughts have a way of paralyzing you. However, knowing that I had to post every day, allowed me to push them aside, so I could share my thoughts for the day.

• Breaking a project into smaller and more manageable chunks, really makes a difference. We all know the expression, “Rome wasn’t built in a time,” but somehow we still expect to be able to do everything immediately. We take on WAY too much, and then beat ourselves up when we can’t do everything. Sometimes, we wind up not being able to do anything, and this makes us feel worse. Setting realistic goals, and making manageable to-do lists is key.

On that Note…

Is publishing 1 blog post every day for 365 days a realistic or manageable goal? Nope!

This week, I realized how unrealistic my 365 day challenge was. I want to share some of the pros and cons that I have found while taking on this challenge for a week. We’ll start with the pros.

Pros:

• I gained more confidence in myself.
• I learned that I deserve to take up space in this community.
• This challenge taught me that there is never a “bad” time to post about a crochet topic. I can share a cotton yarn review in the winter time because why not?
• It helped me connect with my “people”. I have been able to engage with my community this week in my emails, and on my social media accounts.
• Once I started posting, I came up with all kinds of ideas for posts (yarn reviews, interviews with different types of crocheters, everyday heart-to-heart topics, patterns, and crochet techniques).
• I shared a pattern (Disco Queen Blanket) and a crochet technique (Moss Stitch Square) that has been on my “to-do” list for months. It feels so good to finally make a dent in my list.

Cons:

• A lot of the posts that I want to write take longer than 1 day to publish. These posts are more time consuming and involve picture tutorials or support videos.
• Scrambling around trying to find a topic, because I “have to” post something everyday.
• Added stress.

Conclusions: Changing the Name of the Challenge

I thought the title of this post, “You are enough, even when you don’t feel like it” was appropriate for this post. Setting unrealistic goals for ourselves is a disaster waiting to happen. Instead of beating ourselves up for being human, give yourself the grace and kindness you deserve. Think about what you can realistically do in a day, and what is best for your emotional and physical health. Then, modify your goal, so you can achieve it. Be proud of yourself for recognizing your limitations, and setting boundaries for your sanity.

Be kind to yourself, especially on bad days. This is when you need kindness and support the most.

What does this have to do with the challenge? Well, we all know that it’s not realistic to post everyday for 365 days. I can’t do it, and still make time to crochet new patterns, and share high quality posts. However, I can modify the challenge slightly to make it achievable.

I am changing the name of the “365 Day Challenge” to the “Consistency Challenge”.

I will be sharing and posting as often as I can, but giving myself time to be human and get my facts in order. If I know that a post takes longer than 1 day to write, I will set a realistic timeline for it, and post within that timeline. Tomorrow, I will share a master list of everything that I want to write about within the next 3 months. Each day, I will work through the list, at a reasonable pace, and I will check in with you often to let you know how it’s going.

I may not share everyday, but I hope to share multiple times a week. I want to bring you quality crochet posts that are fun to read and teach you something!

Thank you for being patient with me as I try to improve my consistency. I hope you all have a wonderful day, and get a chance to crochet.

Love, Dayna