Day one, or one Day?
Since the beginning of the year, I’ve kept a steady rhythm. Every week, I’ve written a blog, published my LinkedIn newsletter on a Wednesday and my database newsletter on a Friday. Even when I went on holiday, I planned ahead, scheduled everything, and made sure it all went out on time.
Last week, after 37 weeks of keeping the rhythm, I slipped.
Monday disappeared into presentation prep, the kind where I was so in the zone that I flat ignored the blog I’d planned to write. And because the blog sets up both newsletters, once it didn’t happen, nothing else did either. Add in the second week of my Growth Collective programme and a cat who suddenly needed the vet, and by Friday the rhythm was gone.
No one else noticed. There wasn’t an inbox full of “where’s your blog?” messages. LinkedIn didn’t grind to a halt. But I noticed. Because that rhythm has mattered to me this year. It’s given me structure in the messy reality of running a small business mostly on my own. Those weekly touchpoints have been my scaffolding, a way of reminding myself that I can create the kind of rhythm and reliability that bigger businesses take for granted.
The trap of waiting
What made it harder was the story I told myself afterwards. Because I hadn’t written on Monday, my brain insisted that I had to wait until the following Monday to start again. As if publishing on a Wednesday somehow didn’t count.
It’s the same trap we all fall into. We convince ourselves certain things can only begin when the calendar feels neat:
Diets always start on a Monday
Gym memberships in January
Finances get sorted on the first of the month
Decluttering happens “after the holidays”
We’ll drink more water, meditate, go to bed earlier - but only once the clock resets and we’ve created a clean slate
The problem is, life doesn’t always offer clean slates on schedule.
Beginning again
So I waited. A whole week, just because my brain told me I had to reset on a Monday. But really, I could have picked it up the very next day and carried on.
I think a lot of us do this. We wait for the diet, the gym plan, the savings habit, the bedtime routine - all to start “next Monday” or “in the new year.” We hold out for the neat square on the calendar instead of simply beginning where we are.
I fell for it this time, and I’ll probably fall for it again. Yet what I’m learning is that consistency is about noticing when you have, and giving yourself permission to begin again - whether that’s on a Monday morning in January or on a random Wednesday afternoon with nothing special about it.
And maybe that’s the reminder worth sharing: where are you waiting for the “right time” to start again? And what might change if you just did it today?
