It’s been a while since I’ve had a challenging lesson, one which brings me to realize my weaknesses. What’s learned from accepting a challenge; regardless of outcome is what our own behaviors are as we are faced with a task or goal that does not come easily to us.
I’ll start with taking note, that I hadn’t realized that this was going to be a challenge, let alone a lesson.
Challenge Accepted
It was a simple challenge. One that I had embarked on in the past that ensures that I practice the art. This specific goal was to work with colored pencil everyday. After my previous stint, I thought that this practice would help encourage the skill.
After all, I could always just color if I want.
With that goal in mind, I began my journey on May 8th, 2022. My last colored pencil drawing was June 27th, 2022. I lasted 50 days.
Challenge Failed
In tandem with that goal, there’s this weekly blog post – which waned as I became more and more frustrated with the art. That is how my last post came to be in June of 2022.
When this delay happened, I found myself less dedicated. I couldn’t write a blog post because the next blog post was supposed to be about art. There was no art, so there was no blog post.
At one point I began thinking about what the next post might be – I thought, “oh, I could further explore the Tableau API; I have some programmatic examples that might be great to show.”
But this one failed challenged weighed me down as July came and went. Then August. Here we are in September. At least I’m back, right?
The colored pencil experience has ceased. I took a thing that I enjoyed, wholeheartedly, and made it a type of work that tore my soul. Art should never be that.
So now I will find myself sorting pencils.
Learned Lesson
This challenging lesson learned is as simple as the challenge, I needed to take a break from that which does not bring joy. Over the past couple of months, I’ve found myself enjoying my time away from the office, rather than dwelling on what I think needs to be done as an extracurricular at home.
The weight that came with the loss of the intended blog post that had not been written, left the building when I came to the realization that it’s okay to fail. The fact that the writing bears any weight at all is an indication that the weekly intention is too much.
I’m reducing it to once a month.
On that note, I hope everyone had as great of a summer as I have. It involved doctors checkups, canning, wine, art, entertainment, and data – without the blog posts.
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