Focus & follow-through

I’m not so great with follow-through.

I start projects with all of the energy and excitement that new projects deserve. I plan and I brainstorm. I spend oodles of time thinking up, what I consider to be, great ideas. And then I think them through. I see the successful finish in my mind and I know where I’m going.

And then I get distracted. Or I think a little more and decide that my ideas weren’t really all that great after all. Or I sit down to start doing and find the problem with each idea that, I’m convinced, I can’t overcome. I think myself into a corner.

And so my house is littered with half-finished knitting projects (anybody need 1/2 of 1 mitten?), abandoned stories and manuscripts, drawings that, with an ounce more of focus might be complete and resemble something. My daughter’s baby scrapbook sits upstairs, perfectly pristine, with a couple dozen photos resting awkwardly between the cover and first page. Just waiting.

I could say that I just got busy. I do say that, in fact. And it’s believable. I know many mothers who never got around to putting their child’s scrapbook together.

But I am always busy. I’ll always be busy. If ‘busy’ is going to be an excuse, I could go on like this forever.

What I lack is not time, but focus and follow-through.

Several weeks ago this blog nearly became another casualty.  Another kernel of a good idea in the shape of an unfinished project. I lost focus and motivation and I nearly gave it all up.

But I didn’t. I’m still here. And I’m renewing my focus.

On Monday night, I signed up for NaBloPoMo.  I’m pretty terrified. How will I, queen of the unfinished, write EVERY DAY for an ENTIRE MONTH? What will I say? How will I find the time? Will I be able to focus? Will I follow through?

It’s possible that I won’t. It’s possible that in two weeks, or next week, or heck, even tomorrow, I’ll stare at a blank screen long enough that I buckle under the pressure.

But it’s also possible that I’ll get to the end of the month and look back on my 30 blog posts with satisfaction. And maybe in December I’ll finally finish that pair of mittens I started knitting years ago. And after that, maybe Baby and I will work on her scrapbook together.

It’s all up to me.  Isn’t it?