“Do” diligence

There is a tiny square of paper on the bulletin board just to my left. It is a quote purportedly from Aristotle: “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”

Yeah. So is failure.

Part of my mission to release what’s holding me back is to consistently blog about the progress I make each day in order to hold myself accountable. Yesterday I just plain forgot to post, though I looked at the blog, read the comments, and even talked about it over dinner with friends.

Let’s be honest, here: consistency has never been my strong suit. I am known as the girl who always has a new scheme, a shiny new plan that is going to solve everything, a new book that will teach me what I need to know to make things work, once and for all, this time. Until (of course) it doesn’t, and I dart off in search of the next Holy Grail of Life Improvement.

I can see that the common denominator in the failure of every attempt to rehabilitate my life has been my lack of consistent follow-through. I rarely repeat any action enough to make it a habit.

I need to commit to figuring out why this has been the case and doing whatever I need to do to fix it. I need to learn diligence and consistency so I can be a more effective person in every one of my roles in life. I need to be able to model these traits for Quinland.