I was never a fan of Mr. Rogers, but I did appreciate one of his quotes:
“I like to swim, but there are some days I just don’t feel much like doing it — but I do it anyway! I know it’s good for me and I promised myself I’d do it every day, and I like to keep my promises.”
I can certainly relate his swimming to my blog writing. If I only wrote on the days I felt like it, I would have far fewer postings than I do now.
I wonder why it is that I keep to the discipline of writing a daily blog, but don’t always have the same tenacity with other intentions that I have. Could it be because the blogs are public, or more likely because they are numbered? Perhaps it is because I have not missed one day in over three years, so I hate to break the ‘streak’? Maybe it is because I don’t ask myself if I ‘feel like it’, because I hardly ever do.
Think about a positive behavior you have that you wish to replicate in other areas of your life. What characteristics make up that pattern, which you can apply to other tasks or habits? If Mr. Rogers could swim daily and I can write for [5063] days, maybe there are things we all can learn from that kind of consistency.
Source: The World According to Mister Rogers: Important Things to Remember by Fred Rogers, Hatchette Books, 2003
Originally published in modified form on September 21, 2015
