The first month of 2022 is already behind us! The hustle and bustle of the holiday season quickly moved into the work of re-establishing old routines and creating some new ones. I started the year with some specific goals, and I believe an important part of reaching these goals is having some accountability for my progress. As a reminder, my BHAG (Big, Hairy, Audacious Goal) for the year is to write 260,000 words. Along with that, my reading goal for the year is 60 books.
In January, I wrote a grand total of 3,542 words. That is woefully short of my goal. 260,000 is the total of writing 1,000 words a day, 5 days a week, for 52 weeks. Or 21,666 words a month. As you can see, I’m a little off the pace. Yes, I’ve gotten off to a slow start, but I am not discouraged at all. I have spent a good portion of the month mulling over ideas on what to write without writing any of them down. Herein lies the problem. I go through this cycle:
1. Get a spark of inspiration.
2. Work through the idea in my head, mapping out what I’d like to write.
3. Convince myself the idea isn’t interesting or has no substance.
4. Scrap the idea and continue searching for another spark of inspiration.
So, my February adjustment is to write it all down regardless of what I feel about it at the time. I’m sure there are some workable ideas in there. I need to give them life and see how they grow before euthanizing them altogether. This month, I will pick up the pace!
On the reading front, things have started out very well. I read 7 books in January. The best of those 7 was, without a doubt, Gentle and Lowly: The Heart of Christ for Sinners and Sufferers by Dane Ortlund. Rather than giving a full review of the book, I’ll just say that Ortlund gives us a fantastic read which should be compulsory for all followers of Jesus. Christ identified himself as “gentle and lowly in heart” (Matt. 11:29). Ortlund writes of how the heart of Christ is applied to his followers aside from their performance. It is heartwarming, encouraging, and theologically sound. I recommend it!
The Stray Shepherd 