"The question is not whether we have a liturgy. The question is, "What kind of people is our liturgy forming us to be?"" — Tish Harrison, Liturgy of the Ordinary
For the last 100 days of 2020, I set out to accomplish a few big-rock goals. In order to do that, I knew I'd have to approach the days even more deliberately than usual, since "100-Day Goals" weren't exactly top of mind or something I was used to doing. In fact, I went so far as to write the goals in the exact order I should complete them each day. Why? Because I knew my tendency, which was to do the most urgent-feeling item first (or even the most pleasant), watch the day get away from me, and then never get to the other items on the list.

Sure enough, Day 1, I immediately went for Item #2. Fortunately, I saw the big numbers next to each item on the list, remembered that I'd deliberately set the list that way, and corrected. (One day into the attempt, and I was already close to falling off the wagon!)

The next week or so went by in a similar fashion, and I stuck to the list. By the end of the first ten days, I'd made major strides. I was a week and a half ahead on content at the Tribe, and I'd written or compiled research to the tune of 15,000 words (and since I was only aiming for 112k, it was a good start).

But—it wasn't all good news. I noticed other work slipping. Fortunately, some of my big work projects were put on pause at about the same time, so I was able to neglect the regular work for a few days without getting too far behind. Still, I knew that wouldn't hold up for long, but there were some positive things coming out of the 100-day challenge, too.

I wasn't sure what would come of the whole thing, but it did get me thinking about habits and how our default ways of being are often the biggest obstacle to our own success—and, as it turns out, not the office supplies, the fancy tools, the new running shoes, or all the health food we stock in our fridge before Monday, because this time, it's going to be different. Nope, most of that doesn't matter at all. Our default, sleep-walking, non-thinking, automatic habits are what keep us stuck.

Day 11, I came across this quote in Liturgy of the Ordinary by Tish Harrison:"We don’t wake up daily and form a way of being-in-the-world from scratch, and we don’t think our way through every action of our day. We move in patterns that we have set over time, day by day. These habits and practices shape our loves, our desires, and ultimately who we are and what we worship."A few days before that, I came across a post by Austin Kleon (I shared it last Friday, but I'll post it again in the show notes), a post that was actually called "The past 100 days."

He talked about how he'd set out in earnest to buckle down and write his next book, but as the days went by, he kind of got away from it. By the end of the hundred days, he said that he'd figured out that, quote, "I have built systems in my life for producing work, and whenever I abandon those systems in the hopes of “getting serious” about something, the results are far, far less than spectacular." I agree with that sentiment, too.

Over the near-twenty years I've been in business for myself, wobbling, figuring things out, I've stumbled on some ways of working (and also created and established ways of working) that have helped me produce big results ... and quickly (I'm a launch strategist at Rock Your Genius, for goodness sake—it's my actual job to ship creativity and get projects out the door and into the world). So, yes, I've figured out how to do really big things, fast.

So—how do you reconcile those contradictions?

On one hand, I agree with Tish.

We don’t wake up daily and form a way of being.

We don’t think our way through every action of the day.

We move in patterns that have been set up over time.

Those patterns shape our lives and who we are.

On the other hand, I agree with Austin.

Over time, I've built systems in my life for producing work.

Whenever I abandon those systems, the results are not that spectacular.

So which is it?

My guess is somewhere in the middle, as with most things. Creativity seems to thrive when given constraints (ask anyone who's ever worked on deadline), yet there must be unstructured space, too. Breathing room. Play room.

I'm not even a fourth of the way through the hundred days. The last few days have shifted back the other way. I've done "regular work" the bulk of the day and found it more difficult to make progress with the 100-day goals. It's wobbly—and I'm willing to bet that's how the entire 100 days will go, assuming I don't pull an Austin and complete derail before then. But am I worried about Austin's work? No. Am I worried about my work? Not really, although, I would like to establish better and better habits over time, because (as Tish said), "The question is not whether we have a liturgy. The question is, "What kind of people is our liturgy forming us to be?""

Over the first part of this hundred days, I've felt points of confusion over this seeming contradiction, but ... I did find small solace in a quote found in Liturgy of the Ordinary from Brother Lawrence:"In the beginning, we often failed in our endeavors, but at last we should gain a habit, which will naturally produce its acts in us, without our care, and to our exceeding great delight."Sometimes, it seems, if we're purposeful and deliberate, we manage to create our own good habits that, like shifting tectonic plates, gradually move us closer to the kind of people we want to be.