Trying to Forgive Myself

On Sunday, I decided that I was going to be productive this week. I deemed Sunday the day that I would get things that I’ve been putting off done. I cleaned my entire room, dusted all the corners and vacuumed under the furniture, and washed all of my bedding. Then I sat down and made myself goals not just for the upcoming week, but for the entire month of February, which starts this Thursday (as if you didn’t know that).

Before I went to bed, I made myself a to-do list for the next day. This week was going to be one of the most productive weeks I’ve had in a long time.

And then I woke up on Monday, and I wasn’t feeling any of it. I was just in a bad mood. I planned to meet up with a friend to go to lunch and run errands, and I could not get myself to do anything before I left the house. I thought that I would just work on my computer when I got home instead. I wanted to write a blog post, research and apply for jobs, and work on editing my book.

And then I got home, and I took a nap. I just could not get myself to do anything. In the end, I kind of just gave up. I didn’t write anything, I didn’t edit anything. I searched for jobs but couldn’t even focus on reading the descriptions, so I didn’t apply for anything.

I don’t know why I’m telling you this. I’ve been really feeling down on myself because I’m not getting anything done. I’ve only gone to one job interview (and it went miserably), there’s been zero sales on my Etsy shop, and I don’t have a first draft of my book that would make sense to anyone other than me. I really didn’t do anything productive in January, in fact, I don’t know what I did at all.

I guess what I’m saying is this — forgive yourself. Every once in awhile we as humans just have a bad day for no reason at all. We just wake up and we’re tired, or we have a few weeks where we just feel exhausted. We spend entire months getting nothing done, watching Netflix or reading garbage on the internet. And it’s okay. If you spend all of your time being mad at yourself for what you did or didn’t do in the past, you’d never get anything done at all. Sometimes we just need a period of rest. A period of time where we don’t hold ourselves responsible for anything, where we can just do the bare necessities for survival and lay around otherwise. Life is all about balance, and those slow unproductive days are just as important as the ones where you’re running around, getting stuff done.

What I’m saying is, it’s okay to do nothing. It’s okay if you aren’t productive for awhile. I’m giving you a permission slip to take a break and forgive yourself, because that’s exactly what I need today.

I hope that your Tuesday and the rest of your week is amazing.