The following task is one of my favourites from The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron. I’m suggesting it for today’s Tuesday Task because it is a sure-fire way to:
a) remember the little things you enjoy and
b)get a good gauge for how long it’s been since you’ve enjoyed them.
Grab a sheet of paper and number it down the left hand side from 1-20. Beside each number write something that you enjoy doing, even if it’s something you haven’t done in awhile. After you have listed your 20 items, go back to the first one and ask yourself, “When was the last time I did this?” and then write down a specific year or date that you remember last doing this.
I did this task in January 2009. A couple of the activities I’d listed that day I hadn’t engaged in in 9 or 10 years (going to the beach by myself which I talk about here, and attending poetry readings). It was nice to see that there were some things I had done in my recent past that were meaningful to me (reading, baking for friends, dreaming about the future, researching on the ‘net). That was actually very important for me – to see that I was still connected to some of my hobbies. It wasn’t all dim!
Have fun with this one and don’t be discouraged if your list is full of activities you haven’t done in years!
This is a great starting point for goals you can set for yourself. For example, that poetry reading…it did take me another year to get to a reading but by the following year (January 2011) I actually read my work at one! Sometimes when you write things down, you don’t realize what kinds of events you are setting in motion!
And don’t forget to smile about the things you are currently doing for yourself when you get to them. I know it’s not easy to juggle it all and to manage the few minutes of reading or sewing that you get. Enjoy every minute of it!
If you’d like to share some of the items on your list, feel free to post a comment!
I took the time to do this exercise from “The Artist’s Way” and the following week I was at the driving range, whacking balls out for the first time in several years! Now, I have to have another look at my list and select something else 🙂
I’m pretty bad at not doing all of your exercises but I am here and I read all of your posts. Thank you
Hi Joanne – thank you for your comment! It’s nice to know my posts are reaching you, and hey, I think it’s great that you read the exercises even if you don’t get to them all. They’re meant to make the wheels start turning and often they don’t need to be executed to get you thinking about the important stuff.
Isn’t the Artist’s Way fabulous? Yes, grab your old list and see what else you can do in the next couple of weeks! And you know, it would be interesting to see if you had some new things to add to your list now…