I feel like I’m picking the right monthly challenges at the right time. I seem to know that I will need to do something in the coming month and focusing on it really allows me to make sure I do what I need to do. Sometimes I don’t know why I need to do something until the month is over, but it’s always a great lesson for me. And this past month was no exception.
The overall challenge I set for myself was to be ok with not being perfect. I wanted to let myself use that idea for different things throughout the month, but it mainly concentrated on one part of my life. And that was how I plan out my blog posts. I’m almost 11 years into writing and until May I wrote a post every weekday. Coming up with 5 posts a week is not easy. Sometimes I have ideas for each day and I can be excited about what I want to write about. But more often, I struggle to come up with ideas and I know that my posts can become repetitive. So my challenge with not being perfect was about being ok with not writing every single day.
As you can tell from the posts I posted last month, I did go down to 2 posts a week. My Monday post was my workout recap and then my Wednesday post was about something else. I debated if I wanted to also do a Friday post because I did have things that I wanted to write about, but I knew that it would be a better challenge if I did limit myself to just 2 posts a week. Sometimes I didn’t write about things as quickly as I normally would. For example, this post would have been on Thursday or Friday last week if I had my old writing schedule. I had to be more selective about what I was going to share, but that also allowed me to not focus on turning things I do into posts. I liked not having that stress and I know that this was the exact thing I needed to do for myself.
Giving myself permission to not feel perfect really did release something from me that I didn’t know I seriously needed. And my plan is to continue to not worry about posting every day. Right now, I think keeping it to twice a week is a good option. Later, I might want to add in a third day, but I want to do another few weeks with just 2 posts a week to see how I feel about it. And maybe it’s something I keep flexible and I write 3 posts if I have things I want to share but only do 2 posts if I don’t feel like I need that third post.
Releasing the stress of having to always think of posts has been great for my mental health. And I think I will need as little stress as possible as I get prepared for a potentially stressful summer. This summer is election season for my union, and that’s what inspired my challenge for June. This month, I challenge myself to stay involved in union things as much as I can and try to help others be involved as well.
I’ve already been working on this with the strike authorization vote. I worked on making sure all the people I knew voted and understood what the vote meant. Most people understood that the authorization vote didn’t mean we were going to strike, but we were giving the negotiating committee the ability to call a strike if necessary. And I’m so proud of the union because we had a really good voter turnout (at least for us) and almost 98% of the members who voted approved the strike authorization!
Union elections are always stressful, but adding in contract negotiations adds to that. We will have our regular elections plus we could be voting on a new contract if one is presented to the members. And if we don’t get a contract, there is a chance that we will strike. This is a lot of information for members to take in, especially if they haven’t been involved in the past. Even for me, things can get overwhelming with staying on top of all the things we should know to be informed voters.
But with all the craziness and potential stress, there are so many ways for me to stay involved and connected with my acting career. I know that I will be stressed (and not having to write as many blog posts will help to not add more stress), but it will be worth it. I know I feel better when I’m involved and active with the union. I look forward to the different opportunities that will be coming during this election season and contract negotiations. I might feel like it’s too much in the moment, but once I get through this summer I know I will be grateful that I did whatever I have the ability to do.
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Learning So Much From Union Working (or Getting Ready For Contract Negotiations)
Authorizing A Strike (or I Got My Vote In)
Recapping A Few Challenges From Last Month (or Getting Ready Stop Going Easy On Myself)
It’s Almost Election Season! (or Planning For My Summer)
