I’m ready to celebrate. I’ve almost been a blogger for a full year. Something I started for thirty days has grown into over three hundred.

So I wanted to be sure that I had achieved the second part of the challenge I set myself. Part way through the thirty days I almost gave up. A regular daily blog was a hard pattern to get into. Finding the best time to write and what to write about gave me a lot to think through. However, as I got closer to the end of the challenge I realised that I was getting settled into a pattern. I found I enjoyed writing. So I decided I would continue. I’ve set myself a challenge to blog for 1001 days. And tomorrow I will have got to 365 days. A whole year!

As I approached the end of my year I started to worry over the day count. Had I actually done a whole year? It was a reasonable question. I don’t want to celebrate something I’ve almost done as if I’d actually done it. So there has been a count check going on. Much like a vote recount, I’ve gone back over the blogs to confirm that my year will be complete tomorrow. Not today, as I originally thought. But I’m not upset. The bubbly is still on ice. It just won’t get drunk until tomorrow’s blog has been finished. My achievement still stands whenever it happens.

I do feel that it is a good point to celebrate what I’ve nearly done too.

It’s easy to forget how much has been achieved even when it’s an almost not an actual. I know there have been many things in my life that I set out to do. They never quite happened. Usually because life got in the way. Occasionally because I got in my own way. What matters is to keep trying. To keep setting goals and giving myself a chance to try to achieve them. Failure is a normal part of life. Not everything works out the way I think it should. It’s how I keep enthusiastic about having another go that matters. Tonight I’m delighted to have three hundred and sixty four blogs to my credit. That works out, with an estimated average of 600 words per day, to 218,400 words.

That’s probably a couple of books. And that’s another achievement from my blogs. It got me writing my own book. Soon I will see it in print and have a new reason to celebrate. Thinking about how I almost gave up, about the times when finding the words was hard, the days when I ran out of steam, it’s wonderful to be this close to a year. Nothing can take away from me what I’ve already done. So when I get stuck, feel things are impossible or I want to give up I’m going to remind myself of all the things I’ve nearly done. They count just as much as goals I’ve achieved. Because they show I can persevere, persist and progress!

Day 364 of my blogging challenge.