Not one year ago, I was a gym rat. Three to five mornings a week, you could find me deadlifting, squatting, and benching in the weight room before work. Yes, that meant waking up at 5:30 every morning, putting on my gym clothes, and driving to the gym.

It’s been a year since I went to the gym with any regularity, but I’m not here to talk about my former gym rat days. I just really want to share my biggest takeaway from the years I spent in the gym:

Grant yourself some fucking grace.

I wanted to be “in shape” for most of my life. I would resolve to work out, be really consistent and awesome, and I’d be feeling super good about myself.

Then I would miss a day. It might have been because I was tired, or because I was sick, or because I just really wanted to go out for beer and tacos instead of hanging out with a treadmill.

Once I missed that day, the guilt kicked in. I was lazy, I was fat, and I was useless and what was the point of even going back? I was just going to fuck it up again.

So I’d stop going. I’d start eating fast food again. I would give up on my goals, over and over and over again.

It wasn’t until I discovered weightlifting, and the community that went with it, that I started to move past this cycle.

Here’s the thing about weightlifting: it’s hard. Pushing your muscles beyond their limit is super taxing and you get the most out of it when you rest. Your body literally needs to cool it for a sec to allow muscle fibers to heal and grow. That’s why there’s “leg day” and “chest day” – you have to give your muscles a break.

I started to listen to my body. I worked my butt on in the gym, then scheduled rest days.

And occasionally, my alarm would go off and I would hit the snooze and sleep through my workout. I’d go to work, go out for a drink, and then I’d set my alarm and get to the gym the next morning.

Skipping a day at the gym didn’t disrupt my program. It didn’t make me fat, or lazy, or useless. It might mean that it took me a little longer to get to my goals, but my mental health was worth it.

I started to grant myself grace. I forgave myself for slipping and I moved on.

Which leads me here, to the end of March where none of my writing goals were accomplished. I completely disappeared from social media for a good two weeks, and out of the six chapters I wanted to edit, I managed to edit two.

My instinct here is guilt. After all, isn’t a writer supposed to write every day? What kind of a writer am I if I allow myself to take two weeks off because I “can’t make the time” for my writing?

Well, I’m a writer who has also found success in a demanding, deeply rewarding day job. I’m a writer with a husband and friends and a pup, a house to keep and meals to eat.

I’m also a writer who self destructs when she’s burnt out, overworked, and way too hard on herself.

Look, we all have priorities. Work, families, our craft, whatever. These are things that demand our attention and our time, two very valuable resources. In an ideal world, we could divide that time and attention up evenly – eight hours for work and to sleep, four hours each to writing and family.

But the reality is that priorities shift according the demands they present. This month, my work demands shifted my priorities. Next month, they’ll shift again.

Ebb and flow. This goal setting, these priorities aren’t set in stone. They’re cast upon the tides and they shift beneath our feet. We can’t control them, but we can learn to anticipate the shifts and the turns.

My novel is still there, waiting for me. My mind is free of guilt for leaving it there, untouched for weeks, because I’ve learned to grant myself some fucking grace.

How about you? Do you write every day? Are you too hard on yourself if you take time off? How do you deal with the demands of your writing ambitions and the rest of your life?