Week seven and something has genuinely shifted

My review at twelve weeks was nine minutes long and the printout I brought did most of the talking. I would recommend the printout to anybody approaching theirs.

I want to say plainly that my first twelve weeks contained one week I would describe as bad. One. The other eleven were somewhere between uneventful and quietly encouraging.

Not a solution, just company.

The most common question in this circle is some version of "is this normal for this stage", and the honest answer is usually yes, with the caveat that if it worries you, ask somebody qualified.

What I would tell my week-one self: the first twelve weeks are not a trial you pass. They are a period during which you find out how this works for you specifically.

What changed for me around week ten was less physical than practical. I finally had a routine that fit my actual week rather than the week I wished I had.

I found the second month harder than the first because the novelty had worn off and it had turned into something I had to keep doing. That is a very ordinary shape.

Sindri — yes, and the bit that took me longest to accept was the next part.

Weeks one to twelve for me were: strange, quiet, difficult, difficult, better, fine, fine, tired, tired, fine, good, and then a week where I forgot I was doing it at all.

I asked here in week five whether I should be further along, and somebody replied asking further along than what. I did not have an answer, and that was the answer.

I would gently say that twelve weeks is not long. It felt endless from inside it and looks very short from here, and both of those readings are honest.

Around week nine I stopped noticing it. Not because anything dramatic changed, but because it had become part of the week rather than an event in it.

My most useful early habit was writing down the question the moment it occurred to me, because by the appointment I could never remember what had been worrying me at eleven at night.

Picking up Obi O’s point rather than starting a new one.

I kept a note each week with three lines: what changed, what I did about it, what I want to ask. Twelve weeks of that is a genuinely useful document to take to a review.

My week six was much harder than my week two, which I had not expected at all. I had assumed it got monotonically easier and it does not always go in that direction.