success

Day 140: Reframing

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Hellooooooooo!

I’ve been MIA again for awhile. This time I haven’t been working so many hours, but I have been doing a great many things. December is a busy month with the holidays! Everyone is trying to cram in last minute get togethers and there’s holiday parties and shopping galore. So basically I’ve been busy, which isn’t always an excuse but sometimes it can be.

But I wanted to share something I discovered recently which I’m pretty excited about. Podcasts!

Just kidding. I know all about podcasts, but I haven’t had a chance to listen to them since I switched jobs. There’s just too much to do and I can’t really concentrate on the podcasts unless I’m cleaning or sorting laundry or doing some other mindless task.

Enter driving to ballet. The class I like is pretty far away, especially after work when it’s rush hour. It’s been a definite issue in the past with me not wanting to drive half an hour after work to go exercise. My willpower is low in the evening and the commute doesn’t help.

Then while I was listening to Happier with Gretchen Rubin they were talking about reframing. Basically you take a negative task or idea and frame it in a different light so it becomes a positive. And then it hit me! The perfect time to listen to my podcasts is during my dreaded commute to ballet class. It’s a good chunk of time, so I can listen to the longer podcasts and it’s something I look forward to, so I’ve finally found a way to overcome the commute obstacle. A perfect solution to a thorny problem. 🙂

Until tomorrow! (Podcast & ballet day!)

225 days to go.

Day 125: Sunday Scaries

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I know I’ve been going on and on about my new job, but it’s a big life change. I’m happy I got the title and salary bump, but it’s definitely been an adjustment. And still is! It’s been a lot of work and I’m genuinely wondering how long I can do this for. Hopefully it’ll get better, but if it doesn’t, I know want a life outside of work and time to work on my own projects. After all I’m putting in 50 to 60 hours a week, which I enjoy for the most part, but it’s ultimately not what I want to do and it’s a lot of time.

For the moment, when Sunday rolls around I just don’t really want to go to work. I don’t dread going and I don’t mind being there when I’m working, but I just don’t want to go. This is normal. Work is work.

My first job out of college was terrible. I don’t know if the job was actually terrible (although people often left) or if I was just adjusting to life after college. Probably a bit of both, although they did have some weird policies. Whether or not the job was terrible, it made me feel terrible.  Every Sunday before work I would just lay in bed for hours with a crushing feeling in my chest. I would walk to work and imagine getting hit by a bus. (Definitely not healthy.) I would cry in the bathroom at work and made elaborate lists counting down the hours, and the minutes for each workday. This is not normal.

Eventually, I chose a day I was going to quit (and made a list counting down the days). I booked an airplane ticket for a few days after my planned exit date, so I couldn’t back out. And then I quit. And I felt fantastic – a weight lifted off my chest which had been crushing me for the past year. (I also played, “One Day More” from Les Miserables on repeat the day before my last day. It was great.) It was a terrible job and sometimes I wondered if I should have stayed, since the following few years weren’t a walk in the park, but in the end I think it was a good decision and I don’t regret it. I’m even thankful it was so terrible, because it brought me to my current place in life and now I know if I ever have those feelings again to get out. It was a good learning experience.

I didn’t know the term Sunday Scaries until I moved to LA. I like it though. It gives a cutesy name to something terrible. Hopefully I don’t have it with this job, but if I do, I already know what it feels like and I know I have the choice and the power to make it go away.

Until tomorrow.

240 days to go.

 

 

Day 99: Perfection

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perfection‘

I try to be perfect. I really do. I get upset with myself if I even make the tiniest mistake that someone else catches. It could just be a typo or a missed punctuation, but I’ll beat myself up about it the tiniest bit before I move on. I think this can me a good thing sometimes – I learn from my mistakes and it serves as a reminder to double and triple check my work when I’m tempted to just send it along to the next person. But I also think it can be a mental block that gets in my own way. It prevents me from going to exercise class because I’m not “good enough” or it prevents me from sending along my writing because “it has to be perfect.” It prevents me from trying new things because I’m afraid people will look at me and secretly judge me (or openly judge me, but that would be rude.)

I need to remind myself that it’s okay to be perfect. None of us are. I need to try and be less self-conscious about my imperfections. Most of the time people are so worried about themselves, they don’t have a thought for me! And if they do, the so what?! Their thoughts about me have zero impact on my life, so I should just live how I want to. It’s a hard thing to remember, but I think it’ll definitely help me to get over a few mental hurdles so I can make it to the next step – whether that be trying a new dance class or submitting my writing for consideration.

Until tomorrow. Happy Halloween too!

266 days to go!

Day 91: Monthly Check in 3

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Time for my third monthly check-in! It’s been three months since I started this self-improvement plan (project?) and I think I’ve done relatively well so far! The holiday season is quickly approaching so it’s best that I come up with a few ways to stick to my goals (next post!)

  1. Work on my Novel – I finished my novel (again!) after cutting out the whole middle section. Now it’s just time to edit again (and again and again and again. Will the editing never stop?) I do think I’ve learned a lot in this process and hopefully my next book will not require so much cutting and rewriting and editing (but it probably will.) I’m hoping by the end of the year I can have a solid book and begin sending query letters to agents.
  2. Ballet – The cycle for the beginning of class started again, so hopefully it’ll stick this time! It’s definitely been a struggle (clearly), but I’m always hoping to do better.
  3. Promotion –  DONE! 
  4. Get out of credit card debt – Blargh. Still working on this and I will be for quite some time. Hopefully with my promotion I can start paying it off more aggressively (plus that bonus and tax return next year will hopefully help!)
  5. In a relationship – Still Bumbling. I’m not sure if anything is going to work out. Usually I get irritated with people by the third or fourth week and I can feel it happening again. There’s just an expectation with online dating that everyone wants to either just hook up or jump directly into a relationship. And I don’t want either of those things so I feel people are often disappointed.  And I’m resistant to both so we get nowhere in the end.

So there’s my third monthly check-in. Ninety one days in and I’m a little farther along with all my goals except Ballet. Perhaps November will be Ballet month, just like October was meant to be Ballet month.  Eventually I will figure out a way for it to stick!

Until tomorrow.

274 days to go. It’s a lot of time and it’s no time at all, right?

Day 85: New Job!

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I started my new job yesterday! Still at the same company, but in a different position due to my promotion (whoo!). To be honest, there were a few people who applied for the position who have seniority over me and I thought they would get it. I knew I had the most experience, but my company is very hierarchical and I didn’t necessarily think that I would get it, but I did!

It’s only been a few days, but it feels like it’s been much longer! I knew what the job entailed, but it’s all new projects and new people and new processes. I’ve been really tired the past few days because I’ve been on alert to make sure I absorb all the new information coming my way! It’s exciting, but also really tiring.

I did not exercise today since I have a trip coming up and have a few last minute things to take care of. I also immediately regretted that I didn’t go, so there’s that. Hopefully I’ll be better next week. Fingers crossed!

Until Tomorrow.

279 days to go.

Day 80: Success!!!

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Hooray! A second success! (Sort of.) I mentioned before that I cut out the whole middle section of my book. It was a pain, but I think the book is better for it. Or at least I hope it is. It took a lot of work and a lot of Pomodoro time, but I finished this morning!

Side note – Preparing to fail, I’ve been writing in the morning and not counting on myself to write at night. (Yay!)

There’s still a bunch of work ahead since I need to go back and edit everything and make sure it’s cohesive. I tend to let story elements fall away and then I’ll remember the villain is meant to be doing this or that and I’ll bring them back, so I need to make sure it’s even throughout (where it makes sense.) Taking a few days off and then I’ll inch towards completing my book ten minutes at a time.

Double Hooray!

Until tomorrow.

285 days to go.

Day 78: Sacrifice

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The thing about wanting to achieve my goals is that there’s never enough time or energy for everything. I spoke about this previously in my 100 blocks post. (Day 5! That seems ages ago!)  I wish I was a high energy person, but that’s just not the case and so I just have to deal with it instead of pretending I’ll be high energy when I get home. I know that if I blog, then I’ll have less time and energy for writing and if I cook dinner to save money then I’ll basically be too tired for anything else.

Part of it is about planning to fail. I know I get tired after cooking, so I make a large batch of something and have that sustain me throughout the week. Part of it is deciding what’s more important to me. Right now in my life it’s important that I cook instead of eating out to save money. It’s important that I blog some days instead of writing (or writing less) because it keeps me accountable.

What this really comes down to is that I KNOW I won’t have time and energy for everything so I need to prioritize what’s important to me. That means saying no to dinners and drinks so I can save money and have time to write. It means giving up on dating for awhile if it’s taking up too much of my time. (That is TBD at the moment…) Basically it means sacrificing some things I enjoy now, so I can be proud of where I am in the future. Now I just need to figure out what’s more important. Part 2 coming soon!

Until tomorrow.

287 Days to go.

Day 76: Be Terrible

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Yes! Success! For the first time in a couple months I went to ballet class. I was initially apprehensive about going because I haven’t been in awhile and even when I was going, my attendance was quite spotty. I’ve realized recently that often times my decision not to go to class had only to do with my own fears and anxieties. I was the one standing in my way because I was worried my teacher would judge me for all the progress I’d lost! Which is ridiculous! I’m not going to become a professional ballerina or even go on to dance in any sort of recital. This is for exercise and for fun. For my health! The thing I should be least worried about it what my teacher will think of me.  The thing I should be most worried about is making sure I attend class, so I can take care of my body and myself. And so this is another lesson I learned. Be Terrible.

Okay… don’t be terrible, but don’t be afraid to be terrible at something. I’m an adult! I have a job I find moderately rewarding and pay my own bills. Everything else is just for my own enjoyment and happiness. So what if I’m terrible at pirouettes.  At least I’m getting out there and spinning across the floor like my four year old self would be proud of!

This advice is important for not just exercise, but also for writing! I’m often worried of what will happen at the end of writing my book. Will all the hard work be for nothing? Will it be rejected? Will I even get an agent? Will it arrive on shelves and then sit there until it’s put in the bargain bin and I’ll never write another thing again? Or will I be a wild success so I can quit my day job and just spend my days writing and writing and writing? (Yes, please!) But none of these are an option if I don’t at least finish the book. So let my story be terrible and I’ll fix it up afterwards. After all you can’t even read empty pages.

Until tomorrow.

289 days to go.

 

Day 75: Preparing to Fail

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I fail a lot as I work towards my goals (clearly). I think most people do, but we just don’t hear about it very often. We do hear about how many businesses a person started before they succeeded or how many books a person wrote before they got published, but I feel like we don’t often hear about the day to day failures.  Those days we didn’t exercise or didn’t write or didn’t practice the instrument we’re trying to learn. These days can be very discouraging and can often roll over and over until months have gone by. Of course I don’t want months to go by! So, I’m always finding ways to make sure sure I succeed every day (or most days). I often don’t, but the best advice I’ve come upon so far is to “Prepare for Failure”.

I love this because it assumes I’m going to fail. It assumes I’m going to be tired after working all day and not want to write/exercise/blog, which I am and is often the reason for my not doing something. So instead of thinking you’ll be your best self and accomplish all the things you wanted to accomplish, this little nugget of advice assumes you won’t. And that you should figure out what you can do to make sure failure is less of an option.

For me this means writing in the morning because I know I’m going to be tired at night and put off doing it after work. It means changing into my exercise clothes at work and NOT GOING HOME to just “rest for a moment”. It means preparing a list of blog topics in advance so I don’t have to think up things at 9 or 10 at night.

So think you’re going to fail and then you’ll succeed.

Until tomorrow.

290 days to go.

Day 69: Happy October!

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Eek! It seems like I was just doing one of these at the beginning of September. It positively flew by and now we’re here – October 1.

I know we just had a monthly check-in, but there is an update!

  1. Become a Novelist
  2. Ballet
  3. Promotion
  4. Credit Card debt
  5. In a relationship

That’s right! There was a job open and I was waffling about applying for awhile, but I did and I got it. It’s a bit too soon to celebrate since we’re still discussing salary, but I think it’s just they’ll give me what I ask for or they’ll keep it the same. There’s not a danger that I would turn down the job or that they’ll un-offer the job to me. 🙂

Hooray! What good news for the start of the month. Of all the goals I’m slacking on the most I think Ballet is the one I’m having the hardest time with, so I want to make October my ballet month. I’ll do my very best to get back on track this month and I’ve made a few adjustments to my schedule, so it should be easier (ahem…should be…but we’ll see how that goes.

Perhaps in a few months I’ll be able to cross off one more of these. Nothing happening yet! Just wishful, positive thinking.

Until tomorrow.