Ratcheting
It occurs to me that as a person with a high need for achievement, the most valuable type of achievements (to me) are the ones that "ratchet".
I was so excited when I finally got my degree in Engineering because I felt that I finally had something that no-one would be able to take away from me. No matter where I would go from that point forward, I would always be someone who held a degree in engineering.
I felt the same way when I finished my first book. I would never go back to being a person who had never published anything. I'd never again be someone who had never finished a significant self-driven project.
Over the past few months I've been working at completing my Professional Engineering application. I will need to work to maintain my status as a professional engineer for the rest of my life, but still... once I've got it, I've got it. It's a ratchet goal.
What ratchet goals are you striving for right now?
Focus and Loneliness
Quick update on my attempt to balance intense focus with 1-hour of GTD: hasn't been really working so far. I've been sick though... stay tuned.
Lately, instead of my usual running-around-like-crazy GTD, I've been trying to focus all of my frantic energy into one big, massive, scary project. The goal here is to accomplish something major and hopefully achieve a breakthrough/level up in skill level.
One major side effect of the focus is loneliness. In order to to make progress on this project, I've noticed that I need to sequester myself every day for significant periods of time. Unlike other forms of GTD, it doesn't lend itself well to being done "in between" other tasks - in between social outings with friends for example. Focusing like this is like meditation or REM sleep: it's something I have to sink into and concentrate on for hours, it's not something I can tackle in 15-minute increments.
It also doesn't lend itself well to regular reporting. Not only is the project somewhat "secret" (because I may never finish/follow through and it may be years before I have anything substantial to 'announce'), but I have nothing to say, nothing to share. The project has consumed my life and displaced any interesting activities/ mini-projects I may have otherwise done.
This is very different from my usual way of doing things. I've cut back on comic-shows significantly. The energy I've diverted into this project has prevented me from releasing other new products. I quite literally have nothing significant to talk about on twitter, facebook or my comic blog.
I wonder whether my readership has even noticed this, as I believe that in the culture of media-bombardment that the internet has become it is quite difficult to notice a 'missing' or reduced voice. I think that even if they have noticed, my readership would probably forgive the temporary reprieve. I have one of the most wonderful, understanding and forgiving readerships in webcomic-dom and I'll fight anyone who says otherwise 
This project is worth it and if I ever emerge with something worth sharing on the other side it will be interesting to say the least. That isn't what worries me.
What worries me is how much I miss the back-chatter. It's lonely!
Being the fiercely-introverted weirdo that I am, I'm actually quite surprised by this turn of events. My 'dream vacation' is a quiet cabin on a lake where there is nobody for miles and I can do whatever I want... reading, writing, drawing, painting... so to discover that I'm actually LONELY when focusing on writing is shocking to me.
I'm not really sure what to do about it yet. It could be something that I just need to power through - the project is finite, after all. Long, but finite. Perhaps it's just a different temperature of water and I'm still trying to acclimate.
Or perhaps I could just start tweeting about things that are completely inane and random... 
#unfollow
At the end of the day, I'll be fine. I still have my husband and my coworkers. I live in a huge bustling city and my friends are a text-message away. It's the emotional journey - the battle being fought between my brain and my pen - that I must face alone. It's the only way to do it, and I MUST do it.
What are you so afraid of?
Lately I've been working on a Thing. A Big Thing. I don't want to say too much about it (especially since it will be so l...o...n...g before I'm able to deliver-- if I'm able to deliver at all), but I feel it's okay to say something about it here because this is the type of Work that this blog is about. I'm pushing myself, trying to improve, and it is affecting me.
It's a MASSIVE writing project that I've been working at on-and-off-again for a long time. Such a long time that I refuse to count the years anymore (yes, years) because it is embarrassing and makes me a little bit ill. But slowly, obstacles between me and the Big Thing have been getting knocked down and I've been attacking it quite seriously of late.
I'm despondent when I can't work at it, or when it isn't working, or when I can't get something quite right.
But when it's going, when I'm flowing at it, I'm happier and more creatively fulfilled than I've felt in a very long time. It's been too long since I've been away from this type of Work. Truly, all of the effort I've expended into learning how to get things done and manage my mind has all been for this. That was the whole point when I started this journey. Now I just have to stare down the silence and make it work. And it will work. I will make it work.
A lot of fears have come up from the depths. The Resistance is screaming at me and it takes a lot of energy to just sit and work through it.
Hackneyed is a horrible word. Derivative. These are words that people invented to scare you and to keep you from trying anything creative.
But I am afraid. I'm afraid that this piece will be simply the worst thing I've ever written. It will take so long to even write the drafts, never mind the actual piece. Could it ever be worth it?
Banal. Trite. Cliché.
But if I quit wholesale, it will have defeated me. I will have stared down the barrel of something that terrifies me at a fundamental creative level and lost. I don't want to lose. Even if the story is horrible, even if nobody relates to any of the characters and hours and hours and hours of my life have been 'wasted', it will have been worth it simply for having defeated a profound fear from within. You need to chase down and defeat the thing that scares you the most.
Flat. Superficial. Bland.
Working in isolation has been so very difficult. I'm used to putting my work out there immediately (and I very much recommend it) but this Big Thing is a different beast. It's an interpolative process. I'm testing theories and refining the plot from beginning to end, tightening it like a vice, and it cannot be born to the internet until it's settled. So I must work at it, slowly chipping away the waste, without validation or even the verification of failure that an apathetic response brings. Now it's just me and my lizard brain.
Boring. Ridiculous. Over-Acted. Entirely devoid of motivation.
Here is how I'm getting through it:
- I'm having fun.
- I'm learning.
- I can't possibly get worse at something that I'm working so hard at.
If you're facing a creative fear, know that the simple fact that you care so much will make a difference. It's your taste that pushes you to create something, and your taste tells you when something isn't quite up to standard. It will motivate you to learn, and research, and try new things, and keep pushing at the Work to make it better. Tighter. More unique.
Being able to see the flaws is more than half the battle. The other half is DOING THE WORK. Simply putting in the time and doing YOUR part to make it happen. You have to put lousy, mediocre things out there before you can put great things. It's a sacrifice, but nothing good comes without some sort of sacrifice.
You can't re-write something until you've written it down the first time. Only when it exists in a conveyable format are you able to truly assess whether it meets your vision. Until then it's only an amorphous idea. Untested. No good to anyone. True, if it never comes into existence, you won't have to face the cold reality of it being bad. But you'll also never know how great it might have been.
Get back to Work.
Haters will hate
When haters show up, it's easy to see it as a failure.. but it's not. It's an indication you're going in the right direction. You have to challenge the status quo to break through, and that has a natural tendency to scare people.
It can be tempting to defend yourself, or give snarky responses, but it's important to reinforce the positive and let negativity-for-the-sake-of-negativity slide off your back. After a day or two, no one will remember the negative comment. They WILL remember your reaction to it. Flame wars have a tendency to stick in people's memory.
Remember:
- People see their failures reflected in your successes.
- People who need to attack someone else to feel better about themselves have a lot of sadness in their lives.
- They are wasting their emotional energy. Don't let them waste yours.
If you consistently put positivity into the world, you will attract more positivity than negativity. In any population great enough, the negatives will show up. It's a statistical inevitability. Keep working. Keep doing. Keep achieving.
If this is how they choose to react to you, it's their loss.
Goal Setting 5 – the RANT
"Don't complain", we're told. We either get scolded for being unappreciative, or it becomes a competition.
"You think you're fat? What are you complaining for, I weigh 200lbs more than you!" Or, "You think YOUR job is tough, you've got it easy! Let me tell you--"
They're right-- you shouldn't complain. At least... not to them. In public you should be grateful for what you have, take problems in stride, and put on a strong face.
But it's natural to complainin. The urge to complain is your mind's way of telling you that something is wrong, something is making you unhappy.
That is the origin of this goal-setting excercise. If you don't know where you want to go, or why you're unhappy, just open up a notepad doc (or a pen and paper if you prefer) and start writing. Some might prefer to speak their rant out loud, but I find when I speak, it's harder to analyze what I've said and dig deeper into why it came out. The rant itself is just the leaves of the weed. Just "getting it out" might make you feel better, but to get your goals out if it, you'll need ot pull up the roots.
Go. Start writing. Once you've opened up the floodgates, let loose about everything you HATE in your life. Even the things you don't really hate, but just annoy you a lot. Don't worry about spelling or grammar, just keep letting the words flow onto the page. Some things might come up that surprise you - dig deeper.
As you continue, narrow it down to PRECISELY what it is that you hate. Is it really the toast that your roommate left on the counter that bothers you? Or is it the fact that you can't yet afford a place of your own?
Drill down and clarify those annoyances, down to the largest root-cause problems in your life. Now you've found your GOALS: to fix every one of those problems.
Sanity Management: Introduction
Calgary, Alberta
YOU ARE YOUR OWN OPPONENT