I’m going to keep this simple. What I’m about to describe definitely bugs me, but I’ve given up trying to correct people because in the grand scheme of things, it’s pointless and almost entirely harmless.
Something that bugs me, quite a bit, is when people can’t seem to spell certain words.
Definitely being spelled defiantly.
Rogue being spelled rouge.
Peek and peak being used interchangeably and incorrectly.
I can’t think of any others off the top of my head (these are just the worst offenders) but things like that bug me. Now, granted, I’m not a perfect spelling machine and I have found mistakes in my old blog posts from years back, but I’ve left them because, like I said before, I’ve basically given up.
Seeing when other people do it is annoying, though.
First off, I didn’t really use a planner or journal in the traditional sense. I guess you could say I used the Tasks app on my phone like a planner since it helped me keep an eye on my daily to-do’s (like taking my meds) while also using it as a grocery list because I can have multiple unique task lists going simultaneously by just flipping through them as needed. Sadly, one of the ones I had originally deemed as an important reminder kept being forgotten. Oops.
On the journal side of things, I guess you could say I’ve been treating my blog here as a journal? I’ve been primarily using it as a thought outlet for daily writing prompts, answering all kinds of questions (like this one) and only sort of using it to talk about my creative writing endeavors.
So, looking back through the year, had I not done either of those things, how WOULD my life have been different?
I suppose it’s possible that if the journal/blogging aspect of my time had been missing I may have fallen into a different kind of mental slump. I’d have just filled that time with gaming or staring at my monitor not knowing what to do with myself.
For the planner aspect, I suppose I would have tried to adjust my routine and habits for taking my meds on time, but not by much, and everything else in my daily planner-style to-do lists would have probably gone on sticky notes that would get ignored (because I have a habit of doing that.)
That’s how I see it having gone, at least. I could be wrong.
2025 might be a different year for planning/journaling, though, so we’ll see if I do better or worse.
Simply put, a lot of things I could do boil down to the same kind of solution.
Have someone else guide and motivate me through my problems.
At work? To make things easier, I need to educate myself on a system, and all of my searching online isn’t yielding results lately, so I’m asking for outside assistance from someone my company works with currently.
At home or in private? Well, for starters, I could make my life easier if I had a personal trainer, but that costs money. Having that personal trainer would make me obligated to actually stick with something because I wouldn’t want to waste their time (or my money) and I could learn a lot from them outside of just exercise routines. I would need to eat better to fuel the workouts, and they could provide guidance in that department.
I’m sure there are other areas of my life that I could go into detail about, but the solution I’m seeing for them all still seems to be that external source of guidance and motivation.
I’ve stopped buying quite as much Magic: The Gathering cards in the last year or so, so I guess I HAVE made some progress in doing less of something, but all the rest on the list most definitely still apply.
Okay, so maybe I’ve gotten a little better about giving into those feelings of impostor syndrome and self-doubt. Instead, it’s been replaced by allowing myself to be spontaneously distracted. Perhaps I need to speak with my doctor about the change in medication we did a few months ago, because my attention span for things is all over the place. I’m fortunate that I’ve been able to maintain my daily writing habit as much as I have since then.
So, there’s an update to my previous answer. I could do less of being spontaneously distracted.
Sometimes, when I’m having a conversation with people, I feel the need to relate to others in the conversation when they share something that makes them feel insecure or less about themselves in some way. This leads to me sharing a personal experience in hopes that we can connect and they don’t have to feel alone.
Unfortunately, these conversations are usually text-based through services like Discord, and I feel like my responses are often followed by silence from the other person and this makes me feel insecure in a way that says “they feel like you’re trying to one-up them”.
Because of this feeling, I sometimes just don’t share anything anymore and internalize feelings that MAYBE I shouldn’t, because then it starts eating away at me.
What are the biggest challenges you’re facing right now? How can you work to overcome them?
There are a handful of things I’m dealing with regularly that I don’t often share with anyone. Not with family. Not with friends. And certainly not with coworkers.
Am I going to share them here? Well, some of them, but only because I know myself well enough that I can handle those particular challenges on my own because I’ve done so before and know the steps I need to personally take. Others I’m still evaluating and may need to reach out and talk to certain people. I’ll leave those as private for the time being.
The ones I can share are personal goal, drive, and motivation oriented challenges.
Work has slowed down some, and my team is at a bit of a lull (but not a total standstill) for things that we might normally be doing on a regular basis. I have work available to me that I’m building up, but it’s a very slow build because it’s dependent on other people having the time and bandwidth to connect. These lulls, and “hurry up and wait” situations cause me to struggle to be productive with my current workload. I get things done in a timely enough fashion, but it still leaves me feeling a little empty. It saps my mental energy. I fall into a rut, and then it spills over into my private life a little bit at a time. I’m at my strongest when I have a “full plate” and am pushing my boundaries/limits to get things done. I’m the kind of person who works better under a little bit of pressure. So, how do I manage that right now? I have to remind myself that it’s okay to wait it out. I keep my manager informed of the way I’m feeling and we find work that needs doing (like updating internal team documentation and such) but I have to make sure I’m moderating myself as well. I can’t take it all on, or else there’s nothing for the rest of my team, and I risk burning through it all too quickly and just falling back into the rut.
How do I prevent it from spilling into my private life after all of that? I’m fortunate enough that my manager and the rest of my team are wonderful people and appreciate the intricacies of work/life balance. This allows me the flexibility to take time during the day to check on personal things. Taking a few minutes here and there to research things for my hobbies. Running errands for friends and family, and even sometimes my coworkers when they’re feeling a crunch in their own time. I “put myself to work” but in a different fashion to keep my mind engaged and try to force myself out of the rut and not lose too much of that mental energy.
On a more specific personal note, with trying to stay out of the rut in my private life, I’m making sure that I’m always aware of the sneaking feelings of imposter syndrome that try to creep in and keep me from writing. Self-managing those feelings is tough, and I’ve come to terms with the fact that I may need to constantly remind myself of a few things. Nobody else will put your ideas on the page if they stay locked in your head. Even if what you write is something that seems similar to another writer, you still need to write it to get the experience or else you won’t grow and improve. If you leave that idea stuck in your head, never writing it out because of it being similar, then you won’t free yourself from it and be able to think of something new. Just write it out. It won’t actually hurt you.
Of course, external validation helps, but depending on the kind it is, it just feels like a crutch, or a double-edged sword.
So, for the time being, a lot of what I’m experiencing right now is just requiring patience and consistency. I just need to keep moving forward.
The last time this question came around, I had a list of a handful of podcasts that I had been listening to up to that point. Unfortunately, I’ve backed off of that list. I just haven’t made a lot of time to listen to them. I’ll still go through a couple items, though.
First off, the Writing Excuses podcast is something I still occasionally listen to, and I even made my own playlist (click here if you’re interested in learning about what they call the Elemental Genres) for one of the particular years that had structured content. I go back from time to time and listen to this subset of their content because I find it fascinating how they deconstructed stories into easily identifiable themes/genres. Each listen through I’m either learning something new/connecting new dots or I’m being reminded of something that I should go back and check in my own writing.
The other podcasts in the 2023 posts have fallen off substantially in my routine. Instead, I’ve ended up listening to a lot of D&D Live Play content this year. Particularly Legends of Avantris when I’m working on my painting/printing projects. They’re an absolutely hilarious group that I discovered through animated scenes that get shared in Reels or Shorts.
I should probably go back and look through the rest of the podcasts I used to listen to and maybe see about working them into my listening routine again. We’ll see, though, because there is only so much time in the day.
Something I started doing, and in hindsight I should have known better, is playing my daily NYT games (Wordle, Connections, etc.) while in bed if I happened to be awake after midnight. This has been a problem for several months now. I’ll go to bed late, can’t fall asleep, see the time, and play. Then my brain is awake because I’m trying to get a daily habit done early.
It also doesn’t help that I installed a scissor-arm mount near the head of my bed so I can hold my phone above me without fear of dropping it on my face. I really should take it down and put it back on my hobby desk and get my old tablet running again. (Then I just need to make sure my phone isn’t next to me when I lay down.)
There’s a couple things that tempted me today (and sometimes they tempt me everyday.)
My bed tempted me to stay in and not work.
My phone tempted me to keep hitting snooze on alarms and not get up from a nap.
The cookies I baked yesterday, sitting on the stove waiting for me to walk by to go back to work, tempted me but I had to remind myself I’m full and the desire is spurred on by boredom and a weird need for temporary distraction.
Video games tempt me everyday but I’m always working on ways to get around the desire to game instead of being even slightly productive. Like right now as I type this up! (Monster Hunter Wilds demo calling my name.)
I’m sure there are, or will be, others that will tempt me throughout the day, but these are the most common that popped into my head.
Last time I answered this prompt I mentioned some things I like to make sure I know how to do (for the most part) like navigating. I’ll be taking a trip to a new city in a couple of months and I’ve already been looking up places and street names to try to familiarize myself with the area.
Some other things I think everyone should know include:
How to read instructions (and I mean REALLY read them)
How to take instructions from people via email and not just act like they know better (I’m looking at all you folks who like to email tech support/help desks and not follow instructions when they’re trying to help you appropriately diagnose your issue. I don’t care if you think you’re tech literate. Do as your told.)
Similarly, how to give and take criticism!
Too many people think they know better, and they wind up screwing themselves over or hurting other people.
The Dragon's Grove 