#206 - Making Sense of the Mess

I have been struggling.

For like, way longer than I've wanted to admit.

I've been struggling to stay focused, to live up to my own expectations about work progress, financial security, and like overall happiness.

There are certain major leaps I've taken in terms of caring about myself/my surroundings. My apartment may never be AS clean as I want it to be but it's also never abjectly messy for too long. My standards of wanting my home to resemble a catalogue is something I'm still unlearning but there's only a certain amount of piles that I can actually allow.

I re-wrote the Growth Mindset Chart from the book Thanks For The Feedback on my whiteboard. I thought about putting up something different but I gotta say–it's a really great set of re-frame reminders to have. Anytime I'm frustrated with a challenge I look up and see "Opportunity! I can learn & improve." in my very nice all-caps whiteboard marker writing.

Sometimes I forget to take stock of the things I have done well because I'm so fixated on all the things I'm not doing well. I haven't been journaling consistently, which also makes this way less likely to happen. It's easy for me to forget the improvements, the strides, the habits I have successfully broken or developed because, well, I still feel like a constant failure who will never measure up to anything and I'm so afraid of going out to get things that I will just instead wait passively and hope my brilliance is recognized and the offers will come to me.

Which is like, absolutely something I am working on. Even in the realms where I do have talent, there is so much more to making my dreams happen than simply "showing up" and letting the chips fall. I like, actually do have to put effort into being a nice person who is aware of other people and not spend the entire time wondering why no one seems to go out of their way to be nice to me a person who is barely making eye-contact and basically radiating a "get the fuck away from me" energy (mostly unknowingly, tbh, which is like...worse?).

So, in order to combat this, I've decided to make a list of all the things I have done in the last year that have materially improved my life so that I can return to this list any dang time I please and remember that I actually do care about myself and I do put the effort in and it's all just a bunch of small building blocks that will lead up to an actual...building. I guess in this metaphor, I am building and building is me.

Funny that building is both a noun and a verb.

Okay let's go!

#1 - Taking a stand-up comedy class & performing at Open Mics

Far and away the coolest thing I did for myself and really did change my life in big and small ways and I just...I'm good at stand-up. I have the ability to do it. I have a voice because I write and my voice is evident in my writing. I love getting on stage, I love taking the mic out, I love the lights and the laughter, I love love love it. Can't wait to do more of it, can't wait to get on showcases, we can and will succeed babyyyy!

Summer is a tough time for me to get out and do things, but come winter/fall OH BABY I'm going to be at so many mics and I do need to start dedicating a certain amount of time during the week to actually just sitting down and writing jokes.

#2 - Triple cleansing & using Hibiclens

My showers have gotten longer but that's because I am actually spending the correct amount of time getting CLEAN.

Working out more has meant sweating more (on purpose!) and I've always had inner-thigh pimply blister thingys but I had never taken the time to really look into what they were or what I should be doing about them – and it turns out Hibiclens is the solution and honestly using it has been a total upgrade for my skin and now I don't have a bunch of pustules (gross) all over my thighs/butt/occassional underboob and that makes me FEEL BETTER because like...it is better the other things are absolutely medical issues but I tried to ignore anything that was a direct result of my weight for a long time.

Turns out, if you stop sticking your head in the sand you don't have to spend so much time cleaning sand out of your ears.

#3 - Working out

Like yeah there are gaps but this is far and away the most consistent I've ever been over long periods of time and I should celebrate that.

Nothing like negging myself in the first five words of this to prove I still have a long way to go in actually celebrating my accomplishments and doing things!!!

#4 - Starting a business newsletter & getting consistent growth from it

Fun fact, my business newsletter which has been around for almost 6 months (maybe a little more) has almost double the subscribers of this blog which I have been consistently writing for 4 years. Oh, the power of having an actual marketable strategy and telling people what they can expect and not just sending out random things that come to mind whenever I feel like it 👍

I spend more time on LinkedIn than I'd like but...you take the bad with the good, I guess.

#5 - Continuing & Starting Over

There are so many "could haves" in life and I think the biggest thing I have to remind myself about living is that we can't do everything. But the things we do, matter. We're choosing what to pay attention to, we're choosing to pick up the phone and check the app, we're making choices and if they do not benefit us, we should stop making that choice.

It's frustrating to feel like everything is out of control and there is a severe lack of leadership happening globally right now, but what can I do today to make myself happy with the choices?

Where am I putting in the effort? Where am I seeing the payoff (or, what payoff am I expecting from it?) and what do I need to tweak?

Last week I had a conversation that I spent a lot of energy trying not to take personally. Throughout it, my past work felt like it was being scrutinized. I felt like I was finally getting the feedback that I had been craving for so long–of course, it was far past the time that I could really do anything about it which made it frustrating but also like...yeah things don't always happen in the timeline we would like them to. Sometimes it takes a minute. Sometimes people need time.

Continue. Start over. Begin. Begin again.

Let things end if they're no longer serving you.

Keep pushing if you feel the ottoman really would look best in that corner and despite it weighing 500lbs you're going to slowly get it closer and closer each day. (This metaphor is so bad that I can't stop laughing and will therefore, keep it in.)

#6 - Just Do It

Last week a friend sought advice on how to start waking up earlier on her tumblr. I made myself a morning person a few years ago and while there are products that make it easier (and alarm clock with built-in sunrise is the big one) most of the advice that I saw came down to: it sucks but you get up anyway.

Sure there are some people who naturally rise before the sun does, who enjoy the peaceful tranquility of the morning. But honestly for a lot of us, it just sucks. I want to get back in bed SO BAD because I love bed, bed is my friend, but there are more important things that I need to do with that time (and I can always go to bed earlier if I really want to spend more time with bed) so I now literally say to myself after my morning pee "you will be disappointed in yourself if you get back in bed" and then I usually take a lap around the block with a bra on which really helps the whole urge.

I'm up! I'm somewhat dressed! I'm drinking water to quell the nausea that sometimes occurs when waking up early!

There is no secret. There is no magical set up that makes it easier to get the work done. There are certainly better circumstances but the ultimate advice is always going to be to just start and see where the chips fall.

Just clean the thing. Just start mopping. Just take one lap, then add another. Just get it done. Just make it possible. Just try it before you write it off. Just hang the posters that have been in frames for over a year even if the spacing isn't exactly right and they're not perfectly level.

It's okay to make mistakes.

Just like, do it anyway.