Starting From Scratch

[Spry]

Publicly journaling has always been helpful for me because of the accountability factor, so here we go. 

The hardest thing for me with this journal will be to be 100% honest and humble. But that's my big goal here, because that'll be the best way for me to get good, honest feedback and the best way for me to be objective with myself.

So for the sake of radical transparency, here's what's going well and here's what's going poorly:

What's going well 

I'm 29 and over the last 7 or 8 years I've made a concerted effort to improve various aspects of my life. The areas in which I've put the most focus have turned out really well. I have an amazing friend group, a great dating life, I'm healthy and in great shape and I'm much more self-aware than I was. My financial situation is relatively stable, I have a loving family and a healthy emotional life -- basically if I ever complain about my circumstances I'm probably full of shit.

What needs work

I'm currently unemployed and have a lot of internal resistance to rectifying the situation. Because I'm so laid back, I have an easy time just staying in my comfort zone and just assuming everything will work out. 

I've rarely been able to stay disciplined with something unless I'm fascinated by it or have strong external pressures. It's sobering to think back on my week and realize that I've done virtually nothing besides surf the internet, play video games and wander aimlessly from stimulus to stimulus. At times it's a wonder that I've accomplished as much as I have.

Despite trying to understand and change these patterns many times, I've yet to make substantial progress. This is discouraging and makes it difficult to keep iterating, adjusting and trying new things. It's simply been very difficult to take my own advice.

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I'm going to start small, and commit to writing about what I'm doing to move forward even if it feels embarrassingly inconsequential. 

So here are my goals to get started.

Primary Goal: Find meaningful work

Goals for the rest of December: Start a task every day related to getting a job, meditate for 5 minutes.

Goals for January: Get two interviews 

Goals for this journal: Continue to update regularly, be 100% honest about everything, approach this as an interesting challenge rather than a problem. Also, be humble, open-minded and willing to start fresh. 

Wish me luck

[Spry]

12/16

Today so far: 

Whew! Being honest is gonna be tough if I keep this up. 

I woke up around 11 after staying up late last night, had coffee, then took a walk and listened to Principles by Ray Dalio (good book). I had a lot of resistance to doing anything job-related, partially because I don't have a clear vision of what I actually should do and partially for unknown subconscious reasons. This resistance and lack of enthusiasm seems to make me tired, so I took a several hour nap. I meditated halfheartedly for 15 minutes or so, took another walk and played some videogames. 

Goals for the rest of today: 

1. Sit down to meditate and start, even if I don't stick with it very long. 

2. Read a paragraph of a job book.

It's funny, even as I finished up writing the first post and began this one, I could already feel myself wanting to just give in and do nothing for the rest of the evening. Writing can give a sense of a accomplishment, and finishing a post can make me feel like I'm already done and don't want to do anything else. It's also amazing the amount of resistance I can have to doing something as simple as sitting and watching my breath for a few minutes or spending a few minutes on job stuff, both of which make me feel good.

Oh well, gonna do my best. 

*edit* 

-Meditated for a few minutes but didn't feel like continuing this time.

-Read a few pages of job book. A few quick takeaways include 1) don't play against the odds by spamming online applications 2) 2/3 of jobs are at very small companies 3) Priority #1 is to make a list.

Goals for Tomorrow:

1. Wake up before 10

2. Read a paragraph of job book

3. Start a list of companies, even if I only spend 2 minutes on it

4. Sit down to meditate

5. Go outside

[Spry]

Today so far

So far so good today. I woke up half an hour late, but got everything else done. 

-Read some of the job book, enough to get ideas/inspiration

-Spent almost an hour compiling a list of potential companies

-Meditated briefly, I'd like to do more later today

Goals for the rest of the day

I'm gonna get outside for a brief walk, then eat something healthy, then go climbing for a bit. After that I'm going to spend the rest of the day with a girl I like a lot, so I won't get much else done. I'm happy to make that trade-off today. 

Goals for tomorrow

1. Wake up before 9

2. Read a paragraph of job book

3. Work on list of companies to research/apply to

4. Sit down to meditate

5. Go outside

[Spry]

Today so far

-Woke up early

-Read a few paragraphs of the job book, enough to get me started on the next step

-Narrowed down ideas for areas in which to work. I filled out specific companies in one sector but still need to do specifics in the other sector I'll be applying in. 

-Meditated for 10 mins or so

Goals for the rest of the day

Meditate again, go for a run, and do a bunch of non-work-related stuff. 

*will update later with goals for tomorrow*

*edit* didn't end up coming back and filling the goals out.

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It feels really good just to do small things. I'm still not winning any awards for work ethic, but I'm getting the ball rolling and it feels good.

Edited December 19, 2017 by Spry

[Spry]

Today so far

-Woke up around 9

-Cleaned whole apartment

-Worked out, went to sauna

-Meditated briefly

Goals for rest of day

-Meditate a bit more

Goals for Tomorrow

-Wake up before 9

-Read job book + work on employer list first thing

-Meditate

-Go outside

 

[Spry]

Been slacking a bit the last 48 hours or so. 

I've really been noticing how much sleep effects my mood and productivity, and remembering why I've made a point to optimize that more. 

The other thing that needs a lot of my focus is to break things into very concrete, small tasks. The two major roadblocks I've encountered with productivity so far are a) making things feel too big and intimidating and b) making things too vague, which lets me off the hook and makes me not want to continue working.

On the bright side, I've been meditating consistently and feeling really good/relaxed/happy.

[Spry]

Still feeling really good and getting minor stuff done. Just trying to find the right balance for all this stuff.

On one hand, it feels like "just doing a little bit" keeps me in this really low level stress state where I can never 100% let go and totally relax. On the other hand, I don't want to get frustrated and overdo things because that often leads me to relapsing.

Trying to figure out a little more every day.

[Spry]

Got a lot done this morning. Meditated for about 40 minutes and then got all my work stuff done.

The two most important things for me right now are a) having very concrete tasks to do and b) not making excuses. 

I'll continue to pay attention to my emotional state, and if I get super stressed or frustrated I'll know I need to take a step back. Otherwise though, I need to just dive in and get shit done.