Differences between today's journey and yesterday's

   How is this journey different from my previous pattern?  Now that I have finished and analyzed the previous system, what am I going to do differently this time to make it work?

   For one, I’m doing one thing at a time.  Which is incredibly difficult for me.  I have a hard time delaying my gratification (as mentioned earlier), and I want it all fixed now.  I also sometimes have a hard time choosing which one is the “right” thing to be working on right now.  They’re all “right”, and how can I ignore the other problems?  In a different way than I have been ignoring them in the past – by concentrating on one thing at a time rather than on nothing.

   Even with this, I’m still doing multiple things.  I have really added 3 things to my life recently – this journey, volunteering, and a cleaning plan.  I’ve also recently checked out a social group I haven’t been to before and started a crafting project for a Yule gift.  And I have plenty of excuses and reasons why “this isn’t like before” and all that.  Rather than just give them to you, let’s analyze.

   Let’s start with the last one – the new crafting project.  I go through cycles.  I craft for a bunch of months then set it all aside for a couple of years.  I am currently in a crafting section of the cycle.  I have recently completed two other projects.  The crafting cycle got started when I grew tired of just watching TV and bored with the puzzle books I had been doing for a couple of months since getting them for Christmas.  This new crafting project is a replacement of the old crafting projects which were replacements for the puzzle books.  In addition, this crafting project has a deadline (Yule) and an emotional investment in it.  If I do not complete it, I will not be able to give it to my husband.  My husband knows I’m making something, has seen me working on it, and knows that it’s going to involve at least one of the colors of his favorite football team.  If I do not complete this, I will be disappointing myself and him.  As I have been doing it, I find that it’s not as difficult as I feared, and that Yule will be a decent if not easy time goal.  To analyze – I have made some free time in my life and put the crafting project in it, I have chosen something that is both a little challenging and achievable, and I have an emotional investment in completing it.  Better than some of the projects I start.

   On to the new social group.  It meets once a month.  It fulfills a need I have thought over and described to others in the past couple of years.  The chosen night is one that typically I have nothing going on.  Now, there are times when I feel like I’m doing too much, when I want more down time, when I want to just go home, curl up in the chair, and read a good book without having to worry about laundry or guests or chores or getting somewhere on time.  I acknowledge this, and I know that committing to something social that happens more often than once a month would be an imposition, as would committing to multiple somethings that happen once a month.  To analyze – I have some free time in my life, some of which I am willing to give up in order to fulfill a several-year-long desire.

   The cleaning plan is this – clean 15 minutes each day, upstairs for week A, downstairs for week B, in a 2-week rotating pattern.  As I have mentioned earlier in the blog, I ended up with a dirty home, which drives me nuts.  This plan is small enough for me to do but also accomplishes things that need to be done.  In addition, I have an out.  If I don’t want to or can’t or whatever, then I don’t have to, but I have to pay $5 to the kitty.  This kitty will be used for pseudo fun things, like the hotel on a trip.  Yes, the trip is fun, and the hotel is essential for it, but I’d rather have the extra $5 to buy cool stuff rather than be practical about it.  To analyze – it’s small, consistent, helpful, and optional to a degree.

   Volunteering is again something I have been talking about for a long time and which seems to get thwarted every time I try something.  Even now, I reached out to two different agencies whose services I use often.  Both of them had times for me to assist – at the same time as the other agency.  Both have other things I could do – but each person in charge of those things is on vacation.  I have accepted the times for one of the agency and have left my name and number with the other for one-time things that don’t require me to miss work to do.  To analyze – it fulfills a highly-held value of mine, and it gets me out of my house and my comfort zone, which is part of the point of this journey – to adjust my life.  Even if this does not work out in the end, it is something that I will preferred to have tried and ended than never to have done.

   5 things at a time, instead of 1, like I was planning.  But it’s a far cry from the 12 things at a time in my previous system, which was cut down quite a bit from my 30ish every day system I had going at one point.  It is not perfect, but it is progress.

The use of structure

   It’s been 15 days since my last post, a far cry from the 3-4 times a week I had been planning to post.  But, since I can’t go in the past and fix it, I’ll do what I can now.

   The first 3 weeks were dedicated to cleaning up my previous attempts at controlling, measuring, and encouraging productivity in a dozen specific areas.  Part of me recognizes the “controlling” aspect and the negative connotations of that.  Having a “free spirit” sort of life appeals to me greatly – being able to do what I want when I want, to focus my energy where I want, but I’ve tried that.  I ended up 30 pounds heavier with a dirty house and almost no creative output.  I am a person who needs more structure than 0.

   How much more?  I’ve swung the pendulum the other way.  I used Mary Hunt’s system to control, measure, rate, and manipulate my finances.  I was a flybaby of a variety of flavors (main, local, and pagan).  I used both at the same time.  Granted, at the time, my personal life was spinning out of control, and my need to be able to control, dominate, determine, and rely on something was amazingly high.  Understandably, I burned out eventually, though not nearly as soon as one might think.

    The previous system used rewards, but it required more than I was willing to give, typically.  I was about to put in a comment about how I was raised and its influence on my current behavior.  But I am an adult.  I have been a legal chronological adult for as many years as the current legal drinking age.  Using my childhood as an excuse no longer works, not for me at least.

    Back to the previous system.  Everything I requested of me is a valid and worthy thing, none of which I was doing.  And I asked myself to do all of them at the same time.  Which, in hindsight, is ridiculous, but typical of me.  I go through cycles where I decide that I want to make changes, and I want all the changes right away.  (Delayed gratification is something I’m working on.)  So I try to make all the changes, I become overwhelmed, and I drop things – if I had even picked them up in the first place.  I’ve done this repeatedly, and each time I thought I was doing it “right”, “better” than the previous times.  Better, yes, most of the times.  Right?  Not usually.  This previous system is typical of this pattern.

   What few I did complete, I will still give myself the rewards.  The rest I drop and leave in my past, lesson learned.

Steps 4 through 6

   Step 4 is a course in The Willpower Instinct.  It’s a course recommended by a friend for increasing one’s willpower.  I need that.  As I’ve mentioned before, I have occasional trouble with follow through.  Not always.  I have a roleplaying game that’s been going on for 4 ½ years.  Several goals I’ve had in my life I’ve made (graduated college, bought a house, taught myself how to knit and crochet, etc.).  But, not all of them, and it seems like lately not as many of them.  It could be part of the depressive mood I am in or perhaps my health isn’t what it once was and is draining some energy out of me.  Either way, I am in need of more willpower. 

   It gets into this first journey because willpower will help me with other, future goals.  It goes before The Artist’s Way, because I’ve tried The Artist’s Way before, and I didn’t finish it.  I intend to finish it this time, and having more willpower will help with that.

   Step 5 is The Artist’s Way, for a variety of reasons.  First, I believe myself to be a writer primarily and a creator in other mediums as well.  When you ask me who or what I am, I generally say I am a writer, whether I’ve written a word or not in the last hundred days.  I am also a role-player, a step-mother, a wife, a daughter, and many, many other things.  Typically, though, I say that I am a writer, and I wish to be true to myself. 

   Second, as I said above, it’s something I’ve tried before and didn’t finish.  I want to clear up those “if only” things in my life that I haven’t been able to simply drop from my conscious thinking.  It’ll free up some of my subconscious energy for present life.  Also, as something I’ve tried before and didn’t make work, it’s a great test for my current level of follow through.

   Third, I have a feeling that I have a fount of fabulousness waiting to be set free by my creative endeavors, and they haven’t been let loose yet.  Time to do that.

   Step 6 is evaluation.  How did it go?  What worked?  What didn’t?  What can I do better next time?  What would make good choices for next time?  Should there even be a next time?

   That’s my plan for the next 30 weeks (week 1 already down).  I’m going to post weekly updates on how the past week has gone as well as how things are working out.  Comments and questions are always welcome.