There is a realization I have recently been coming to slowly and it’s transforming my life.
It is weird because I’ve known this for a long time – I used to say that in order to master something, you need to focus on what feels uncomfortable (not on what is easy).
I don’t know what the new part of the realization is, but something has changed.
My new mentality is to always focus on what is unknown. For things that are logical (like the selling process) logically figure it out. For things that are artistic, form a vision and idea and feel it out.
Since this unit was all about model studies, I went into a custom game and used the model as a reference for drawing sova portraits.
I started with this side view of Sova.
Then I did colors:
I really didn’t like the colors. So I tried looking at tutorials.
New rough sketch of Sova:
Followed by a more refined outline:
Then by a painting attempt:
Something wasn’t clicking. I still didn’t like the painting job. I decided to try again and learn from another tutorial on shading.
I tried to color again.
This time I felt something clicked with using large soft brushes and the lasso tool. I used the soft brushes to create nice gradients and the lasso tool for the clean edges. Looking closely at the painter I see that he also uses the smudge tool a lot.
Today is a Monday, the start of the week. I feel tired but pretty good overall. I did not sleep much last night, but constantly going outside has done wonders for my energy levels.
Ok time to go through the questions from yesterday:
How am I going to balance contract work with my businesses tomorrow? Well I just need to solve the first part of the harder coding problem, then I should be good for tomorrow to finish up.
What can I do to make sure I get enough sleep for jiujitsu? I don’t need to go to jiujitsu today, but going outside helped with the exhaustion as well as taking a nap.
What is the plan for getting customers for my businesses? I have some lead magnets planned out for art coaching, just need to find events in which to meet people.
Should I sign up for a consultation with a Fiverr coach for javascript? Should I work first to get an understanding of full stack? I think first I get a primer on the full stack.
Should I start looking for someone to build my coaching website? Nah, but soon.
What can I give away at the fairs? The main this is free planning sessions to plan out dream creative project and business cards.
What is the next step for my woodcut art style? What is the plan for the business cards? The plan is just to work on them as I can while I sign up for speaking engagements and fairs for networking.
When am I going to create my powerpoint for my coaching website outline? ASAP, this is probably more time-sensitive than the business cards.
Today I had a dance lesson that refocused things for me. See for a while, I felt stuck in dance and even singing and piano to a degree. I felt like I was doing exercises for nothing. Actually, I feel that way with French too.
But I realized recently that doing drills in dance isn’t like doing drills in Valorant (or maybe it is). It isn’t about getting the most kills or winning rounds. At the end of the day, dance is a lot more about painting. It’s about creating something.
Practicing dance is about creating a style, figuring out the kind of experience, world, and impression I want to create on the dance floor at a club, in a party, or just in my house. It is about finding my voice.
A big part of every learning endeavor is about finding motivation because it is always really hard in the beginning, really fucking hard to keep going. When my dance teacher asked me to find inspiration for dance, I didn’t know where to look because none of it made sense to me. Now I sort of understand. I want to create a style or a set of styles that feel like me. The inspiration just helps give me clarity on what that style is. I’m thinking contemporary dance, with some popping, waving, locking and isolation.
Thinking about it now, when I started writing this blog post, I realized it goes much farther than that. It goes to learning French, which is about finding my voice and the way I want to express myself in a new language. Singing and piano is about finding the things I want to create in music. Art is about bringing to life the kinds of paintings that I want to exist in the world, paintings that feel like me (I’m imagining some quirky abstract art now cuz I love that shit).
Art is about finding the spacing in life that you love, your favorite food, your favorite movie, book and song and combining that with the joy of expressing yourself. Art is about creating a beautiful space in the world for yourself and other people.
Think about a painting. A beautiful painting that you hang on the wall, or sell to someone else to hang on their wall. Think about the way that it would transform the space, create joy and wonder. That is what art is about. I think some people get lost. They think about is about technique. Or worse, they think art is about theory and about ideas. Sure art is all those things, but it isn’t ABOUT those things. The theories, the technique is all a PART of a feeling, an aesthetic that will make the world more comfy and beautiful in your eyes.
So something that I’ve been sort of obsessed with recently is how to face your problems head-on. In so many areas of my life, I struggle to do that. In my professional career, tasks that stress me out send me to my couch with my phone. When I don’t know what to say to my mom and my dad, I immediately turn on my audiobook, eager to dull the pain in my chest. When I am feeling stressed about a fight in Valorant, I rush and try to ignore the mounting feelings of anxiety.
I would really like to find a way to flip the script because it is so rewarding. When I do a task that I worry about, I feel energized, and not tired from work. When I focus on my feelings of anxiety in Valorant, I become much more aware of what my intuition is telling me, that I need to slow down and play the situation very carefully.
I think this is a really interesting concept. I want to make a bit of an amendment. In the video they talk about trying to get better problems, that being able to have money problems when you are rich vs money problems when you are poor is much better (where you invest, vs how to survive). But I kind of disagree. The problem of survival is ultimately a much more rewarding problem for me than where to invest.
I do think that this is a powerful idea, and a way to reframe problems. My thoughts are as follows:
Avoiding problems comes from the fear of failure
We can address this by embracing failure
But we don’t want to just fail at anything…this is where choosing your problems come in
Instead of failing at a random problem, embrace failing and learning from a meaningful problem
Ex: I am afraid I don’t know how to respond to my parents
The meaningful problem here is to learn to create a bond with my parents while standing strong in my own life and boundaries
Accept failure and believe in my ability to learn from a failure at this problem
Essentially, turn every problem into a challenge
Another example: I don’t know what to do next in my demo build and it’s overwhelming and a lot of work
The meaningful problem here is finding how to be efficient at my job, and to work as a team without people pleasing to my own detriment (creating boundaries)
Accept failure at this and my ability to learn from that failure
Need to operate on a meditative state and trust strong intuition in order to reduce brain effort
Warmup felt a bit unfocused, maybe want to try specific thinking strategies, especially involving exercise
I have a bit of a headache now, but I don’t think it is because of the way I worked, I think it’s because of how tired I am, maybe need more rest + exercise, would like to try with a more exercise heavy strategy.
Felt like MUCH longer than an hour, felt like I have been working for 3 hours.
Result Calculation:
How much do I think this work is worth? I feel this work was worth maybe $200-$300. Rather tedious coding type work.
How difficult intellectually was this work from 1-10? Maybe a 7.
What percentile do I place this work in terms of innovation? 30% percentile
Gains in communication and charisma? A little since I am making the code more readable and clear.
Match 2
Reflections:
A lot less tension, with additional movement and breathing
Still trying to get my mind to cut through problems like a knife through butter, not sure how
Also felt like I was working for hours
Result Calculation:
How much do I think this work is worth? I feel this work was worth maybe $150-$200. Lots of grooming, project management, some architecture, some coding.
How difficult intellectually was this work from 1-10? About a 7. Maybe 8. Grueling but not that difficult.
What percentile do I place this work in terms of innovation? 40% percentile. Not that innovative but definitely clever and requires some knowledge and experience.
Gains in communication and charisma? Definitely helped make my flow much more clear. Will help with communication in the future.
