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Workpost 74: Mondays
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.
From Mortal To God
“Every man is a divinity in disguise, a god playing the fool.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson
The last few weeks have been exhausting and emotionally draining. I came to Austin to find myself and focus on building myself up and I need to focus my energy on myself.
I need to focus on my physical and mental health and I intend to use my blog as a way to track my thoughts, struggles and progress.
Things I want to focus on:
- Thais Gibson’s personal development school – to focus on healing childhood trauma
- Self massage, gua sha and posture – to align body and remove tension
- Dance – to regain body awareness
- Food and nutrition – to feed the healing of my body
- Sleep – to regain energy and heal myself
Now the next piece is to break down every bit of resistance or difficulty in every aspect.
Personal development school courses
- Lots of long videos
- Worksheets
- Poorly organized
Love and connection: work with Jenny or someone else
Certainty: Timebox, skim through entire course to get understanding
Growth: Capture video blogs throughout to see progress
Massage and Posture
Certainty: Every morning and night, indulge in the sensations
Growth: Capture pictures to see progress
Dance
Certainty: Watch old lessons every morning, feel body
Uncertainty: Try to create something new
Love and connection: Share on social media or with friends
Growth: Create videos of progress
Food and nutrition
Certainty: Cook enough food in the morning to sustain throughout the day, cook food prep that will make it easy and fast, have ritual around eating food (no electronics)
Love and connection: Invite someone over for lunch, share on social media or friends
Sleep
Certainty: Start brushing teeth around 10 PM
Love and connection: write a core wound post before bed or a poem or do some art
I also want to focus on weekly health audits and setting up a really nice space to shoot videos and work and play games.
From New York to Austin: Dance Practice
I found some cool walls in NYC and decided to do some footwork practice
- Like it switching footwork and rhythm
- Could work on integrating body movement more, play with isolation and connected movement
- Could work on integrating elements like the spin more seamlessly
- Practice without music is nice cuz you make your own beat!
Then I practiced in a store window on the street. You can see a guy in blue recording me in the background!
- Great isolation
- Need to work connection area around the hips (feel like the movement ends)
Next, I flew to Austin, Texas. I found this cool industrial area where they had not developed anything yet.
- It’s really nice to play with the movement
- I need to work on moving my whole body together then isolating
- Specifically need to connect and incorporate the hips more
Then my sister and I were at a club and I practiced some dancing.
- Felt self-conscious in the club, could have slowed down and played with the movement more
- People in Austin are crazy…why is that girl stealing my spotlight??? LOL.
- Really like the waving and smoother movements. Would have liked to see that lower down with the legs and hips instead of strict footwork.
- Dancing to music is hard, need to feel it out.
My Darker Side
Today I wanted to talk about a side of myself that I felt was missing. A part of myself that when I reclaim, I feel powerful and clear. Strong and true.
I’m talking about my darker side. The parts of myself, that until recently, I was afraid to face. The parts I locked away because I thought they were too ugly to look at. The anger, the hatred, the rage, the lust, the desire for control and domination.
I have a very hard edge that I hold back a lot of the time these days. I always try to approach everything from a positive light because I fear that if I let myself react in the way that I want to, bad things will happen. That I will be unlovable, hopeless, and lonely.
There is someone in my life, who I count very special who has been the only one to see clearly enough to embrace my darker side. Who understands how honest and real it is, despite the fact that it isn’t all rainbows and unicorns. Who will understand instead of judging and admonishing when my darker self makes an appearance.
When I embrace my full self, I wonder how important youtube is. I wonder how important it is to win the approval of others. It makes me want to be less kind, that kindness simply feels overused and boring if I do it too much. That it is a drug and a sweet poison if I turn to it as a way to ignore the darker thoughts.
It makes me want to bring my hard edge into my youtube more often. It makes me want to be harder with the people around me. It makes me want it to pervade through everything I do and attempt.
Giving Too Much
I was in Taichi class the other day and my instructor said something very interesting.
She told us that if you are leaning forward, then you are “giving too much”. And if you lean back too much, you are “accepting too much” and when someone gives you a compliment, all you need to do is say a simple thank you.
It is an very interesting concept in taichi, this idea of always being in balance, always sitting on your heels even when pushing forwards.
I really want to experiment and see how much I can apply this to things like Valorant or productivity.
The Valorant Challenge: From Silver 1 to Platinum 1
I’m gonna try to do something crazy, which is to try to rise from Silver 1 to Platinum in Valorant.
For all of you who don’t know, Valorant is a competitive FPS shooter. Like all popular computer games that are competitive, it is extremely difficult to progress in rank.
When I first started Valorant I was in Iron 1 and after months of playing, I rose to Silver 1. Now I want to make a similar rise from Silver 1 to Platinum 1. But I want to do it faster this time. I want to do it within the course of 2-3 months.
I want to use this experience as a test of my speed learning skills and also how I can make videos for challenges.
I also believe that mindfulness and self-awareness can bring greater success than any brute force tactic, and I want to prove that with my progress in this game (which will be easy to measure and indisputable).
My current philosophy for speed learning:
- Embracement of pain
- Lower expectations
- Process emotions
- Try new things
- Self-reflection is KEY
- Need to see yourself
- Focus on fun
- Play when you want with things you like
- Small steps
- Don’t need to do everything in one day
- Do tiny steps if possible
- Prepare yourself
- Create an environment for success
Specifics:
- Embracement of pain
- Don’t set goals
- Assume I’m gonna do bad
- Slow down and process when I’m doing bad
- Always try new strats
- Self-reflection
- LOTS of VOD reviews
- Focus on fun
- Only play comp when you want to
- Other days do light practice
- Focus on agents you have fun with (focus on agent abilities that are fun)
- Small steps
- Find ways to practice in aimlabs, spike rush and deathmatch
- Prepare yourself
- Work on environment
- Work on posture
NEXT: What my plan on filming will be.
Also, got recommend How to Fight Thich Nhat Hanh by a friend on how to work on mindfulness.