Stuck

Byjack

I feel exhausted. My head feels numb. I feel hot and tired. My back aches.

My heart feels heavy. I feel angry at myself. So helpless. My mind in a fog.

My apartment is a mess. I just want to cry.

I can’t work. I just play games all day long. my eyes feel tired.

It’s 2 o’clock in the morning. All I want to do is eat and play video games. The pull is so strong in my heart like there is a strand of honey getting pulled.

I feel a numb panic deep in my chest. I’m afraid of failure. I’m scared I will disappoint myself and everyone around me. Pushing myself to make my business cards is only making me curl up even harder.

It was a long week. I’m exhausted. But the work just keeps coming.

I guess I can cancel tai chi tomorrow. Sleep in.

Tonight I can clean my apartment until I feel more peaceful.

I know I can use the gym as a way to process emotions, but I don’t use it.

I feel this pull, this overwhelm, like the honey being pulled, from my heart.

I’m capable of anything. Even rising from this challenge. This is important because as I get more successful, there will be days I feel exhausted, and in those moments, I need to find a way to find balance, to find peace.

I also want to learn to embrace failure. Failure is so scary to me. There is an image in my mind of my business cards being a complete disappointment and I feel a pit in my heart. A horrible amaturish website I’m not proud of and I can’t fix it.

Everyone starts somewhere. Everyone starts at the beginning. The people who are exceptional, who are savants are not people who started at the middle. They are people who enjoyed the beginning.

But how can I enjoy this? I feel so scared it won’t be good.

Makes me think of this video:

In this video, Jesse talks about how play allows us to feel pressure while still being able to learn.

That fun is the key to this.

But what is the key to fun? What would make this fun for me, regardless of the outcome, what would make designing and drawing fun for me?

What would make it an infinite game, not just a finite game focused on an end goal?

It’s true, the thought of designing business cards does not sound fun to me at all. It sounds like a slog. But maybe that’s because I’m worried about failing.

Ok, what if I tried to merge my painterly style with “woodcut” style prints. What if I created a new drawing technique that I could use to create cool stuff for friends and to sell as products?

That definitely sounds more like play to me.

So what about going to the gym, because I like it so much when I actually go, but I find it hard to go to begin with.

What if I saw it as supercharging myself – which it really is doing. Whether I go to lift weights or just to hang from the bar and stretch it really is building my body up to full potential. It might even solve my sleep problems.

And what about sleep, why do I not want to go to bed? Because if I go to bed, tomorrow, I wake up with tons of problems. Well maybe, that’s not a bad thing. Maybe before I go to bed, I fill my to do list with questions that I want to search out the answers to.

Here are the questions I have today, that if I knew the answers to I would rest easy:

  1. What am I going to do about my art coaching and AI gaming companies?
    • Am I behind schedule and if so what do I do about it?
    • Should I extend the schedule?
    • Am I losing money?
  2. How do I get out of my procrastination phase and get working?
  3. What do I do about my art coaching website?
  4. How do I get everything done in such a short period of time?
  5. Should I start registering for fairs?
  6. Should I pay someone to design the website for me?
  7. How am I going to get the motivation to start drawing? How do I start drawing consistently?
  8. How do I start going to the gym and working outsite the apartment consistently?
  9. How will I start cooking again and cleaning up my apartment? Where will I find the time?
  10. How will I prepare for the next week of work? How do I balance my other businesses?
  11. When will I continue to work on my Javascript projects? What is the breakdown between AI work time and coaching work time.

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Workpost 55: Refocusing

Byjack

Today I want to spend some time solidifying knowledge from my project for my AI consulting business.

I also want to spend some time on my art coaching business. Also, I want to spend some time gaming and working on my project.

I think I will spend 1 hour on each of those things. AI consulting business in the morning, project in the afternoon, art coaching at night.

The reason why is that I’ve been out of balance, spending so much time working late at night. I need a little recharger. I want to work at stage 2 (like 60-70% max workrate).

If I feel 3 hours of work is at the lower end of stage 2, maybe it’s 40%, max workrate is maybe 8 hours. That makes sense, I think 8 hours is pushing it for absolute maximum amount of effective work (you can obviously work ineffectively for longer than that).

But now I think about it, maybe it is less about how many hours I work, but more how intensely I think. I dunno, interesting concept.

Ok so after feeling out of sorts all day, there is feeling I want to process:

Hopelessness and exhaustion. After obsessing about the project for many hours every day, I gave it my all, and all in all I think I failed. I got a few “this is great” “good work” but deep down I don’t feel people were inspired and even if they were, I don’t see a vision anymore. I’m not excited for the vision and I feel extremely tired and burnt out.

I feel sharp pain and burning in my heart and buzzing exhaustion in my head and eyes, and tension in my stomach.

The wounds coming up are: my work is meaningless. Nothing I do has any impact. Everything feels gray and uninteresting.

Feels almost like a stitch in my side but in my heart instead. My eyes feel sore and dry and my mind feels numb. There is a strong feeling of emptiness in my head, almost like meditation but instead of open, I feel drained, empty.

I feel anger in response, frustration burning in my abdomen, hatred for feeling so stuck by people who are not inspired. I feel disconnected. I am alone. I have no meaning.

There is also fear in my heart that nothing will have meaning, even coaching and AI consulting.

I feel really burnt out.

I feel pressure not to get left behind, to face the overwhelming work with little motivation to spare.

Ok, well I felt the feelings for some time. Here is my response:

  1. This is good, because it allows you to take a break from work and focus on what you love
  2. My client always tells me that having a good vision is not enough…that’s his coping mechanism he learned as a child, it doesn’t mean I have to agree or stop my creative process to prove him wrong
  3. My job is to be inspired and spending time on things that inspire me is not a waste of time
  4. Maybe it will be a good opportunity to meditate and see what comes up

Workpost 85: Health Challenge

Byjack

I’ve decided to start on my health challenge today. What does that mean?

  1. An emphasis on taking care of my mental and physical health above all
  2. Creating boundaries and emotionally processing any pushback around not making my health a priority
  3. Certain goals:
    • Jiujitsu for 2+ hours every day
    • Boxing on the days I can go
    • Cooking all of my meals
    • Bedtime at midnight
    • Reduced or elimination of all processed sugars
  4. Work comes after health, and is designed to be rejuvenating instead of draining

This health challenge will run from today until the 15th – the day when I travel home. Then I will work on adjusting and finding a new routine.

Today, I want to ponder two things:

  1. What do I want to post as a video explaining what I’m doing with my youtube challenge?
  2. How will I support myself healthwise while working to make it rejuvenating?

Youtube Video

  1. “It’s over. I failed”
  2. “Welcome back to the 21 day youtuber challenge, my name is Jack you are watching episode 17.”
  3. “In this challenge, I was supposed to post a video every day for 21 days, and it’s safe to say I failed.”
  4. “I haven’t posted for multiple days in a row, the last episode actually shot multiple days before I released it because it took so long to edit”
  5. “The reason is simple, it took 6 to 8 hours to create every video from the ideation, to the shooting, to the editing and that just isn’t sustainable”
  6. “If I think of the ideal pyramid of life, it looks something like this” (Health, work, youtube)
  7. “But recently it’s felt upside down”
  8. “So what’s next? I still want to do the challenge – posting the rest of the 21 videos exploring what I like to make videos about. After all, I have so many more ideas to try out”
  9. “But I’m not going to release them every day anymore”
  10. “Here are 10 things I can focus on now that I’m not releasing videos at such a frantic pace”
  11. “But in those little moments when I have time, I will keep making videos for this series, and hopefully it’ll be magical”

Working Plan

  1. Focus on only one thing at a time
  2. Process emotions around rushing or being in a hurry
  3. Create an appropriately prioritized to do list
  4. Take a lot of notes when taking a break so I can pick off where I left off
  5. Timed meditation and off screen time for stronger focus
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Workpost 25: Tired and Weak

Byjack

Tired

I feel so tired

And weak

I just want to sleep

But the worries gnaw at me until I am awake

I look for comfort

Anywhere I can find it

I’m just feeling exhausted and I wonder what it takes to get well rested again. Maybe I can try to take a nap. Right now my physical health is the most important things to me. My eyes ache. My back aches. My sinuses ache.

The main issues that I’m working through is trying to understand what I am selling for coaching and also what I am selling for AI. For coaching I figured out the high price which is 25,000 for helping someone make their dream (creative) project a reality, whether it is a book, video, painting, etc.

I’ve been told multiple times to look for things that might be more affordable, but I actually thought about it a lot and I don’t think I can think of anything like that.

I just want to work on coaching a few clients who want to do something really special, beautiful, and profound.

Turning my attention to AI, I want to do something similar. Make the impossible possible. Provide 10x value, charge high prices.

Workpost 53: Overwhelmed

Byjack

I feel overwhelmed and exhausted today. I want to finish a lot of things today but I feel overwhelmed thinking about it. Maybe it’s time to process more fears.

I have to finish my work today.

I feel it in the pit of my stomach, my chest this numbing roaring anxiety but also exhaustion and numbness in my head.

I feel like a failure. I’m panicking about not being able to get work done.

One thing that came up for me is that working really hard can help me sleep. All I need to do is fail at creating a package. All I need to complete the deliverable, it doesn’t matter if I do it in a shitty way.

Tony Robbins said to fall in love with your customer.

I want to see my customer succeed. I want to see them happy and thriving. I can make that happen.

I’m afraid to sleep. I’m afraid the day will pass me by.

Not being able to sleep means there is extra energy I have to use. I can use that energy to help my customer and myself. You don’t need to sleep until you feel that release.

I’m afraid I will play Valorant or do something else to cope. I’m afraid the day will pass me by. I’m afraid my addictions will drain me of energy.

Wanting to play Valorant is a sign for massage and addressing some of the physical issues I am experiencing.

Workpost 52: Exhausted

Byjack

I’m so tired from being sleep-deprived for a few days now.

Today I want to focus on a couple of things:

  1. Completing all the hours of work I want to get done
  2. Focusing on my health
  3. Get screws from Home Depot
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Workpost 27: Business Inspiration

Byjack
  1. Start with what you love
  2. Learn how to do what you love doing better
  3. Find a partner to fill gaps within your execution
  4. Come up with simple execution plan
  5. Figure out where the revenue comes from
  6. Start with purpose, later you manage purpose not employees
  7. Delay gratification
  8. Culture has to be client centric
  9. Hacking luck is about persistence
  10. Taking risk increases luck
  11. How to deal with failure
    • Don’t let things own you
    • Do not let short term ego go (enjoy looking like a loser)
    • Learn to embrace getting a D
  12. Take your time
  13. Don’t ask yourself what you will do when you grow up, ask yourself what problem you want to solve
  14. Write down in detail what person you are looking for in a cofounder
    • Opposite of what you love to do
    • Same moral code
    • Post it everywhere
  15. Sell the sizzle, not the steak
  16. Build sales relationship
    • Do they need you?
    • Do you like them?
  17. Marketing is about experimenting and connecting with people over time
  18. Marketing is all about the process and the system
  19. Marketing is about having fun
  20. Write press release like its the actual story, do all the work for the journalist (high res photos)
  21. Lean into marketing for other brands you like and they can lead to brand sponsorship

Something I was thinking about in this video is how I love challenges, but I don’t like failures. But maybe the most important thing to do, or a really good outcome for a challenge is failure, and I can focus on failure if I want to. I think maybe a big part of failure, is unexpected outcomes. It isn’t important that you didn’t succeed at what you originally went for, but how you grew in the process of trying and discovering what unexpected things were on the other side.

The cofounder part is also really interesting in writing down what I want so I can recognize someone when I see them.

Sales relationships makes me think about reaching out with all my goals and involving people on a journey because that is the thing that interests me the most, it is the thing that I can connect with people on very easily and naturally.

Marketing is making me think that failure might also be about the story you can tell afterwards. The story is not about success, it is about the exciting hook and premise. Failure is one of the most interesting ends to a story, although it can be depressing.