Workpost 80: Recovery and creativity

I’ve been feeling really out of sorts recently. Not going to bed at a reasonable time. Not brushing my teeth. Not eating well. And it all comes down to pressure. Pressure to post youtube videos. Pressure to perform at work. Pressure to rest my eyes. Pressure to do jiujitsu.

I feel beyond overwhelmed and turn to the only outlet I saw…gaming.

It’s almost as if my unconscious mind felt I really needed to meet my need to succeed and the fastest and easiest way with the lowest chance of failure is to win a game. Makes sense I guess.

In any case, I would like to return to a couple of core tenants.

1. Extreme focus to deal with the overwhelm. I only need to focus on one thing at a time.
2. Being there for myself. Asking myself every step of the day, what can I do to be there for myself.

In keeping with the tenant of focus, here are the priorities in order:

1. Health – let myself take care of myself
2. Getting work done for my job (to the degree where I feel comfortable)
3. Youtube

It’s 1 am in the morning and I feel tired.

When I think about drawing on my drawing tablet I feel overwhelmed high in my chest.

I feel really really scared that everything I do will be frustrating and not good or artistic.

Let me start with some inktober sketches.

What strikes me when I draw is that art for me, even just plain linework, is all about discovery, all about uncovering the truth or the world underneath the scribbles. It doesn’t matter if I don’t see the world at first, it emerges from within the shapes.

I mean this style is definitely me, I guess I worry that if I try to refine it, it will lose the liveliness in here. At the same time, I’m not sure I want the business card to be this messy and a part of my wants it to look more like a tarrot card. I imagined a swashbuckling kid with big aviator goggles and a bunch of dripping paint brushes.

I’m feeling a lot of pressure for not making a huge amount of progress in finishing my funnels and progress in my businesses as a whole. I feel that I need to get much more productive in general and I’m not getting there currently in the working environments I’m in. I perhaps need to spend more time out of the apartment working out and in working spaces that help me focus.

I made a change today by going to one of those working spaces.

Let me process the emotions, then look at the dates strategically.

My tailbone and my neck are in tension and sore, probably from running a 5k yesterday.

I feel my heart is gripped in a vice when I think of the time running out.

I feel scared. I feel a bit of the trapped feeling as well.

I almost feel this hollowness in my heart. Almost the same feeling as feeling unloved and misunderstood.

I’m remembering what I felt last night:

• I need to focus on the end goal (for my art coaching its helping people who want to pursue this beautiful masterpiece and feel so alone on this journey)
• Those people need me, there is some urgency to get it done immediately
• I want to inspire my own artistic journey
• I just need to create and let the art be what it wants to be

I also saw this amazing video:

It makes me want to do YouTube again, but I feel overwhelmed.

Now that I think of it, it may be a better fit for my AI consulting business. That is a space that is likely very hot, gets a lot of clicks and views and I don’t have a clear idea or mission on what I want to do.

Now let’s look at timelines:

Art Coaching

Start: 7/12 | End: 9/12 | 63 days total

What needs to be done for the funnel:

Payment/banking systems
How much to pay myself vs save for taxes vs reinvest into business
Website
Business cards
Calendly
Client contracts
Mailing lists/CRM

AI Consulting

Start: 7/12 | End: 9/12 | 63 days total

What needs to be done for the funnel:

1. Payment/banking systems
2. How much to pay myself vs save for taxes vs reinvest into business
3. Website
4. Business cards
5. Calendly
6. Client contracts
7. Mailing lists/CRM
8. Branding
9. New contract for funnel

So we are day 26/63 meaning we are 41% through the period, we have 37 days left

I feel strongly that my client will not value the work that I did.

I feel that he will say, “yea is this what you’ve been spending all your time on??? This is not what we need”. Then I will feel frustrated because it IS what we need.

I feel unseen, underappreciated, and misunderstood.

I feel uncomfortable in this room with someone else on the phone. I feel watched, judged, and disliked.

I am now realizing this is a time that I can let go of taking responsibility for others emotions. I can have faith in their abilities to process feelings themselves.

I’m feel numb buzzing fear in my heart and stomach. I feel a little trapped in my shoulders from feeling watched.

Maybe this guy is friendly, both of us clearly like to work. We are both trying to get something done. Maybe this is a warm environment after all.

Reframe: I get to work with people near me, I can get a little sense of community without having to talk

I worry about him being uncomfortable walking behind him or listening to his calls.

I feel fear in my stomach and trapped in my shoulders. I feel I am not safe.

Maybe his calls can motivate me to work on my stuff. I feel rejected, pain in my heart, fear of rejection.

Chase rejection, it will set you free.

With the feeling for my client, I feel deep painful fear in my heart and stomach. I feel a fear of rejection again.

Reframe: if I have a fear of being misunderstood, I can take this time to understand myself.

What I do is important because clarity will give a lot of direction and power to everything you do. Noone like to buy a confused product from a confused company with confused founders. Noone is passionate about a product that isn’t clear in its purpose with a company that isn’t clear on it’s purpose.

I want to be excited about this product and company. Excitement and passionate is the lever arm for work.

Inspiration is the lever arm for creativity. Purpose is the lever arm for fulfillment. Branding is the lever arm for product value. Vision is the lever arm for decision making.

I have so many things I sorta want to work on but I feel scattered. Part of the problem is that these new glasses are making me dizzy and I don’t really like them very much.

Here are some of my options:

• Figure out how to talk to retirement homes about art coaching
• Create art coaching website
• Write about social anxiety and process
• Process feelings of being a failure
• Improve vision
• Get better at video editing
• Work on my art
• Work on my music
• Improve my bloating
• Work on my sleep
• Work on my digestion
• Work on skool games

I feel lost and I just gravitate towards anything that has some level of an answer for me.

I feel that maybe there one answer to a lot of things. I strongly believe my bloating is due to stress. And while there are many ways to work on stress, I feel breathing might be one of the most powerful ways to manage stress.

If I focus on breathing, I can also focus on singing as it involves breathwork. I also believe it will make a big difference in my digestion and maybe even social anxiety.

So what if I focus on breathing for stress, bloating, anxiety, and singing. What if I make a video about it, hitting another area as well. What video format do I want to follow?

I think I’ll keep it simple, and follow Beau Miles, one of my favorites.