Skip to main content

Day 59 - What's in a Friday?

I don't know how to ask for opinions today without sounding like I'm depressed.

How do you keep your motivation up?

I have all the time in the world right now, but I can't seem to force myself to get things done or follow a schedule.

This is not an inability to plan or manage my time. I am great at time management. I am also great at planning. There is a reason why I work in project management.

What am I lacking? Motivation. Accountability. Goals. A schedule with consequences. Routine.

Every once in a while, I have something to do, and to be honest, I usually forget about it. My calendar is a surprise every day, even if I look at it the day before. Even if I set an alarm for myself.

I have tried every trick in the book. "Schedule time into your calendar for what you want to do." Do you know who doesn't care if I don't make it to the gym, or clean the house, or apply to jobs? Me, I'm not holding myself accountable. I'm a very lax boss.

"Track what you're doing." Yeah, do you want to see my trackers past? Bullet journal or regular journal or multiple different apps or Excel or Google Form?

"Set rewards for yourself." I'm an adult. If I want a manicure, I'm going to go get one. Actually, just kidding, I'm an unemployed adult, which means I'm trying not to treat myself so much right now.

"Turn your goals into smaller chunks." If you think I don't know about SMART goals, you need to check yourself. I've been teaching people about SMART goals since 2010. I know how to make my goals measurable and how to break them into smaller chunks.

As a teenager and then college student, I thought I was internally motivated. It turns out that I was wrong. I want to do the best I can - getting a 100% on an assignment isn't to be better than someone else, it's because if that's the best I can do, why wouldn't I aim for that? But without having someone to sort of check myself against, whether a friend or coworker or trainer or teacher or boss, I'm sort of rudderless. That sounds sad, but I think it's just reality for myself. I have a million hobbies - reading, watercolor paint, crochet, sewing, working out, Perler beads, baking - but why? I have no goal. Nothing to push me.

Just me, and I'm lazy.

I think back to when I wanted to get in shape (in addition to lose weight). I was a member of a women's gym at the time. I signed up for a group program that was 8 weeks or 12 weeks long. I saw these other women all the time in the various classes we could attend. I met with my trainer weekly, and texted her daily. I got to know the instructors of the classes I liked the most, and in addition to making friends in class, I dragged my other friends to classes with me. I was so successful that my trainer thought she made a mistake with my calculations. I lost a good amount of weight, and my muscle mass had changed dramatically.

Once this program was over, I struggled to keep it up. I did an ok job for another month or so, and still fit into my wedding dress when I got married later that year, but since then... "what's the point" has snuck back in. I'm embarrassed to say how much weight I've put on since then, and that I struggle to get back in shape regardless of reason and regardless of liking it.

It turns out that I am a person who needs external accountability and validation.

And I need it to be a challenge.

I am only expected to do three "job search activities" per week. That doesn't even need to be applying to jobs. One activity can be "looking for jobs even if I don't find anything I want to apply to." Ok, cool. I was done with that the same day I left my Counselor this week.

As I expected when I started this blog, sometimes I thought writing this down would help me figure things out. I don't want to hire a "life coach," especially based on my finances right now, but I do need to find a way to check in with someone more often than what I'm doing now. Someone to call me out on being lazy; or at least check in with me while I make progress on challenging goals.

I don't know who that kind of person is, but if you'd like to volunteer to be my conscience, I'd love to take you on. Or if you know how to kick myself out of this kind of mindset, I'd also gladly take that.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Day 66 - Revelation

I’m not sure what triggered the conversations. I talked to 3 women last week who had all been diagnosed with ADHD late in life. One of them was my sister, and that’s important, because guess what ADHD has? A strong hereditary link. The other two were girlfriends - very different careers. Children at very different stages of their life. Different ages for their diagnosis. And while the wording was different, the message was the same - probably time for you to get evaluated. Actually, I think when I told my sister “I think I have ADHD,” her reply was something close to “no fucking shit.” You know, lovingly. There’s an episode of How I Met Your Mother where the sound of glass shattering plays whenever someone notices an annoying habit of one of the other characters. I tend to hear it in my head when I feel a lightbulb moment, and this past week has been nothing but glass shattering in my head. Why did I stay up until 1am in high school to type out my chemistry labs when no one else was do...
Post a Comment
Read more

Day 120 - Dessert

I'm feeling a little off today. Not just because I'm still dealing with the congestion from whatever this sickness was from over the weekend, but because I'm still unemployed. I think I just don't know what to do next. I had an interview yesterday for a departmental supervisor at a local store, but it didn't go great. I was very out of practice for the interview, which was a surprise to me, and the interview was weird. It was clear that the interviewer had a script that needed to be read and answered in order. None of my jokes landed, and they were funny. I'm funny! Or at least witty. And when I asked some follow-up questions about one of their questions, they didn't have an answer for me. It made me question if I even want this job, and that's the first time that's happened so far this job search. I've also only had 4 interviews (out of 80+ applications), so I guess I haven't had a lot of say in what position is right for me. Today, I was, a...
Post a Comment
Read more

Day 1 - here I go again

In first or second grade, I found a book in the school library of rhymes and old wives' tales about weather predictions. It was things like "Red sky at night, sailor's delight.” I was hooked. From that point on, I wanted to study the weather. In second grade, I begged my teacher to let me do the weather report for the classroom at least once a week. I was obsessed with a book about how to conserve water. I studied maps, and went to Lake Ontario with Dad to look for waterspouts (I'm embarrassed to say that despite the fact I've spent most of my life on the Great Lakes, I still haven't seen one.) In 4th grade, the dad of one of my classmates worked in the control tower of our airport. This was pre-2001, so he arranged a tour for the class. We got to see some pretty cool things and overheard pilots talking. This drew me in, and by the time I watched a special about the Hartsfield-Jackson airport in Atlanta with my dad, I was so sure I would work at an airport. In ...
Post a Comment
Read more