Intentions, drugs and information gluttony
I had this grand plan when I wrote my last post on November 7. I had planned to write a reflection on each of the remaining 20 activities from My Year of TED this month. I thought that this would complement writing my manifesto as part of ManiWriMo, and things would be great. You know what they say about the road to hell, yeah well I guess all intention and no delivery.The other intentions I had for this month were:
- to write 400 words a day for ManiWriMo - I have just over 7,000 so far, which might seem like I'm on track but that was all written in the course of two days.
- getting another guest post accepted as part of marketing for 30 Days of Drive - I will take a quick opportunity here to say that I have had two guest posts published in the last couple of days - so I haven't been a total slacker. These were The Year I found my heart (and what TED has to do with it) at Awesomepreneur and Navigating the trickier parts of self-publishing ebooks at The Writer's Bucket List [neither are available any longer] .
- prepare for the two markets that I am selling my jewellery at in early December - that one is going quite well, mainly because making the jewellery requires little focus.
- brainstorm something very important that I'm not allowed to talk about at the moment (I'll let you know as soon as I can, some of you may be able to work it out) - this is going all over the shop and I cannot narrow it down.
I've just been finding it difficult to focus at the moment, which brings me to...Drugs - or lack of them to be preciseI have been completely drug free for a month now, which is good and not so good. In some ways coming off the anti-depressants is harder than going on them. Your system punishes you for taking them away (fatigue, teariness, lethargy, oh and did I say fatigue) are the major reactions I'm still trying to overcome. But I'm glad that I am off them, and on whopping doses of Vitamin D I might add.Yes, a barrage of blood tests discovered that my Vitamin D levels were non-existent - and do you know what a lack of Vitamin D contributes to?? You guessed it, depression! So I'm trying to get those levels up at the moment, because even though we are in the latter stages of spring down here in Tasmania, I have not been able to rely on getting time in the sun to boost those D levels. [Today is a balmy 15 degrees and rainy in the Apple Isle].Anyway, coming off the drugs has made it difficult to maintain focus, but I'm trying to push through that because I want to stay drug free. And because I'm not entirely sure that the lack of focus is related to going off the drugs - I have a lot going on at the moment, and I tend to forget that sometimes.Information gluttony
It's not like I haven't been keeping busy, I just haven't been focusing on the things that I thought I was going to focus on this month. I've been doing a lot of reading and online courses on marketing related topics, you know because I have this business I'm trying to launch - and I suck at selling myself and the things I do.Apparently I have to find a way that I'm comfortable saying "hey I'm brilliant and you need to buy my stuff", and that is never going to happen. Well it is going to happen, or else I won't have a business, but I just cannot envisage how. Which is why I'm doing to incredibly useful thing of reading and listening to so many people saying the same sort of thing to me, over and over again, because I'm really stuck and at least by consuming information I feel like I'm achieving something - yeah admit it! We all do this at different times, I know I can't be the only one.I'll admit that I'm finding this behaviour a little disappointing, because I felt that with My Year of TED I had nipped it in the bud. During that year I went from simply consuming information to doing something tangible with it, and I hoped that behaviour would remain. So, as I am collecting all of this information, and not doing a hell of a lot with it to be honest, I'm also beating myself up about it (not a lot but enough).But I am starting to take control back. I have unsubscribed from five email subscription lists in the last week, and I think I've identified two more to go. Importantly though, I am setting up to be kind to myself about all of this. I had not planned on launching dinkylune this year, that was going to happen in February or March next year, and so I am giving myself permission to take some time to get all my ducks in a row, and stop panicking that it needs to be anything more than a placeholder at the moment. Wow, that felt great to write - permission granted.I'd love to know if the rest of you are information gluttons or hoarders as well? Do you have a particular topic that you are just squirreling information away on? Why aren't you doing anything with it? It can't just be me... can it? (Ha! I just Googled the term and it is a thing, so I know I'm not alone, whew)