Perhaps I Need a New Focus

So, this post is covering two weeks because life. But here we are at the dawn of a new week. Halfway through the penultimate month of the year.

The first week of November was beautiful. Summer came back as it sometimes does for a glorious week of sunshine and high sixties. Directly following a morning of two inches of snow, I’d say that’s not bad. Desired, even.

The first week was good. I think only Wednesday proved cold and dark to begin, but it cleared up fast, and so did my initial mood of meaninglessness and misanthropy. One out of seven is not bad at all.

I started and finished a few projects and purposes I’d been putting off, finished three books, and found a few relevant webinars to attend for some goals that I have. And I think I finally understand on a heart level that my lack of drive in my daily life is not a lack of motivation but a surplus of indecision and fear gone unchecked.

This is worrisome but not surprising. I’ve known for several years that I’m a fear-driven person, but I’m also a knowledge-driven person. More than knowledge, I have deep desire to understand the world around me. If something happens, I want to know why. If someone does something, I want to know why. And it doesn’t stop at surface level answers unless I feel that it’s futile or inappropriate to ask for more.

So, knowing that, why? What am I afraid of that puts my motivations in check and turns them inside out and backward?

I have struggled with procrastination my whole life. The main reason is that I’m afraid of the outcome. I don’t want to do something badly. Anyone who knows about knowledge or skill growth will tell you that everyone starts out poorly.

Talent is a natural affinity toward certain skills, but even by the time a talent is noticed, there’s a certain level of practice that has been applied so the talent develops into a skill. I don’t like practice unless it’s something I truly enjoy. And I don’t like failure. (Not that anyone does.)

But without failure and practice hand in hand, how can there be growth? Development? This is my constant struggle: that I don’t want to attempt something unless I know I have a chance at success. When I confront things that I know little about, my first attempt will not come quickly. Perhaps that’s why I’m learning less and less.

Week Two.

Different story from the first week. The weather wasn’t bad, per se, but it was colder by about twenty degrees and I kept staying up really late. I mean. Late. You could even say early for a few nights because for one or two, I was awake doing random but ultimately productive things until between three and five in the morning.

I did sleep until one in the afternoon when I stayed up until five, but that’s to be expected: eight hours.

The following night, I did not stay up late because I was afraid of turning fully nocturnal. I need the sun, even if it’s only visible for two or three hours every three or four days.

My motivation is lacking. I need a purpose. An end goal.

That is likely the main purpose winter is hard on me. End goals disappear (I’m highly task-oriented but not success-driven) and what is left are small projects with minimal effort that distract me from larger, more important things.

It’s hard. But only in the “I don’t want to do it so it’s the hardest thing in the world” kind of way. Once I sit down to do it, it’s simple. My true struggle is the sitting down.

Lists don’t work: I make them, then feel good about making them and finish the first thing on the list before I discard it.

I’m distracted: I can get a project in my head to sit down and do, but once I get up and walk around to get all the things together for it, I get distracted by smaller projects. Like cleaning or re-organizing or other things that need doing, but not then. And by the time I’m done with those (or maybe not even then) I’m distracted by something else or it’s too late to do what I was planning.

I struggle with long-term sight: distractibility is key to this as well, but if I lay out a plan and step by step ways to achieve it, I go off the path at some point for some (good?) reason that seems important at the time but ultimately is no more necessary than any other point I’d already mapped out.

All of these are avoidable things. If I truly set myself to something, I can get it done. But.

I strongly dislike routine, which hinders a lot of skills I thought I would try to develop. The lack of routine makes getting distracted easier because I don’t have a set time to do things.

Most things require routine. It’s the truth.

What this tells me is that my true goal should be for personal discipline. I have that in some respects, but only when I feel obligated by outside parties to act or perform a certain way. School and work taught me that, but apparently I rejected enough of the home discipline I was taught that I never took it to heart.