Thinking About Life Goals

white goal post

In my last post, I talked about my desire to get to doing things. One of the reasons for that is to get past the “planning and preparation” stages that I so often eagerly jump into but just as often don’t progress beyond. Now, the reason for that is partly because I’m just that way and planning things is enough for me… I like to do that kind of thing! But the main reason why is because I get so caught up in my head, overthinking things or waiting until things or I myself am “the most ready” for whatever.

This causes inaction. Or at the very least just a lot of planning and talk but very little follow-through. Which is quite annoying for me, and I’m sure for those involved in my daily life.

Which is why I’m having a difficult time right now!

The Problem

How would I deal with this? By reading all of Marie Kondo’s books and using the MariKondo method for tidying my things and my apartment.

My “restart plan” essentially outlined what my current major goal is: To do more with each of my days by stop letting clutter get in my way.

My progress so far? Not as… progressed as I would like.

To be fair, Marie said in one of the books that the process can take a long time, sometimes even 6 months. While I don’t think I’ll be working on the tidying part of things for that long, I know that figuring out how to live my life in balance with my things and space will be an ever-changing pursuit as I learn and grow through life.

BUT while I’m going through the process of tidying, cleaning, organizing, and whatnot… I feel like I’m doing the whole, “I’m doing the thing! I’m doing the thing!! I’m going to engage with life again, BUT FIRST I just need to tidy things up and get ready. Then I can start with things again!” thing again. Yanno?

And while there’s a certain amount of time I’m going to have to devote to tidying before I can start to engage with new things, I can’t get stuck here for too long. I can’t afford to keep prepping for what I want and not actually go for the things that I want.

What To Do

Instead of focusing exclusively on getting by with daily life, work, and tidying while sort of “kicking the can” for the real things that I want to focus on down the road, I need to set some other goals for myself. I need to look at myself in a hypothetical future, picture what I’d like to see that look like, then use that to figure out what I’d like to do with my life.

I never really did have a solid, “I wanna do this big epic specific job when I grow up” over my growing up years. Well, I did say that many times, but the career options kept changing with my interests. And I’ve done so many different things over the years that I don’t really have one thing that’s been more important to me than anything else. Well, for the most part.

So, with that in mind, and while still devoting plenty of time to my mental and physical well-being, I’m going to be giving this topic some serious thought over the next several days. It’s an interesting question, the answer to which I’m quite interested to see. What do I want to do when I grow up?

M3

Today…was a day.

ocean during day

This post was written after an intense Tuesday I had a few weeks ago. I didn’t finish writing it, but I decided to post it anyway.


Oh, my goodness. What a wild day I had today. Care to hear the tale? 😬

Allow me to set the stage. There’s been a lot of dramatic changes in my life recently, and they’ve all sorta happened at the same time. Add to that the global COVID-19 pandemic and you have a jolly good recipe for a fun time!! (Sarcasm is obviously overflowing from these words…)

Don’t get me wrong, many of the changes have been good, beneficial, and expected. But many of them have been big, scary, stressful, anxiety-inducing… you name it. Kinda the biggest thing to happen recently is that my dad left my mom, betrayed the entire family, and left us all with huge messes to clean up. Now I’m not sure that I’m going to have a place to live after the pandemic is over.

I’m sure that I’ll figure out something with my brother to get the living situation secure for the future, and I do have some supports to access if it’s necessary. But the fact that I must face this situation at all is annoying.

I’ll quickly list off other things that have been going on:

  • I was admitted to the hospital a few weeks ago with severe stomach pain, caused by my Crohn’s disease.
  • I’ve had to help my mom move out of her place.
  • A lot of my mom’s furniture needed to be sold.
  • I’m still settling in from my last move to the current apartment that I share with my brother.
  • Because I’m currently underweight, I must pay extra attention to my diet and eating habits.
  • My dog Macy has needed to go into foster care, which means I can’t see her easily right now.
  • A bunch of other smaller things.

Anyway, you get the picture. Lots of things, most of them being big-but-not-too-big, not-so-fun things.

So yesterday, we were trying to sell the extra furniture and my body wasn’t cooperating. Even typing was getting to be too much for my wrists, so I had to take frequent breaks. My brain was all foggy and I just wanted to close my eyes, but even sleep was elusive when I tried to nap.


That’s all I wrote. I’m not exactly sure where I was going with this…but there ya go!

Thoughts on my current health situation.

As you may or may not know, I have Crohn’s disease. This causes a lot of problems for my day-to-day activities and lifestyle, especially when the symptoms worsen like during a flare-up.

Now I can’t control what my body does as far as my Crohn’s goes and I can’t always control how it affects my life; that’s something that just is. I can, however, control my treatment and choose to make the best of the situations in which I find myself. That’s not always easy. Especially during and after extended periods of turbulence.

This past summer has been one of those extended times, and in a lot of ways it’s still happening. But I’m fighting to get out of it or at least take some control back.

An evolving treatment plan.

Because many of my symptoms worsened over the summer months, the decision was made to alter my treatment plan. Going forward I will be taking biologics on a regular schedule. This means that for the rest of my life, unless something changes, I’ll be injecting my medication every few weeks.

So that’s a pretty big change. Hopefully it’s one that will lead to a more stable state of health for me. That would be amazing and life-changing!

Wow. I reread that last sentence and it’s kind of… it’s a weird concept to wrap my head around.

More than just a physical problem.

You see, for the past year especially, my mental health has also taken a big hit along with my physical health. It makes sense for many reasons, but it’s something that needs to be treated promptly just as any other health issue.

Luckily for me, I was able to start seeing a counsellor and they’ve worked with me to help get me back on track. Doing simple tasks can be a challenging and that messes with my head a fair bit. I mean, I’ve been living with Crohn’s for several years now, but only recently have some of the problems really caught up with me.

I’ve always had a huge issue with energy levels. Often I’ll wake up with less energy than I had before I went to sleep, so it’s hard to do anything in a day. I’ve lost my sense of passion for doing things– for living life. Creative moments are far and few between. My drive to do things and complete projects or tasks is non-existent most days. And it’s easier to count the days that I…

Let’s pause here for a moment because I’m trying to remember where that last sentence in the last paragraph was going and I can’t recall what I was going to write. It’s one of the other things that’s been happening to me quite frequently; short-term memory loss. Which is scary and annoying. Sometimes mid-sentence I’ll just completely stop because I’ve forgotten what I was thinking about and thus what I was saying.

Anyway, the point is that I’m doing my best given the circumstances, but I don’t feel like it’s enough or that I’m keeping up with the demands of modern life. Everything is a drain on my well-being. I can’t heal fully in this environment. Which probably means I need to adjust my environment to help facilitate healing.

Yeah.

In conclusion…

While I’m trying to manufacture hope and optimism, I’m going to probably start posting my thoughts on here a bit more. This blog is meant to share my adventures, and the biggest adventure of my life is also currently my only adventure. Well, it’s my only big adventure at least. I have been having little adventures as I am able.

I don’t know if there was a point to this post. I just started writing because I wanted to and I actually pushed myself to do it. Which was difficult. But it doesn’t have to be… does it?


Edit: I forgot to mention that I added support to my blog for dark mode. So if you’re on a supported device with dark mode turned on, my website will now match the colour of my soul a bit better. 😹

Thoughts on imposter syndrome and my health.

In preparation for writing this post, I decided to take some random imposter syndrome tests I found online. It was a very spontaneous decision so I don’t know what to make of it yet.

Note to self: You’re probably experiencing imposter syndrome about your imposter syndrome. Please try to remember that you don’t need to prove anything or need to manipulate the results.

Wait! What is imposter syndrome?

Let’s all get on the same page here. Imposter syndrome is a phenomenon (do do dododo) where your brain doesn’t believe that you have the abilities you claim or that you’re not worthy of recognition for what you accomplish.

Here’s a proper definition.

Imposter syndrome is the inability to internalize your successes, coupled with the fear of being outed as an unqualified fraud.

If you’re reading my blog then you probably already know all about imposter syndrome. 😜

What type of imposter am I?

First was a test on the Grammarly blog. This test assumed that you do at least occasionally experience imposter syndrome and tried to categorize it kinda like a personality test would. The types of imposters, as defined by Dr. Valerie Young, are as follows:

  1. The Perfectionist
  2. The Superhero
  3. The Natural Genius
  4. The Rugged Individualist
  5. The Expert

Before I began the test I thought that I was gonna be a strong perfectionist. My actual result?

The superhero! 🦸‍♀️ (Bold and italic, Matthew? Yaasss, Queen!)

That’s right! I’m a superhero imposter syndrome haver! 😁 The test has this to say about my result:

The Superhero imposter is one who feels like a less legitimate professional than their colleagues and takes on more and more and pushes hard to seem like the real deal.

In fact, Superhero imposters are workaholics, hooked on the validation they get from work rather than the actual work. Fixing this kind of imposter syndrome should be focused on training yourself to find internal validation rather than external validation. By shifting your focus, you’ll learn how to incorporate more balance into your workload.

I can relate, but I’m not entirely sure what to make of it. While I do have some validation issues–probably more than I realize or acknowledge–I would not call myself a workaholic. Though I may just be denying reality. Who knows for sure? I certainly don’t.

My partner took the test too and got “the perfectionist” and oh boy can I relate to what that one had to say!

Perfectionists are the most common personality type to experience imposter syndrome, and it makes sense – perfectionists set unrealistic expectations for performance, and when those expectations aren’t met, they question their self worth. As a perfectionist you likely have trouble recognizing your achievements and feeling proud of yourself since everything could be done better.

To beat imposter syndrome, you should focus on learning to celebrate your successes and truly appreciate how much you accomplish. Likewise, when you make a mistake, remember that mistakes are natural. Accepting that your work will never be truly perfect will free you to start your projects and try new things.

It’s weird though because while I think that I’m predominantly a perfectionist, I’ve always wanted to be good at failing and using those experiences as a learning tool. I even adopted the mantra “take chances, make mistakes, and get messy!” from The Magic School Bus as my own. Maybe this is a blind spot of mine? Perhaps I am less the perfectionist I thought and more just of a workaholic seeking the validation of others? Mayhaps I shouldn’t be reading so much into this silly online quiz that I googled randomly?

Maybe both types are true and accurate for myself. I do identify with each of the descriptions and can think of lots of examples in my life. I do seek validation and acceptance as well as setting unrealistic expectations for myself and then beat myself up when I don’t meet them. It’s all so complex!! 😫

If you’re wondering about the other imposter types, you can read all about them in this article from The Muse.

But how bad is it, Doctor Internet?

The next test was linked to from a blog post, but the test was gone! But my Wayback Machine browser extension kicked in and showed me the archived test from 2016. This was just a simple little questionnaire that told me I have a moderate amount of imposter syndrome. It had this to say about the matter:

Sometimes you worry that whatever success you have enjoyed was simply the result of being in the right place at the right time, or that people will discover you’re a fraud.

Okay, makes sense. That’s fairly broad, but good to know. It’s here that I want to remind everyone, including myself, that confirmation bias is deffos a thing to be weary of in this little exercise. If you go looking online to see if you have some sort of problem, you’ll probably find your suspicions are confirmed. But I definitely know that imposter syndrome is a major part of my daily life, I just want to use these tests as a way to explore the issue for myself.

The next test said is was “developed to help individuals determine whether or not they have Imposter characteristics and, if so, to what extent they are suffering.” Good to know that I’m suffering!

After I finished answering the long list of questions I was presented with this helpful graphic:

That’s not as much ‘helpful’ as it is ‘scary’. 🧐 At least the colour matches my hair!

Last one, I promise!

The last test I took was quite intensive with its questions; I felt like I was filling out some kind of overly personal marketing survey to earn a gift card! But I pressed on and got another graphic which was less ‘scary’-looking.

You may take pride in some of your achievements, but still struggle to take full ownership of them. Sometimes, in spite of all that you have accomplished and the effort you put into achieving it, you feel like a bit of an imposter. As a result, you may attribute some of your success to factors beyond your control and therefore, feel like you haven’t entirely earned the respect and praise that you were given. You want to believe that you are worthy of success, but can’t fully convince yourself.

Cool. Good to know. I mean, all of our lives’ successes and failures are to some degree attributable to factors outside of our control. Does that mean we don’t deserve the success? Does that mean we didn’t have some part to play in the outcome?

What does all of it mean?

I had a thought yesterday that was the inspiration for this little adventure. It’s popped into my head on occasion but I haven’t given it too much conscious thought in the past. What if my Crohn’s Disease isn’t as bad as I think it is and the symptoms I perceive are there because my mind is rationalizing undesired or otherwise lazy behaviour?

In other words, am I making it all up? Am I just using my Crohn’s as an excuse?

I know that I’m definitely not making it up. My symptoms and physical challenges are all too real and there are tonnes of lab reports that prove it. True I tend to be asymptomatic these days, which is good, but that’s because I’m in remission. It’s not because my Crohn’s is fake or made up. It doesn’t mean my Crohn’s is gone or that I won’t have problems, symptoms, and bad days… it means that I’m in a good place, physically speaking, which is ideal. It’s good!

That all being said, because of the Crohn’s (and probably for various other reasons) there are mental health issues at play. It’s part of the deal. Depression and anxiety are challenges that I face and Crohn’s doesn’t help at all. It makes it hard to do day-to-day tasks or feel motivated to work on projects.

Anyway, the point is that I have imposter syndrome and it affects many parts of my daily thinking. (Like maybe I’m not actually human after all!) It’s not great, but I know it’s a factor so I can manage it to some degree. Plus it’s just the way it is and a part of who I am.

I’m not a Crohn’s imposter.

Why I find Messenger to be a pain.

This post brought to you in part by Starbucks. Free WiFi and not-free snacks available now at Starbuckses everywhere!

For the past few weeks I’ve been mostly avoiding Facebook Messenger on my phone. I realize that I already do that fairly often without meaning to, but this time is slightly different. It started out as a passive non-decision–That is, I just ignored new messages when they arrived and told myself that I’d respond later or something. You know, the normal kinda thing that I do when I’m just not feeling socially able to deal with it right away.

After a little while I decided to make a conscious choice to stop responding to messages. Unless somebody needed an immediate response for something important, I would just ignore the messages. This made it an active choice that I made. Instead of simply neglecting to check messages or open notifications, I was actively ignoring people by choice.

Side note: I’m just spewing things as they come to mind… so this post may not make sense totally.

Now, if I’m ignoring Messenger intentionally vs unintentionally, does that make a difference? Like, should I feel bad about ignoring people that are wanting to talk to me? I think that it depends, but largely I shouldn’t feel bad about it.

See, the reason that I wanted to actively choose to ignore messages is so I wouldn’t feel obligated to respond. Does that make any sense? Maybe not. But for me, knowing that I don’t have to respond to messages helps take the pressure off.

Everyone and everything is trying to get our attention these days, and it’s quite invasive because we each have a phone with us pretty much all day long. I have my phone with me a lot, and with it I carry a slight sense of obligation that society sort of attaches to modern life. We need to be available, connected, and totally up-to-date on everything. God forbid that we aren’t informed about the latest happenings or newest trends. Everyone needs to throw in their two cents and react.

Where was I going with this… Ugh. I need to gather my thoughts again.

I think my point was that Messenger comes with a sense of obligation. By consciously choosing to ignore Messenger, I kinda remove that feeling for myself. I’m no free to respond or not respond as I wish! Sure, nothing’s actually changed except my perspective…but it makes a difference. By choosing to ignore Messenger and remove the obligation, I’ve actually been able to engage with some of my long-distance friends more than I used to. I don’t know why it’s made such a big difference. Maybe I’m just crazy.

I’ll come back and finish this post later.


Okay! It’s later. The next day, in fact. I had to leave the Starbucks so I could have TV night and now I don’t remember where my thought process was for this post. I’ll try to get back there somehow.

I think that I was just meaning that there are pressures and expectations put on us these days that we don’t even realize exist. Small little things like responding to messages become a big stress and it’s not even because of what those messages are saying but simply just the fact that we have to deal with them–are expected to deal with them. It’s one more thing on the big pile of responsibilities we have.

Whether we mean to or not, we take on that stress and let it build up. Maybe we don’t all have the same problem with messages as I do, but I’m sure there’s a bunch of little things that causes certain people similar feelings.

So that’s basically it. I’ve given myself permission to ignore messages and leave responses until a later time. Sure, part of the problem may be that I tend to have conversations over text more than quick communications about a certain topic. Either way, I needed to write a post about something and this is what came out. Hope it was worth the read. ;P

M3

Where to start?

I sometimes have high expectations for myself.

🤨

Okay… very high expectations.

😑

Yes, yes. I often have unrealistically high expectations for myself.

This blog is one of those things. Even though I don’t end up putting too much effort into what I write on here (most things end up being silly and totally great!), I do tend to let my high expectations prevent me from just writing.

It’s annoying and I don’t like it. I find that it gets in the way of many things and leads to my low-key freaking out or nearly breaking down because I’m not good enough. Or, at the very least, the things I do aren’t good enough.

Question to self: What even is this “good enough”? Good enough for what? For whom? And why?

Even now, as my partner read what I wrote so far, I’m feeling like this post won’t be that good either. I mean, it’s probably because I don’t have a point to make… I started this post as I often do; not knowing what I’m going to type.

Maybe it’s all part of imposter syndrome? Or maybe since I’m generally good at doing a lot of things, I fear that I’ll not do a great job, so instead of doing my best and having it possibly fail, I either intentionally fail and laugh it off as a joke, or I stress about it and worry that whatever I’m doing won’t be good enough.

But again… good enough for what? What standard do I need to meet? Why can’t I just not be worried about this?!?!

Man, I need to chill.

Anyway…

I actually intended to give you an update about my life over the past several months. Let’s do that instead!

Sooo… where to start?

I’m tempted to start at the very beginning… 🎶 A very good place to start! 🎶 etc, etc

Over the past couple of weeks, I was actually surprised with very unexpected visits from three people! One of my aunts was in town and texted me two Fridays ago… and then last Friday my sister came home and we dragged her bags down to the ferry… and also last Friday one of my bestest friends from my home town texted me and we had a wonderful evening with each other and our partners! I hadn’t seen her in almost TWO YEARS!!! It’s crazy!

It’s been quite the time, let me tell you… 😸 and quite the boost for my spirit!

Other than that… I left my position at my cafe, which is really exciting and good for my overall health. (I was going crazy over there!) I kinda miss that place and making drinks for the regular customers, but I don’t miss being in charge and having to deal with all of the manager-type junk by myself.

The one downside is that I should probably start working somewhere else fairly soon. I’ve already applied at IKEA (HA!) and a few other places, but I have no clue what I’ll be doing. It’s an adventure!

Spring is definitely here and summer is speeding towards us! (Us being Vancouver and the surrounding area.) I’m so happy to see life coming back in my surroundings along with the warmer weather. It makes getting outside more pleasant and brings the opportunity for more outdoor activities, such as kayaking, hiking, geocaching, and spraying smokers with water! Can’t wait!

I also have renewed creative juices flowing and new inspiration for projects that I want to work on! I’m really excited about them all, and I can’t wait to share them with the world! It will take some time before I can do that, and I’ll also need to buy some new equipment, but I really want to do more projects. I need to do more projects. I need that outlet.

And after all of that rambling I hope that you’re not left feeling confuzzled and dazed. That’s all for now, so I’ll say bye bye.

See ya later, friends! 👋

Beauty and the Beast

Okay, so until today I hadn’t watched the new Beauty and the Beast.

I know, I know… What’s wrong with me? I hear you.

It’s just one of those things that I was putting off until later. Steven suggested that we watch it together when he found that out. So tonight I finally watched it!

I was pleasantly surprised to find out that they had kept the original songs and added in some new ones! I found it to be a nice balance. And it was kinda weird because I haven’t seen the animated version in years yet this one brought back all of the memories. It was so we’ll done!

And Emma Watson was great, as always!

M3

I had an idea for a blog post.

But then I forgot what it was when I got home. I remember that it was a fairly heavy subject, though.

Oh, wait! I remember! The idea had something to do with the whole social…. thing against suicide, right? But the people who are struggling with that don’t get taken seriously until they reach that big breaking point. And even then, they only get support during their lowest point when things appear bad. But where’s the support and everything when things appear to be okie dokie, but it actually isn’t, yanno?

That seems like an awful big thing to write about so late at night when my brain isn’t in the mood to type type typity type.

I get distracted easily some—

M3

You can brag.

You can totally brag about yourself! Why? Because you’re an amazing person. You have value! You have amazing talents and skills, so why can’t you brag about yourself?

Because we’re conditioned not to. We can accept praise from other people, but we’re trained not to accept praise from ourselves.

If I held up a pencil, told you its name is Steve, then cracked it in half, part of you would feel super sad. Why? Because humans can extend feeling and emotion even to inanimate objects.

So if Steve is worth it, then you’re worth it. Show yourself some love! Be proud! Own you because you’re the best you there is!

Let the world know that you’re amazing!

Tell me something amazing about yourself in the comments! Brag about yourself!

M3