Mental Toughness, Muscles and Me

The word of the week is gratifying.

Nov 13 - You Are Enough

The 'winter blahs' are here, now that it's getting dark earlier...

I have a daylight-lamp at work, but I can't stare directly at it, as the light hurts my eyes; for whatever reason, I've become light-sensitive, enough so that I have to wear a visor at work to keep the overhead lights from becoming to much of a pain.

But the light's only part of the equation of late: what exactly, do I sum up to be? Should I be more, have more, achieve more than I have already?

As the brilliant Kurt Vonnegut states above, recognizing where you are in life in terms of what you have is a skill that few people possess and even fewer work on improving once they discover that they have it in the first place.

As I said in my previous blog, everyone is a work in progress: we're muddling through this life together, figuring out things as we go along and few of us have a plan... which even fewer managed to stick to as they go along.

I'm getting there, if only because I've been shedding illusions along the way year-by-year, separating my actual strengths from my illusions and working from that seemingly small base foundation to build myself into someone I can respect when I look in the mirror every morning.

It's enough.

Nov 14 – Princess Syndrome

How tough are you, mentally?

When asked this question, most people immediately think 'I handle stress pretty well' but the reality is that there's far more to mental toughness than just dealing with daily difficulties.

It really comes down to four things:

1 - Manage Your Expectations

2 - Prevent Emotions from Getting the Best of You

3 - Find Your Source of Motivation

4 - Learn to Delay Gratification and Let Things Go

Of the four, I know that the first on the list is the most difficult for me: I have high expectations of myself, and my constant failure to achieve those grates at me every day... which undermines my motivation. I'm pretty good at not letting my emotions get the best of me( while not ignoring them ) as well as looking at the long view to delay gratification. Letting things go, well... that's been another bugaboo of mine but not nearly as difficult as Expectations or motivation.

There's a lot more to this topic, but for now I'm just working on the basics.

Nov 15 – Legacies

What will you do when you're dead? More importantly, what will the digital you do once the fleshy you is no more?

For me, there's a comfort of knowing that there's several million words in this blog, along with a decades worth of posts on FBook( though admittedly those are darn hard to sort through )that people can refer back to if they so wish.

One would hope that they'd want to do so, every once in a while. The recent loss of a good friend, too young, has reminded me that nothing is for certain in this life.

As well, there's all the Other Stuff: e-mail accounts, website access logins, and the rest of the digital detritus that we scatter everywhere each day that would need to be accounted for( well, some of it would be )in order to consider one's Earthly Affairs as settled when you shuffle off this mortal coil.

If you haven't given any thought to your 'digital legacy' then you should, because the uncertainty of life means that you will likely leave behind big headaches for those you love if you haven't given any forethought to giving them access to your accounts if you're no longer around.

LifeHacker has a good article about this exact topic, which gives an excellent overview of the subject. I've made some preparations over the years for my own digital legacy, but this article taught me a few things and I'd recommend it before you dive into ensuring that you if you leave unexpectedly, that there's not much of a mess left behind to deal with.

Nov 16 – Noticing The Internal

How well do you notice things?

As a writer, I'm in a constant state of observation of the world around me... so much so that I sometimes overlook things that apply to ME in favour of an interesting hat, or turn of phrase.

This kid of 'always-on' observation can apply to life, to make it better for you:

Being aware of the processes going on inside your mind, not being at the mercy of your emotions... of ACTING by choice, rather than reacting, can make your life immesurably better.

Nov 17 – Core You

My core's slowly improving, or at least normalizing from earlier this year.

What IS your 'core' exactly? Have a look:

I used to have a solid core, from when I moved to BC in 2007 when I was regularly moving things around from place to place, swimming in boxes and riding my bike everywhere: a far more active lifestyle than what I have now.

Which would explain why I've been having tendon issues: I'm just not as flexible as I was when I was always moving, lifting and generally staying more active.

Back to basics in 2018: I'll be swimming regularly, flexing that core in the pool, and I freakin' HOPE I'll be able to ride my bike again come spring 2018!

Nov 18 – MWO and Life

I popped back into playing Mechwarrior Online this month, but why?

There were a couple of 'incentive events' this week and last, which for a few hours gametime meant some decent rewards in-game, like a new mech( which are fairly pricey, and since I'm frugal I love the word FREE )and some decent piles of credits to spend on my admittedly-small stable of death machines.

Readers of my blog might point out that in the past, I've expressed frustration with my skill levels in MWO( as well as other FPS games )and you'd be right: I'm just not that good, as I refuse to spend either the money or time to Git Guud, grinding my way through hordes of lesser-skilled players for many hours weekly.

Yet I enjoyed almost all of my games today: how?

It's shockingly simple: I shifted my perspective from winning / losing to enjoying / learning... and from there I could look objectively at my performance in each game session: was it me making mistakes, or was my team dragging me down?

In almost all the cases where my team lost, I did my best, but when you're thrown together with a group of strangers( some of which are new and / or terrible players )then some of those games are just going to be loss is matter how good YOU are. After accepting that, I made sure I didn't play for more than three losses in a row before I took a break or quit for the day so that I didn't continue the streak.

In the GOOD games, I did really well and in a few of those I did spectacularly well, earning the praise of my team for my well-coordinated actions. It was my enjoyment of these wins that allowed me to learn from my losses and to step back from the game when things weren't going my way to ask myself why: was it me, or my team? In doing that, I sidestepped the emotional triggers that usually made me grind my teeth with every loss as well as not enjoy my wins as often as I should. There were even a few funny moments that made me laugh!

I've always seen games as relaxing, and I'm happy that I've been able to pick MWO back up again with that in mind.

Nov 19 – Vexation

It's been raining and cloudy for most of this week, and my Happy Levels have been dropping.

After spending most of the day with my lady, I found my mood inexplicably down again, which is shouldn't have been: we had a lovely relaxing time both yesterday and today.

Part of that I think I can attribute to the weather: heavy gray skies with drizzling rain I've always driven me to turn on the lights and find a good book to read. Which is really quite common in the fall and winter months, when you can't just pop outside for a walk with little more than shirt, shoes and shorts - that's normal.

I think it's my internal 'job lack' dialogue I'm facing that's vexing me: I had a conversation on Friday with someone high up in government, and while it was productive it did confirm my suspicion that too often job postings are crapshoot for those applying. I was advised to keep plugging away regularly, as my experience and skills ARE in demand: I just have to find the right fit at the right time and I can only do that by getting my always-updated and custom-applied resume` out there for each application that fits me even halfway.

Having a better position will be a financial foundation that I can build the rest of my needs on: wondering every day if I could be spending my time better at various tasks is mentally draining and creatively crippling. Too often I find myself applying my energies halfheartedly at a task and though I rate myself for not working harder, I just can't summon the energy some days to slog out of the sucking mud that I feel I'm standing in up to my knees.

Yet, staring at the mud, even yelling at it, doesn't do anything.

I have to keep moving, putting one foot in front of the other( even with a cane )to move towards my goals, and figure out how to find the energy I need along the way.

As I was writing the final words of my blog tonight, an email popped up from a former MMart friend: she'd been accepted into a GVT position, thanks in no small part to my forwarding her a TON of info about my own experiences in applying for such! It brought a big smile to my face that she'd taken the time to thank me, and that my efforts to help her( though small )had paid off for her in a big way. A happy end to the day indeed!