Not so Guiltifesto, buddy. Time to change (but never stop punning)!

A year ago, I wrote a little something called my Guiltifesto.  It couldn't be more straightforward: guilt + manifesto = Guiltifesto, capitalized for stature.  It outlined a number of goals I hoped to accomplish in the following year, and I posted it online so that it would be public knowledge.  The public part mattered, not because I was arrogant and thought everyone should know what I was doing, but because I expected the guilt I would feel over not doing the work to motivate me. 

And uh, I didn't achieve all those goals.  I put in a fair amount of work toward them, especially in the general sense that I wanted to focus my creativity on games.  I definitely did that, and I'm glad I did. 

But my plan was to feel awful so that I would work better. 

Threatening misery as motivation--that makes some sense, sure.  When you suspect you'll be miserable if you don't do something, you weigh the risks and rewards and realize you should buckle down now so that you'll be happier later.  But my strategy was that I would first become miserable, then work on something, then hopefully be happy once the work was done.   The problem, of course, is that that's crazy.  Any enjoyment I would gain from writing would have to make up for the misery--which would only mean I'd broken even--and to get ahead, I'd need to be really happy with the work.  Turns out, feeling forced to work on projects doesn't energize me.  Or make me work on them.  Or, when I do finally work on them, mean I'll do good work. 

It's just draining. 

On top of that, I wasn't getting the boost in energy I feel from writing.  Yep, it's work, but feeling good about what I've done is the eventual reward--and I haven't gotten that for a while.  It's been a bit too grind-y to really enjoy it. 

Which doesn't mean I'm done with writing.  Rather, I'm going to try to get over guilt.  And being guarded.  And I'll chuck as much baggage as possible. 

I'm a risk-averse person from a risk-averse family.  We're emotionally guarded, even with each other.  Guarded about saying things that might make other people feel guarded. 

It's smooth.  All perfect, unmarred, free of all jags. 

I think I'd better stop doing that.  It's probably why I'm tired all the time. 

I'm tired from second-guessing what people want, rather than just saying what I want.  I'm tired from not talking about what I want to talk about, and just sort of hoping someone says something I might be able to make interesting.  I'm tired from having to perform, from having to optimize, from having to always put my opinions second. 

Hopefully this isn't all ranty and not worth reading.  Maybe someone else will get something out of it, or at the very least, you'll think about what behaviors you have that aren't helping you and you'll cut them out.  It's not really about gamification of my life, either, as I'm not going to give myself jellybeans for speaking my mind (although that sounds awesome).  It's really just about being more confident.  Valuing my shit.  Thinking I deserve to speak my mind. 

So, maybe you didn't enjoy this post.  After all, we're only Probably Entertainment. 

But, in the interest of sharing something I find fascinating, here's a TED talk about how posture affects brain chemistry.  Unsurprisingly, I do just about everything wrong--but when I've consciously changed my posture and the way I walk for a couple hours, I feel better.  In fact, I'm hunched and scrunched up while writing this... which could explain the tone a bit.  Time to power pose and take over the world. 

http://blog.ted.com/2012/10/01/10-examples-of-how-power-posing-can-work-to-boost-your-confidence/