So a great place to start is a review of 2009. I had a really hard time in 2009 due to the fact that May 2009, I graduated from college. I had taken 5 years to complete my degree and when it came time for my last semester, I was completely burned out.
On top of that, I had a student job that I was using as a distraction from school, which lead to me working about 30 hours a week while I was going to school. Between school and work, I had no time for personal projects. Yet, on top of both of those, I started playing World of Warcraft, which sucked up any extra time I may have had.
And frankly, I was so burnt out with it all that I didn’t care at all.
Then I graduated and had a month off before I started working full time. I used that month to go on a trip to visit family in Oregon. I just spent the month in chill mode. But seriously, a month wasn’t long enough.
So then I started work. I just continued working with the web development company I had worked for while going to school. At first it was a lot of fun, but then as I started to think about getting started with my own personal projects, I began to realize but how little time I had. And that job was beginning to get stressful as I moved from student work to staff work. I began coming home with no energy and would just chill in the evening. I never had the motivation to work on anything else.
But I’m an independent worker by nature. I need to have personal project going to make me happy. A few months into my job, and I just got more and more unhappy with the whole situation. So I started a few small side projects.
But…. I failed.
I just couldn’t stay motivated with all the stress in my life from work. And stress is bad. It makes you sick. So I never finished any of those projects.
By late 2009, I had to do something about this. So I made three goals for myself:
- Work Part Time – I’d ask to work 4 days a week instead of 5.
- Take an Art Class – I would pick something to learn that is completely right brain and different from anything I was currently doing.
- Start learning Internet Marketing – I wanted to learn something that would give me the potential to make residual income. Internet Marketing had interested me for a while and I thought it was a good place to start.
So I was determined to do all of them. And I did. I found a drawing class at a local art school that started in January and signed up for that.
I also asked my boss for a day off in order to take my art class. Saying “I want a day off to take this art class.” is a whole lot easier than just saying “I want a day off”. He had no problem with it and happily agreed. I took an income cut, but that was fine with me.
Lastly, I started doing Ed Dale’s Thirty Day Challenge. This was a good introduction to Internet Marketing. I got about half way through the challenge, trying to keep myself motivated.
Well, that brings me up to Jan 2010. In my next post I’ll write about where I am not and where I’m planning to go to make 2010 the best year ever. I’m still struggling a bit, but I finally have myself motivated to change my life.
