The Science of Self-Help

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Day 345 & Habit Depression

Day 345 Record Keeping
Day 314 Fixed Meditation
Day 260 Bodyweight Exercise (wall walk down walk up bridges)
Day 187 Writing (97 words)
Day 360 Eating = 69
Day 117 Work = 50
Great sleep, great wakeup.
Incredibly ego depleted. Battling massive amounts of depression and emotional exhaustion. I feel as though no matter how much I try to do an overwhelming mountain of weight is poised above to crush me screaming “You’re a failure!” and the worst part is I start to believe it. 

Habit Depression

I’ve practiced my meditation multiple times today, and I’m trying to disassociate myself from the power of the emotion. A part of it is how difficult it is to do my work habit - it’s like pulling teeth, and I think it’s because I’m holding myself to 2 hours per day. If it were any other habit I would start with 20 minutes - a ludicrously easy habit. But somehow making it ok to do 20 minutes isn’t enough - I feel the weight AND how much work I have to do on top of that - pitching, writing, discharging PR debts.

When I feel this it combines with my anxiety over this project. Am I making any progress here at all? Am I doing anything unique. I’m reading a book about a similar topic that skims the bare minimum of interactive journalism - she did something for a year and wrote about it. Books like this are all over the place now - what’s sad is that I genuinely love this style of writing. Unfortunately this lady, and many like her, are just pumping out crap - they’re doing the bare minimum to get published, and moving on without a care in the world.

One year is nothing for this project. As I approach it I feel torn a part - should I be marketing this blog? Should I make it more click-able? I probably should if I want any of this work to see the light of day. But I can’t… I need to do it my way…but oh god today it’s just so depressing. I have this stone in my stomach - a feeling like no matter how far I get with this, I won’t be able to sell it, and I’ll have to watch while others like this lady sail past me with crap and a New York Times Bestseller.

I have to remember that I’ve had these breaking points before, where my endurance was stretched, where I fell into that feeling of churning in the mud, exerting everything and feeling like I’m getting absolutely nowhere. I’m going to do a few more meditative techniques, take a break, look over old similar times in my blog, and try my best to get through this. 

When I have moments of distance, I can see that these feelings are the battle. And I have to believe that afterwards I’ll get to habit flow, where worry-free steady improvement stretches out in front of me as far as the eyes can see.