Operation Achieve Anything: Day Three-Hundred-Nineteen, Dateline 11-15-2018

There are no such things as limits to growth, because there are no limits to the human capacity for intelligence, imagination, and wonder.
— Ronald Reagan

Good morning crickets. Welcome to day number three-hundred-nineteen of Operation Achieve Anything. Over the past couple of days, I’ve been hung up on how to handle mornings where I wake up before meeting my target of getting seven hours of sleep for the day. Day one was great because after waking two hours shy, I was able to fall back to sleep within a reasonable window of time, so it wasn’t that big of a deal. On day two, however, it took me over two hours just to get back to sleep to make up the missed slumber, which led to an extra late start to my day. This got me bummed out as I began to worry if I would ever work out a way to deal with my sleep issues.

This also led me to realize one of my weaknesses, which just happens to be the assignment from yesterday. That weakness being that I tend to focus on backup plans for failure even more than I focus on the actual plan. This realization sunk in when I woke up this morning after hitting my seven-hour target without having to resort to any sort of strategy at all. My confidence is so low in my ability to do anything correctly that I’m constantly looking for workarounds to sneak into the successes that I strive for.

Yes, these workarounds may be brilliant and beneficial when they work, but the fact that I almost always develop side-strategies even before thinking of the direct route to any of my goals might not lead toward the best outcomes. I don’t think this is a weakness that I need to avoid, but it is a weakness I need to consider when I’m feeling stuck in my convoluted maze to success. I am determined. I am strong. I do commit to my projects. I do everything within my means to do the best that I can, but sometimes I do jump ship and make adjustments prematurely since I’ve become too acclimated to finding new routes in an effort to avoid giving into failure even in cases where there is a clear-cut, straightforward path to success.

This also plays into all of my plans for next years assignments, where sometimes it feels more important, at this time, to start these new roads before I finish fixing the potholes on the road that I’m currently on. I literally didn’t realize this until I typed the words above, but that I’ve committed them to this post, I now feel confident in what I have to do.

Up until right now, I’ve been bouncing back and forth between wanting to put all of my focus into cleaning up this site or starting a couple of new projects. The thought being, if I focus on cleaning this site, I can then begin to put actual effort into promoting it, feeling it looks less amateur so that if any marketing attempts work there will be plenty of content for new visitors to explore. This would be good for any new visitors, but I’m worried about those who’ve already been to the site and just won’t come back due to their first impression, which is why I want to focus on something exciting and new.

New projects also just sound like a ton of fun, because I’m not thinking about the reality of adding more tasks to my things to do list for each day. Since I’d still be cleaning the site and working on even more projects in the background, I would totally burn myself out if I were to take these exciting new project on alongside my current projects, that I still love. What I need to do is clear my plate first before I give in and accept the offer of dessert.

So, that fulfill the task from yesterday’s assignment, now it’s time to introduce the assignment for today that also focuses and growth as part of the actual lesson, but for what must be the sixth or seventh time, I’m once again supposed to try to take up a new interest. Something new is just what need while trying to focus in on my ever-growing list of projects. Oh well, I’ll go into this more when I check in with tomorrow’s update. Until then, it’s now that time for me to sign off by saying, good day and good luck to you and all of your projects.

Talk to you soon.

Sincerely,

The Wicker Breaker

P.S. Below are links to my novel, which I plan to promote as part of Operation Achieve Anything, as well as a link to where you can buy the book that is providing the structure to this project in case you would like to purchase it in order to play along.