Good morning Crickets, and welcome to day number one-hundred-four of Operation Achieve Anything. Today’s a Saturday which brings us to the end of one of the most successful weeks that I’ve had since deciding to move home from Seattle. Not only was I productive with my personal projects, I also was able to fit in the most hours toward a paid gig than I’ve been able to in quite a while.

Granted I used to spend a lot of time on ghostwriting projects but those were flat-fee gigs, meaning I could work as many hours as I wanted and the pay would remain the same. This current gig is from a company that hires me all of the time but this was the first task but usually, their assignments only last a couple of days. That’s why I’m super excited that I’ve managed to work close to a full-time schedule for close to two weeks.

Usually, my pay is so low that I don’t think much of money anymore since all of mine goes to the minimal amount of resources required to live. This upcoming paycheck would sound super low if I were to share the value with you but to me, it feels like I just won the lottery as I play through the plans of how I plan to spend the money once it arrives.

Yeah, it would probably be smarter to put it in savings but I’ve been neglecting my needs to reward myself with a few luxurious that might make life a little easier to live. No, I don’t me spending money on frivolous things like video games and going out, I’m talking thing like padding for my uncomfortable office chair and a cover to keep it looking neat.

I also plan on investing some money in making a few bucks and finally use the marketing bonus the Squarespace gives me every time that I renew my membership since I now have ads included to the site that are actually paying off. Granted these ads don’t pay all that much, but now that it’s part of my world and working it will be another area of my site that I’ll constantly be trying to improve.

Not only that but the fact that these ads make any money at all is a major step for me mentally as it’s now much easier for me to see that I actually do have the potential to be my own boss and make a living doing what I love. This has revived both my ambition and enthusiasm since I’m finally seeing some progress in an area of my interest that I’ve never been able to pull off.

Though I am very proud of the progress that I continue to make in my writing by working on projects every single day of my life, I never thought that I’d figure out the money making side of my ventures. Again, these ads are just a baby step but having evidence that I got it to work helps me feel that all of my work on the creative side may actually pay off in the end. Especially since I still feel that having such a stockpile of unexplored work available to anyone who discovers they're a fan of my page will make it so that these potential new fans will be able to spend hours on my page and never run out of stuff.

Once again, my timing is off by one day with this revelation, considering it would transition perfectly into today’s assignment but not some much on yesterday’s task which is supposed to be today’s focus. Yesterday, the book winded up its kid’s quotes themed series of assignments where the last kid said something about how it’s better to give than receive when it comes to compliments and then asked me to reflect on whether or not I agree.

The easy answer to the question is that I agree with the sentiment but both giving and receiving compliments is very difficult to me. I was raised by a very passive family where I was the only boy, because of this, I sort of feel that most of the compliments went to the girls. Even then the passiveness of the bunch created more of a show but don’t tell approach to showing love that I always found confusing.

This passive side also led to a lot of the wrong outsiders to be introduced into the family as users love to take advantage of the week. This meant that I got a lot of openly spouted verbal abuse over my flaws while always having to guess as to where or not I was doing right by the people in my life who were nice. This was probably one of the main reasons that I developed such a self-deprecating sense of humor that only added another layer of discomfort toward both giving and receiving compliments to the point where I never actively tried until much later on in life.

I wish that I had the tools to better share my supportive side because I may come off super cynical but once I feel comfortable with others, I can be a very loyal and supportive fan even if I don’t get the same support in return.

So, there are my musings on yesterday’s assignment and now to delve into the task for today where the book warns that it will be focusing on enthusiasm for a while. This first assignment on the topic is a bit of a simple one where I’m only supposed to explore what enthusiasm means to me and how I can cultivate more of it into my life.

Since “Success is the ability to go from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm,” is my favorite quote of all times, I promise that I have plenty to say on the topic but you’ll have to wait for tomorrow’s update to see how I deal with this one. Until then, it’s now time to wrap this up 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.