Afraid of going back down?

[InterfaceLeader]

So, I have just completed an incredibly intense 2 years. I dug myself out of debt, moved homes a couple of times, started being self-employed (web-design business) worked my fiance through a complex immigration system, that was deeply prejudiced towards people with no money, got married, and did all this whilst working 7 days a week, with relatively few days off (about 10, total, in the last year, including Christmas Day etc)

I am happier than I've ever been, because I've worked on myself as well - I HAD to, to get everything else to work. Falling in love meant I had to take responsibility for my life, because the only way we could be together was if I sorted my ♥♥♥♥♥ out and stopped coasting along in despair.

And now we're together. Not in debt (but not rich). I'm still working 7 days a week though, and to be honest, I'm kind of exhausted. Actually, really exhausted. I feel like I'm relapsing to going through the motions, and I also feel like what I REALLY want to do is just sleep for about two weeks.

But I'm utterly terrified of even contemplating that. I work ridiculous hours, clean obsessively, and get angry if I don't accomplish things that I set out to day each day. My to-do list never seems to shrink, no matter how much I cross off! I always feel like I'm one step away from sinking back into that mire of debt, despair, laziness and weakness. I want, desperately, to be that super-awesome person, who's successful and balanced and fair and wise. I push myself to do all these things, and most of the time I feel like I'm spread really thin. And then, at the same time, I think - well, once you let it slide, you'll make it a habit. Because that's what happened before ... I slept in once, and then again and again. Skipped a day of work once... and then again and again.

I have a vision of myself in five years or so, fairly well-off, free to travel and meet people, with enough time to explore and make mistakes and just hang out and enjoy life. I know that, to make that happen, I have to be disciplined now, and not lazy.

But how do I convince myself of this? I don't ever want to be in that negative place again, but my brain and my body keep wanting me to take the easy route and take a break. I'm really really tired of being tired all the time!

[Playlife]

I'm just asking... is it really so expensive to live where you live, that you have to work so long hours? Do you like your job at all?

[InterfaceLeader]

I have 3 jobs. I work part-time at a bakery (18 hours a week), part-time for a game development company (15-20 hours a week) and I'm a self-employed webdesigner (10-15 hours a week)

The webdesign business is what I'm trying to grow, as it makes me the most income per time spent, is what I enjoy most, what I am best at, and what I feel generates the most value.

However, the other jobs have their pluses too, and I like being diverse. The game dev job is less than minimum wage though, because it's an indie and small budget.

The bakery is nice because it gives me a break from the computer, and nets me a 10% discount on all my groceries :P

Most of my money goes on rent :/ I had to get a place above a certain size to fulfill visa regulations, and thus I am stuck with another six months of paying over the odds on it. Other than that, food takes a lot of my money, since I like to eat a lot of fresh foods. For a while I was getting an organic fruit & veg box delivered, but gave it up because it cost so much Plus, my partner couldn't work for a couple of months, and he's STILL waiting for his National Insurance number to come through even now... so he couldn't contribute financially.

We also had about £1200 on visa fees to pay, not to mention travel costs to get to interviews and such. Because he got refused entry the first time he came over, we wasted £300 on that plane ticket, plus he quit his job to come >.<;;; So I had to spend another £300 on the next plane ticket....

Etc etc etc!

So, no, life isn't THAT expensive, but I had these additional fees that kept me very tight.

[InterfaceLeader]

Reading back over that post... I should add that, no, life isn't that expensive, no, I don't have to work this hard. part of it is fear, that if I stop then I'll just relapse totally!

I spent a long time doing nothing at all, just floating and playing World of Warcraft :P And getting into debt. I'm very afraid of returning to that, and I feel as though one lazy day will lead to another....

[Jcs]

What server are you on ?

[InterfaceLeader]

I was on Bloodhoof :P I'm not playing any more though (uninstalled it, there are a lot better games out there that actually don't consume vast swathes of time with very little return....)

[Jcs]

You'll return !

I only use it to talk to people every now and then, also quit playing (raiding etc, pff). Expensive chat messenger but ahwell.

[InterfaceLeader]

I don't think so :P I quit about a year ago, and nobody I know apart from one person plays it anymore.

AIM is free :P

[Tigerlilly]

Originally Posted by InterfaceLeader

Reading back over that post... I should add that, no, life isn't that expensive, no, I don't have to work this hard. part of it is fear, that if I stop then I'll just relapse totally!

I spent a long time doing nothing at all, just floating and playing World of Warcraft :P And getting into debt. I'm very afraid of returning to that, and I feel as though one lazy day will lead to another....

Hm, difficult, cause of course I have no way of knowing whether your fear of relapsing back into your old habits is justified or not. Do you know the particular reason for totally withdrawing from the world the way you did last time around?( Playing PC games and sleeping the rest of the day sounds like total withdrawal from real life to me.) If you know why you did it back then, you know whether the reason for being tempted back into this pattern is still lurking around today.

I'm pretty sure of one thing, you only have so much energy to go around as a human being and you sound totally hounded by fear right now, on the run from some nightmarish thought. You can't keep up that pace of living, your body is screaming for a break right now already. If you don't listen to your body, you'll crash sooner or later, and then you'll need much more time to recuperate.

You need to aim for some sort of balance in your life. So if you say, you don't really have to work so hard, then don't do it.

[InterfaceLeader]

Originally Posted by Tigerlilly

Hm, difficult, cause of course I have no way of knowing whether your fear of relapsing back into your old habits is justified or not. Do you know the particular reason for totally withdrawing from the world the way you did last time around?( Playing PC games and sleeping the rest of the day sounds like total withdrawal from real life to me.) If you know why you did it back then, you know whether the reason for being tempted back into this pattern is still lurking around today.

Well, it got so bad last time because I didn't know what to do post-uni, I thought there was going to be some amazing 'success' from graduating, and there wasn't... I took two months off to 'write a novel' but I was rejected by the person i thought I loved. WoW is addictive anyway, you don't need much excuse to immerse yourself in it. When I started looking for work nobody would hire me at all :/ which made me feel worthless, and I played WoW even more.

My worry is that if I slow up on any of them, I'll lose the job... I can't really take time off from the bakery, since it's a 'real' job, and with the other two... if I slack, I'll be less valuable / lose business.

I have generally had a history of having very hard-working times, followed by extreme laziness though! In the past, I screwed up my last year of college (high-school in the US) by not studying at all. It didn't really matter that much, though I had to retake some tests, and in a way it was a wake-up call since I had always been able to coast before.

I think I'll be able to relax when my partner gets a job, but we're still waiting for his NI to come through, which could take another month... and that's before he can start looking

[garentee]

As someone who does very intense work, I know that it is so beneficial to take a little time off to just be. After a while if you do not you tend to lose effectiveness. Because you have done a lot of the growth I believe you will be able to be just fine with it. Save up your money and take a trip , and when you return you will be able to generate more and better results with what you are doing. If you find you are unable to do that though I highly suggest being physically active nearly everyday.Hope that helps. G

[FrancesL]

Well done for getting yourself out of a negative pattern of behaviour. That's no easy thing and I applaud you for that.

But here's the thing - you've gone and got yourself into another negative pattern as an escape from the old one! I guess it's less negative because you are making money and you're busy. That's definitely an improvement. But you're not HAPPY. You're frazzled. I doubt you set out to become 'slightly more happy but frazzled' when you decided to ditch your old pattern, did you?

The good thing is that you managed to escape your old pattern before, so you will be able to escape this one, too. You clearly have the insight and the self-control to make changes to your life. Why do you think that slowing down will result in stopping altogether? You have the power to slow down without stopping. You have the power to keep changing your life pattern without slipping backwards.

So my advice would be to keep the bakery job, focus on your designing in the rest of your time, and ditch the games development. Anything that pays below minimum wage is not worth your time. I could understand you wanting to keep doing the games development if you had cited that as your passion - but you only seem enthusiastic about the web design. So free up those 20 hours a week from games dev and use some of them them to work more on your web design business (with the aim of increasing its turnover), and use some of them to relax and enjoy that lovely man you've found. You didn't bring him over for nothing, right?

My two cents. Good luck!

Frances

[InterfaceLeader]

Originally Posted by FrancesL

Well done for getting yourself out of a negative pattern of behaviour. That's no easy thing and I applaud you for that.

But here's the thing - you've gone and got yourself into another negative pattern as an escape from the old one! I guess it's less negative because you are making money and you're busy. That's definitely an improvement. But you're not HAPPY. You're frazzled. I doubt you set out to become 'slightly more happy but frazzled' when you decided to ditch your old pattern, did you?

No, I didn't! I saw myself with long weekends in Europe, and plenty of time to be in love.

The good thing is that you managed to escape your old pattern before, so you will be able to escape this one, too. You clearly have the insight and the self-control to make changes to your life. Why do you think that slowing down will result in stopping altogether? You have the power to slow down without stopping. You have the power to keep changing your life pattern without slipping backwards.

I am afraid of the spiral, I guess. Debt that keeps getting bigger, mainly. Letting dishes pile up, sleeping in late. But that's not the same thing as working all the time, really.

So my advice would be to keep the bakery job, focus on your designing in the rest of your time, and ditch the games development. Anything that pays below minimum wage is not worth your time. I could understand you wanting to keep doing the games development if you had cited that as your passion - but you only seem enthusiastic about the web design. So free up those 20 hours a week from games dev and use some of them them to work more on your web design business (with the aim of increasing its turnover), and use some of them to relax and enjoy that lovely man you've found. You didn't bring him over for nothing, right?

My two cents. Good luck!

Frances

That's good advice :3

I guess I feel an obligation to the company. It's not that I love the work (I like the writing), but I do like the people a lot. They are good people, and I would like them to succeed.

[InterfaceLeader]

I was writing in my journal, and I don't know if anyone would even slightly care >P but I was trying to work some stuff out, and wrote this junk...

I am trying to work out what's important, I think, but fighting it every step of the way.

Life is everything outside the box that you drew. Life is messy, and warm and squelchy. Life is long walks, and naps and loving people with abandon. Life is broken hearts that heal, lie is death and birth and circles. Life is shouting nonsense into the void, just to hear yourself and your echo. Life is making poetry that nobody understands, but makes you cry every time you read it and remember what you thought. Life is here and now, there is no substitution, no waiting, no qualifications needed. Life is other people, long lunches, the pauses between words. Life is everything that happened in that heart-beat when nothing happened and you changed forever. Life is taking control, losing control, forgetting control. Life is power and vulnerability, life is learning to to be strong and flexible, not hard and brittle. Life is new growth, new challenges, new days with sunrises like orange juice and caramel.

It's not original or anything, but it's mine.... I think part of it was when I worked on myself, I had to apply a lot of very rigid strictures, like "You WILL go to work every day" and "You WILL save all spare money" and so on, and now I'm kind of in a stage where I don't need them as much, but I don't have anything to replace them with. There is a balance, I guess, but I don't know how to apply a rule that isn't total.

[ar81]

At the beginning of the day
By José Pablo Luna Sánchez. 2008

Today at the beginning of the day
I replace evil with good
I replace sadness with happiness
I replace unease with peace
I replace fear with certainty
I replace anger with ease
I replace mistakes with achievements
I replace failure with victory
I replace human passions with wisdom
I replace illness with health
I replace adversity with welfare
I replace scarsity with abundance.

Today I am the master and not slave of chaos
because spirit prevails over matter
and that's why I am here.

Today I acknowledge God as my boss
because he appointed my boss at work,
my coworkers, my friends, my loved ones.

Today I am creator
I am the master, the one who commands the universe
not a fragile sail boat
vulnerable to elements.

At the end of this day
I will dedicate this day
and I will deliver the result of my creation
to God.

[InterfaceLeader]

Well, there's good days and bad days...

On the plus side, I took a weekend off and it was really good. On the down side I spent too much money!

I think I have a block when it comes to succeeding. Every time I get close to having a breakthrough, I seem to have a breakdown! My web design business is going really well, yet I haven't really capitalized on any of it, and keep undercharging people. I haven't advertised anywhere (and yet I still have customers, which is a sign of success!) I'm SURE I could make it work, yet there's this deep fear that if I expend anymore energy on it, it will blow up in my face....

I really want this. I have a nice little life plan worked out, where eventually I have enough money to start a publishing company. I really enjoy designing websites, and I know I deliver good value. I have always committed myself fully to each project. But I still feel like I shouldn't be charging! It's like the only kind of work I feel is okay to take money for is drudgery.

I need to focus on this business, I do have enough time to make it succeed, and from there I can quit the other two jobs and get my weekends/evenings back...

Yet I'd rather come on here and blather about how I can't do it! Or futz around with personal designs, or just think about doing anything EXCEPT making flyers, handing out business cards, chasing up clients.

I think I need to conquer the mental block, and I don't know how to do that when I'm in the middle of the very thing that sets it off!

I want to go and hide!

[Liveformx64]

I too am a self employed webdesigner with another part time Job.

I am actually about to quit my part time job because the demand for my services has outstripped my supply of current time.

You need to read Steve's post about "Money and the law of Attraction"

I noticed you mentioned about feeling like you need to stay at the game development company because they need your help. This is I think your number one mistake. If you cannot help yourself to achieve a state of abundance, you most certainly will not be able to help them achieve abundance.

The rule I live by is, if I feel stripped of resources from my work, instead of replenished and energized by my efforts, I shouldn't be doing that work. From there, I will set in motion plans to disengage myself from it. No, It cannot happen overnight but the Idea I like to keep in my head, is that of constant momentum towards my goals. This helps me from becoming stagnant or relapsing too far.

From what you said above, I get the idea that you haven't fully asked for, or even completely visualized the type of success you want to truly have. Once again I refer to Steve's post about Money and the law of attraction to get you pointed in the right direction on this.

Hopefully this makes some sense to you.