Self-Betrayal

I was having a conversation the other day that I’ve been ruminating incessantly about ever since. I reinforced in this conversation some long standing self-betrayal that I suck at self-motivation. The gist of the conversation circled around the idea that if I have an employer with a deadline, or a coach telling me how far and how fast to run, I’ll show up and do it. I went on to say that if I don’t have that I will never get anything done. I can tell you that in good old fashioned self-fulfilling prophecy fashion, I’ve managed to live up to that self-imposed expectation for a good chunk of my life.

One thing that I’ve been betraying myself on lately is writing. I have been talking about writing for a while. I can even say that I’ve written a book. My problem is that I haven’t FINISHED the book. Due to a plethora of self-betrayal reasons my book is 80% edited 9 months into a pandemic. I had no work during this time and it still isn’t done. That has to change. 

So, my goal is for my blog to become the inflection point for changing these constant acts of self-betrayal. I have zero excuses right now to not write daily. If I can’t bring myself to write and/or edit my book, I will write a blog post or vice versa. There is really no reason I can’t do both. But let’s not try to build Rome in a day.

You see, I have a wonderful situation where I have a job at the moment that occupies four hours of my day and allows me to take care of all my bills, and then some. I have no debt anymore or any other things to hold me back (other than my self-betrayal).

About ten years ago, I used this blog to talk about my journey exploring my brain and ADHD. Writing about it led to me going down to Seattle to give a talk on the subject to a large group of design students. The experience taught me a lesson that I’ve forgotten about until recently: 

Talking about things like having ADHD or other “problems” is incredibly cathartic. 

Even more invigorating were the responses I got from others. People I had never met. People who saw the world similarly to the way I see the world approached me after the talk in Seattle and we exchanged emails. They went on to tell me that having someone like me showing them that being different is okay changed their lives. 

In an attempt to help myself through this spaghetti pile of a brain that I have, I am pursuing therapy to help scoop out a shit-pile of inner demons. I plan on talking about them here, amongst other things. 

If you’re one that is battling “feeling different”, or you have said your whole life “I’m never understood”, I hope you come back and visit me every now and then. If you’d like to talk about it with someone, leave a comment, find me on LinkedIn, or Instagram and send me a connection. You can even find me on my business website. Just know that I’m no expert in anything other than being an expert in having all of those feelings of self-betrayal. I can’t be your therapist, but I can tell you that talking about this shit helps. If I can provide a safe space for you to get the courage to go get more help on this stuff, I’m here.