Month: February 2020

Something I never thought I had trouble with was honesty. I have long thought of myself as someone who tells the truth and doesn’t really need to lie. Lying ends up causing more trouble than the truth, right? Well, not always. Something I’ve enjoyed about having a therapist, however, is being able to tell her things that normally I wouldn’t.

Lies By Omission

The most common lie I believe all of us “tell” are the truths we don’t. Often I find myself wanting to say something that’s on my mind, but decide not doing so is the better option. Maybe the statement will lead down an awkward path I don’t want to go down, or damage a relationship in someway.

Not sharing every opinion you have at a given moment will likely spare any company a certain level of complaints. Sometimes the truth just hurts with no upside. What’s the point of honesty in those cases?

The Truth Will Set You Free

An unfortunate side effect of withholding the truth, even when done with good intention, is weighs on you. There are also some things that don’t seem appropriate to share in a given context, but keeping things bottled up cause more problems. Having a safe outlet thorugh therapy has definitely been a big benefit.

Once again the convenience of Better Help has really paid off. I’ve been able to message my therapist when something is on my mind. Before it fades away as the rest of my life catches up and eats up my attention. Being able to briefly talk with someone, even just through text, about something helps to move on, or have a proper plan in place to work through it.

One final thought I have on Better Help in general is that I’ve opened up more to text communication. I always thought it texting was an inefficient communication tool as compared to speaking over the phone or, even better, in person. Sometimes we have a hard time expressing something in any way but the written word. For me, it also feels easier to write something and hit send than it can be to say even a single word in given situations.

While I’ve once seen texting as an impersonal and inefficient way to communicate, I realize now that I might have been too quick to judge.

Trying out therapy has me feeling great. It’s something I’ve never done before but long considered. While I don’t think I’ve flown the coop or anything, it’s nice to be able to talk with someone about matters I’m not willing to talk about with others. Better Help is the online counseling service that I’m trying out, thus my experience will be reflecting that.

Getting Started

There are a few of things I recognize as needing help with mentally or emotionally. I’ve tried various habits in the past, a lot of which have helped, but most often they are self-driven. Having another person involved has surprisingly been easier.

For my first and only session so far, my therapist and I targeted a single problem to focus on and work through, though she encouraged sharing anything else that comes up. The problem in question isn’t something I’m comfortable talking with others due to it’s unpleasantness, so it was nice to finally talk it through. Someone offering alternatives to a mindset I was stuck in was nice. My therapist recommended putting my focus and energy into alternative ways of thinking that make me feel better about a given situation.

The app also encourages goal setting, which of course I am all about. My goal this week is to write at least two journals. Journaling has helped me express and release thoughts that have been sticking around, but I’ve struggled to continue the habit. Someone holding me accountable is helpful to continue such a helpful practice. There is even built in journal functionality in the app that can be shared with the counselor, further encouraging the habit.

Service Support

The online convenience of Better Help is nice, as I can send and receive messages at any time with my therapist, giving both of us plenty of flexibility. Scheduling a live session was also easy to do. From what I can tell there aren’t limits on the number of sessions you can take. There are resources available, such as worksheets or exercises, one of which is helping me through my challenges.

It’s still too early to say if it’s totally worth it, especially considering it isn’t cheap. Although, Better Help does seem to be less expensive than traditional therapy and is a flat rate per week. Scheduling just one session a week will likely make up for the cost compared to an in person session. Regardless, a clear mind may be considered priceless.

From what I hear from a number of people, therapy can be helpful not only for the most extreme cases.

This past week, I hit a wall, but pushed through. Regardless of feeling drained mentally, emotionally, and physically, I continued creating. Game development started to become quite exhausting, so I moved back to writing some days, which helped to keep my momentum going.

Game Dev Dead Ends

Making games is a fun process, but there is a ton of work that goes into even the smallest feature. Seeing what people come up with for projects, both as retail products and just for fun, is fascinating. It also offers a great opportunity to learn about computer programming and logic.

Sometimes, the road is short and a good lesson learned. Other times, my flow of progress seems completely derailed. Working in tech for my full time job makes dealing with bugs a tough process. Staring at computer problems all day makes tackling new ones, even the fun ones, tiring.

The solution, of course, is to work on passion projects prior to the workday, as I see a number of other creators doing. Try as I have, I’ve struggled with this, even more recently. Just a few weeks ago, while working on Eastern time, I still woke up with little time before being on the clock. Losing the extra hour to sleep.

Even considering delays, the little bit of work I started still taught me a lot, so it’s not as though it is time wasted. The project forced me to take a step back and learn some better organizational skills when it comes to game development. A helpful skill which eliminates repetition and the need to re-iterate too frequently.

While I’ve worked on game projects in the past, each one has given new lessons to learn. Lessons I hope to keep implementing on the next.

Running on Empty, But Still Running

The game dev process in itself can be tiring, but over the past few days, it has not been the only thing taking it’s toll. From fitness to work to my personal life, I’ve felt exhausted trying to keep all the plates spinning. Creative work has often been one of the last things to tackle in the day.

Trying to start with little will power left is definitely not a recipe for success. It becomes easy to avoid difficult problems, see above. This is the reason I implemented the “not starting something new” restriction last week. Though, I did cheat a bit last night.

After dealing with some late night work issues, I gave myself the “justification” to go to bed, as I’d be waking up in a few hours to check on things. Looking at my habit tracker, there was just one item left unchecked. I knew all I needed was to start. So, I opened up my list of poems and started writing what came to mind.

Another One to Keep

Few habits I try actually stick, but I want to keep this one going. I’m glad I pushed myself to do something every day. It’s a habit I do, even when the lazy part of my brain starts to whine. Motivation doesn’t last forever, working with or without it is how great projects are completed. Doing something every day is a habit I’m proud to continue. Perhaps one day, it’ll become part of a consistent morning routine.

For my next trial, I plan on doing something I’ve considered for a while. I spent a few days thinking about what I need to do, and was coming up empty. After a particularly tough day emotionally yesterday, I’m going to try out therapy. Specifically, I’m going to try out the service Better Help, which I’ve seen advertised from time to time. Maybe it’ll help, maybe not, I guess we’ll find out!

With plenty of self reflection over the past week, I came to the realization of how afraid I am to make an honest effort in making many ideas into a reality. Recent reading has facilitated this reflection, but a TV series has also got me thinking about the creative process.

The Hidden Critic

The safe option is to keep an idea in my head. That perfect vision not yet ruined by translating it to reality. The flow of a story. The feel of a game. The sound of a song. It’s all so clever and just right, until I start to put it on paper, code, or instrument.

It begins to feel off. “Hmm that’s not quite it. Maybe I’m just not good enough to make this. Maybe I’m not good enough to make anything.” The spiral begins.

Luckily, I’ve been writing publicly long enough to realize no one really gives a shit if something sucks. If anything, putting my work out there has given me a vision of the progress I’ve made over time. Even still, it takes a lot out of me to fight through the negativity.

Last week, I included a picture of the book *The Artist’s Way* by Julia Cameron. I haven’t made the time to read as much as I would have liked to in the past week, but the early chapters are pretty much about starting and not worrying about the inner critic.

I never thought of the fear I had as a critic, as I try to be pretty positive with myself. Thinking about it more this week, it really has held me back a lot. Even on some things that I’ve finished and am proud of, this critic will whisper to me at times.

Previously, I mentioned the games I made during a couple jams last year. I put in a lot of work into them, but part of me still downplays the effort saying with qualifiers like, “it’s okay for something made in a weekend.” There is a point where humility becomes a weight that feels like it’s holding me back.

Simple Inspiration

It’s a bit silly how much this ridiculous show has really inspired me since I started watching it. Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken is a currently airing anime about a group of high schoolers making anime. It’s a pretty simple premise, but the execution has struck me. I shared this show in my monthly newsletter, but it felt so relevant I wanted to share it here as well.

In catching up on a couple of episodes this past weekend, I felt like the show was talking to me. In the process of trying to make a closing deadline, they begin using some shortcuts and techniques to speed up the process, betraying their artistic integrity, much to the dismay of the two creators.

One of the girls, who is acting as the director, begins to step away from the project, justifying it with thoughts like, “well if it can’t be what I want it to be, then why make it?”

The producer, the one calling for the expediting, snaps her back into reality asking something to the effect of, “Isn’t it better to have made something at all?”

This, of course, got my motivation engine churning on full power, something that is starting to level out. Though, motivation is something I’m trying to rely on less, hence building this create every day habit.

It’s easy to work when motivated, but little progress every day is far better than sprints that last mere moments. When it comes to creation, as the old adage goes, it’s a marathon, not a sprint.