139 | I Suck At Challenges

I have a confession… I suck at challenges.

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TRANSCRIPTION

I've got a confession to make my friends. I really suck at challenges. Hi everyone. Welcome back to the uncurated life podcast. And today I just, I need to talk about this. I need to tell you about my suckiness at challenges and why I think that might be why you might suck at challenges and what I think might happen as we move forward.

 

But before I do. Just a quick reminder. My shop will be closing this Friday, December 10th for the rest of 2021 to avoid any mishaps with shipping because the shipping world right now is a shambles. So I want to make sure that if you have anything you want to order for gifts or anything like that, that you get them in time, at least as best as I can control it.

 

So yeah, if you have any orders you want to put in. Of like prince or whatever, whatnot for the holidays, make sure to get them in by the 10th. I will still continue to ship out until I'm done shipping out, but that's when everything's going to close and then I will reopen it in January. Anyway, move forward.

 

Sucking the challenge. So here's the thing, here's the irony of this situation. I have been hosting two challenges for several years now. My alum love lettering every damn day challenge, which encourages you to letter a little bit every damn day to get practice, because it's the only way you're going to get better.

 

Right. And the other one is random doodles, which I just started doing myself before. It was a challenge and people liked it. So I started doing that. And again, it's meant to do a little bit of doodling every day to get better at it right now. In the last year or so though, I haven't actually participated in either of my challenges.

 

I have created them and posted them. I have sometimes set up a section of my bullet journal to do them, and then I don't do them. And one just it's like, am I bored? Like, what's the question here? What, why, why is it that I put the effort into putting these out there? And then I don't do them. Well, first of all, I will add that I put them out there because other people ask for them, but I I'm just not into it.

 

And you would think, okay, we'll find one that you're into, but I haven't really done that either. So. To kind of start this when I'm talking about challenges, what I'm referring to mainly is creative challenges that you can find on the internet, like creative type challenges, geared towards getting you to do something every day, something specific for a specific amount of time.

 

Usually because they want, the challenge is geared towards you getting practice at something, building a habit of something, helping you find inspiration. Blah-blah-blah, there's a bunch of challenges out there, including some that are relatively well known, especially in creative communities. Like the a hundred day project where you pick some kind of creative thing and you do it everyday for a hundred days.

 

The new one is starting, I think in January. And I have been considering doing it, but doing it on my own terms. But ironically, again, I'm doing an episode about how I suck at challenges and then thinking, oh, but maybe I'll do that now. Who fucking knows another one? That's pretty well known in the art world is ink Tober.

 

Where are you going to list of prompts? And you're supposed to draw something with ink every day, for a month with the, the idea, being that by drawing it with ink, instead of penciling in, you have to like, go with what you draw rather than make I making mistake. I don't know something like that anyway. So my challenges are a month long and therefore lettering and doodling, like I said, The idea here is to, especially to get in the habit of something.

 

If you do something every single day for a month or for a hundred days, or whatever, the chances of you building a habit are higher than if you weren't doing anything at all. I vibe with that, I vibe with the idea of doing a little bit of something every single day to build the habit I vibe with somebody else, giving you creative prompts to help you like spur your creative.

 

I held a vibe with the idea of practicing every day, because it's the only way you're going to get better. And I make my own challenges because I think that it's fun to get different people's perspectives out there. So why do I suck at actually doing them? I started to try and brainstorm why I thought no, I'm going to also say upfront.

 

I don't think I have any answers in this video. I'm sort of musing here to try and figure some shit out, but I will tell you. Maybe my thought process will help. Like you may be able to light something in you, and then you can tell me because you found the answer and then we'll all be happy. I don't know.

 

But the first thing that kind of came to mind was the length of time. So there have been times where I've set myself a challenge for like a week and I've usually done pretty well with that. So maybe I need a weekly challenge. Maybe, maybe doing something for a month or for a hundred days is just too long.

 

And I just need something to inspire me for a week. Maybe that's it. I don't know. But maybe for some people, a week's not long enough, maybe it's what I'm doing. So one of the things I learned with the a hundred day project was if it's too complicated, I'm not going to do it. If it's something I feel like I don't need to do.

 

Then I'm not going to do it. I have to be really, really interested and engaged with what I'm doing to have a higher chance of following through and not getting bored with it. So I'm similar to those people who, when I was a kid, I would like bounce like a hummingbird from hobby to hobby. I be super into something and then I would drop it like a bad habit and move forward.

 

Right. And that's eased a little bit as I've turned into. It ha I still do some of that, but I, it has eased a little bit, but I think it's still manifesting itself in how I approach things like challenges. When I did the a hundred day project the last time it was the farthest I'd ever gotten. I think I got like halfway through it and it was because I gave myself a five minute timer.

 

I spattered some ink or something on a paper, and then I'd make flowers out of it in a quick timeframe. I think what maybe held me up there was that I was filming it everyday for Instagram, making something content, I think is another way to quickly kill a challenge for me. Does it require me to be in a certain place if it's a creative situation and this is actually something I'm running into with my planning situation at the moment as well.

 

And it's something that I, I talked about in a recent plan with me. I am trying to kind of come to terms with the fact that because I don't want to work on Saturdays and all of my planners and all of my, everything are down in the basement, which is very much my office. I'm not likely to go down there.

 

So I kind of lose the thread on Saturdays and. I want to figure out a way to do that. And I don't know if that means separating my personal and work planning completely from each other, because right now there's somewhat separated and keeping my personal planner upstairs and not in the basement, except when I'm actually planning out my week.

 

That might be a thing I don't know yet, but like, If it's creative and it's something I'm supposed to do every day. If I have to come to my office on like, I'm trying not to do that on Saturdays, because once I enter my office, it's like, it sucks me in like a fucking wormhole when I was living in Napa.

 

And my office was in the middle of everything. It was a little different, but here, because I'm like walking down into the basement, it's like being summoned to the office alter and it's a little, a little, not what I want on a damn trying to fully take off. Another thing. That's something I've been thinking about is like, why, why am I doing it?

 

Am I doing it to get better at something? Am I doing it out of a sense of obligation, which is how my challenge has felt for a while. There was a while where I was putting the framework in my planner this last year to do my lettering challenge. But I think I was doing it more out of a sense of obligation.

 

Like, okay, well I created these challenge. I should do them because otherwise, like, am I a poser? I don't know. Am I doing it to keep up with the internet Jones? You know, I think that when I did December daily or when I limped through the first few days of December daily, a couple of years ago, maybe three or four years ago on flood during blog MIS I think I did it because everybody else was doing it.

 

And it felt like material for blog, miss. And I was like, I'll probably really like it for getting that my entire life scrapbooking has never been successful for me. Any sort of like scrapbooking, any memory keeping I've tried that before, and it just never seems to work for me. And yet I still. Do it. And so I wonder, like, what is my motivation?

 

Like is my motivation? I think I'll enjoy it or I'll be good at it. Or is like deep down is my motivation. Like what everybody else is doing. It's I got to keep up with the internet Joneses. I'm fucking fallible. And I am quite susceptible to this shit. You guys, I know that if you're doing a challenge, Situation like that, especially if it's a month or longer, there are going to be times when you're over it, but I ideally you would be all in on it.

 

So you push through, right? Like when you're doing anything like that, there's going to be times when you're in chanted with it. And then there's times when you're like, fuck this, but the fuck, this moments in order to get through them, you need to be like invested in all in, on not only the process, but also the outcome.

 

And I don't think I've ever been invested enough. Maybe I'll be invested in the outcome, but not the process or vice versa. I don't think I've found the magic for me of being invested in the why I'm doing it, how I'm doing it, where I'm due, although like the, who, what, where, when, why, whatever fucking shit.

 

Like, I think that kind of applies to challenges, especially creative ones. And if you can't fulfill enough of those. Then when it gets boring or it gets annoying or it gets tedious. What incentive do you have to finish it? I'm pretty sure that for me, with most challenges I have attempted ever since I started this online.

 

Been doing things like creative for the public man kind of a situation that my biggest incentive was to not look like an ass because I stopped doing it. When I'm posting on Instagram, that's not a good enough reason. So. I need to like really think is there, do I a, do I need challenges in my life at all?

 

And B if I do, I need to find one that is, is something that I can be invested enough in, in enough ways that when my tendency to slack off on it or to stop doing. Comes up that I have a reason to keep going enough to push me through keeping going. And if you're hating something and you're miserable doing it, don't fucking do it.

 

But like, I'm not talking about hating as much as I'm talking about just general annoyance, I guess. So I don't have an answer. As to why I suck at challenges, except maybe that is the answer, right? Maybe it's just, I've just not invested enough in doing them. I'm invested in creating them for you guys, but I'm not invested in actually doing them myself at the moment when it comes to lettering practice, I'm not invested in it because I do enough of that freelance wise to keep me fresh.

 

I'm not invested in. Like the doodling as well. Like it's I do enough of that for work. So maybe the challenge I need is something that's not work-related so that maybe I can exercise my creativity in another way, but then I need to make sure I've defined why it's important to me, why the outcome is important to me and why the process is important to me enough.

 

So that, that will help sustain me when I get to the boring part. As for my challenges, you may be asking, why are you still going to do them if you're not invested in them? And I'm not sure yet, I'm not sure if I'm going to keep doing them as of January, or if I'm going to change them, combine them, do something else.

 

I'm not really sure yet. I know that this year doing the Spotify playlist was so much fun for the lettering challenge and the little scenes for the doodling challenge has been a lot of fun, but I'll be honest. I am burning out on creating them as well. And so I may put those on hiatus and try something different, but I'm not sure yet.

 

So stay tuned for that and make sure you follow me at Lama letters or check out my newsletter and my website. Everything's linked in the show notes because that's where shit like that is going to pop up. So like you'll, you'll find it eventually. But in the meantime, I'm going to just be okay with the fact that I, I suck at challenges and that I would like to find one that resonates with me, but I'm not going to stress myself out about it because.

 

W I don't need to keep up with the internet Joneses. I am totally fine. Just doing what I feel like doing. And if everybody and their mother loves doing like all the Allie Edward shit, cause that seems to be where the internet Jones is, tend to hit me. Then Allie Edwards your life away, but I don't really feel like doing it and I'm not good.

 

And I'm okay with that. If you resonate with this, please share it on Instagram because I would love for other people to find this, because I'm sure there are more of you out there that attempt to do a challenge and then suck at it. And they're like, why the fuck do I suck at this? I feel like I'm not the only one.

 

So if this resonates with you, share it on Instagram, tag me at Lama letters in your stories, and I will look for it. I'll look it up. In the meantime, don't forget my shop closes this Friday. So check it all out. Everything's linked in the show notes. And until next time friends have a great day and peace out.