Thinky Thoughts - 10th October 2016

Well, it's almost a month to the day when I last felt like this.  "This" being that I am done.  I have many great reasons to keep on going but it's getting damn hard.  Yeah, I know, life is hard -yada yada yada - but I'm truly feeling as though I can't do this anymore.  Shit gets busy, unreasonable and distracting, and it's eats away at the things that are most important.  I miss my family and I'm stuck between a combination of wanting to and needing to be with them, always.  I'm sure most people would like to be with their family 24/7, but for me, I know my daughter needs me.  I gotta say that she is the main reason I keep doing what I do and push and push myself to be great. I don't think I am though.

I wish I understood why I doubt myself so much - it being the pain that brews day in and day out - forever consuming.  It overtakes everything.  I can feel it now.  Judging.  My head is fighting with itself and I need to shut down the naysayer.  Ok, I think the good guy is working his way back on top.  Man, I must sound crazy right now, hah!

This is good.  Daughter is asleep.  Wifey is at the gym.  I'm sitting here in my study tapping away.  I know what I want to do, although I know what I have to do.  I want to eat (dinner) & play PS4 (FIFA 17) and watch TV (Walking Dead) or study (I'm learning how to create basic Android Apps).  I must finish my training presentation for tomorrow night, catch up on emails, and start on a huge excel file.
Priorities right!?  Nights should be for me (and my family), but sometimes that little extra efforts go a long way.  Compromise and prioritise; Plan & carry-out; Do and just do it well - this is the way it's been.  And, it's been working well, but it sucks when it impacts my family.  It's possible that I feel this way because I'm not in control.  I can't organise myself because I'm busy with other people's priorities.  Tomorrow will be the 11th day of October and I haven't even started the basics of my role for the month.  I'm dreading opening my laptop right now, but I know I have to.  I must limit it.  Emails are other people's problems right? Haha. Nope. Well maybe, sometimes.

Alright, writing helps big time.  Or was it the rum & dry?  Either way, I'm off to eat dinner, finish my presentation, look at and action 10 emails maximum and then watch my shows.

Thanks for listening Blogger. :)

Check in chats - 15/9/2016

Headspace is good today. Extremely productive off the back of yesterday's major coaching conversations. Also had some key chats with DPs and leadership. Feels great when you leave a convo or site feeling you've made a difference. I have a lot of thanks for the training sesh last week. So good. Sanitarium so good.

Just a thought, generally when I'm feeling as I do right now i don't have much to write about. Wonder why that is.

Now the part where I challenge myself... Where did I listen to my subconscious thought today?
One moment comes to mind, group messaging App with my peers. I had something humorous to say and I backed away, I thought too many times about the judgement. Come on man. Be yourself already. It's what I'm known for, shitty dad jokes. Set them free already!

Signing off now. Hope the PS servers are up tonight.

Korbzzzzzzzzzz.

Check In Chats - 14/9/2016

Good, productive day today.
Nailed my morning routine.
Positive outcomes at work.
Caught my unconscious train of thought & changed direction.
Gunners drew with PSG :)
Home @ 6:30pm and about to walk in the door & annoy/love my family.

Thinky Thoughts - 12th September 2016

6:58pm

I'm not feeling great at all.  The anxiety has continued to slowly rumble from the pit of my chest right up to top of my throat.  At times my guts quiver, and, like a sleepless night, that empty feeling lingers.

I've been struggling to keep my head in a good place, for the past few months at least.  Most of the time I can steady my thoughts, but the waves of overwhelming worthlessness keep hitting me hard.  It's weird, even as I'm typing this, I started off wanted to put myself to sleep and now I'm kind of okay.  I know writing and clearly thinking things through helps me but I can't walk around all day writing every single thing down can I?  Maybe that is the answer.  I just need to get paid for it so I can continue to support my family. Hah!

Moving on. From the outside, I'm guessing everything looks peachy.  We have just moved into our own beautiful new house, we are financially stable, we have nice things, our Autistic Daughter is moving forward by leaps and bounds, I have an amazing wife who looks after us like a hero.  I should be happy, right.  So why do I feel so low?  Why do I feel so defeated?

Last week at work, we went through this killer training sesh.  All about Leadership.  Being in the role I am, influencing is key.  Getting results is key.  Growth is key.  Without these, there is no moving forward.  It was a great sesh in the sense that it opened up a hell of of a lot of realisations, most notable being that I have been dwelling on the wrong things & using old-school techniques to manage my team.  I learned that 21st century success is built on social cooperation.  Being the introvert that I am, faking it in a leadership role is already challenging & now I have to be social! Haha!  Here we go.  Well, I've made it this far, but this is some next-level skill I have to wear.  I know what I have to do.  It will certainly be tough, but I just need to take my personal awareness up a notch and land on the one phrase that will keep me in line.  

Right now, it is that "everything I do is for the benefit, well-being & growth of my family; specifically, to better the quality of life for my daughter".  

That should be enough, right?  Lot's of questions I have to keep asking myself & lots of questions I have to seek the answers to.  I'm feeling a far bit better now.  Writing & thinking things through is crucial.  I have to commit to this.

Family

Family are many things. I always saw family as important, but that level of importance hit a whole new level in 2012 when my daughter was born. She is my world and I'm in awe of both her and my soon-to-be wife every day. They are 2nd to none and I'd give up everything in a heartbeat for their happiness.

Yesterday, I experienced another layer of family. One that I hadn't felt in a long time. My siblings & I, the 4 of us, have always shared a special bond. Life gets busy though when you're growing your own families and yes it may feel like its faded a little over the years but we are always there for each other. We stood united, along with our cousins & aunties & uncles & my pop to farewell one of the most amazing ladies I've ever met. It was a tough day. Emotions up, down, left, right and any other way you could possibly imagine. I couldn't be prouder to be part of this family. I'd missed this & them a lot and it was great see and understand the impact that Gran had on them too.

There is no simple way to explain what Gran meant to me. My sister summed it up pretty well in her beautiful eulogy in that she always made us feel special, like the most important person in the world, that we were capable of anything and that she was so very proud of us no matter what life choices we made. Elaborating, for me specifically, that she always filled the void of honest, positive encouragement in my personal life. In her own unique way, she was a motivator, coach and mentor and taught me to believe in and challenge myself.

The part that upsets me the most is that I never truly realised this until recently. I mean, I always valued her words because they were filled with love and made me feel awesome. But the actual depth of those words subtly added to my confidence and played a huge part in making me who I am today.  This is the most important thing I wanted to tell her before she left us. When I saw her the day before, I could only squeeze out the words "I love you" and "I miss you", even though I knew she was close, I could not bring myself to tell her, to accept that she might not be there the next day.

And now that she is gone, all I can think about is the time I've wasted being away from her and, upon reflection, just how much not having her around has left a massive gap in my life. Sure, we all say life gets busy, and we all make assumptions that the people we love will be there tomorrow, or the next day, or the next day. But they sure as hell may not be. If there is one final lesson Gran has taught me it's that I need to value the people that care about me & that I care about the most. Even if it is difficult, even if there is distance, even if there are daily distractions, nobody is more important than these people, for they are the ones that value & deserve our love the most.

While I'll never be sure, I'll keep telling myself that Gran knew exactly what I meant and that from now on, to the people that I love, I'll speak loud & clear.

January 7th 2016 - Oops

Ok, so I missed my goal of 30 mins each day, but it's for good reason.  My fiance proposed an 8 week fitness & well-being challenge and I'm all on board.  In the last 3 days alone I've pretty much cut out all sugar (which I was doing well with before xmas) including in my cappuccino's.  I've even switched to having latte's so that there's no chocolate involved.  I'm eating good amounts of fruit & veg and exercising, let's say, "regularly" at the moment.  This includes a total of 2 hours either on the treadmill or exercise bike.  A slow start, but I'm gaining momentum.  Still well short of where I was at 5-6 years ago, but I'm building it up with a little extra each day.  I'm just going to quickly jump on the scales & see what it says...74.1.. hard to gauge at the moment as I last weighed myself first thing in the morning.  Anyway, I'll keep the progress updates coming through here.

Had a great few weeks with my daughter.  She has come so far since we have been on holidays together.  Just on her 2nd Birthday a little over a year ago, she started walking.  This time around, for her 3rd Birthday, she's really come to life with her love for her parents.  Her awareness has increased tenfold & we are loving the cuddles & interactions.  

One of her favorite things at the moment is the new trampoline we got her, even more so since I put the tent over it.  She takes her sock monkey doll in there and plays for ages.  She's getting better at bouncing every day, but mostly loves just running around in circles, crashing into the nets and falling down... all with sock monkey in hand.  The other favorite is Emma Wiggle.  Man, she loves that show like crazy.  She's really into dancing, music & hand-movement type games & songs, so the 2 are going hand in hand.  A part from all that, we are starting to get repetitive words out of her. The most common one is "ottel" which means bottle of water.  While we were away in Brisbane, it was "nan", "mama" and "addy" which is daddy.  Small wins, just hope she keeps it going.  There are number of tactics we are trying to encourage her speech.  It's tough & frustrating for all of us, but if we can get this break-through, it will make a massive difference to the speed of her development.

So, what else... over the past few days I've been tinkering around the house, sorting out suits & gear for the groomsmen, got a massage, saw Star Wars for the 2nd time, bought some new shoes.  What next.. I must start on sorting through the garage & spare room this afternoon.  We have a lot of stuff we can sell or throw out.  Planning on splitting the garage in two... a sell side & a trash side.  Sounds like fun. 

2016 - Setting Some Ground Rules

Ok, so here comes a big year with at least 2 certainties.. Getting married in March and buying a house sometime after that. Plenty of other smaller things to look forward to throughout the year but I'll talk about those when they happen. For now, just going to say that today marks the first of many blogs, a decision I have made for the following reasons:

1. I need an outlet. It helps me stay on track by reflecting on my days & thoughts.
2. I need to have something to look back on. Years are going by faster & faster and it all seems a blur. I hope that having these physical memories will make each day more valuable.
3. I need to be more productive. I'm always putting things off, claiming to be busy, which I am, but I need to make the most of my time with the people I care about while balancing my workload. I must do this without overloading myself & becoming a high-strung, stressed out individual.
4. I have a crap memory. Yep, for the same reasons as #2.
5. I am doing this for me. I should point out that I am doing this for me, but it is on the internet so if you find it useful or think someone else might... share/comment away!

My measure here is 30 mins of writing & reflection each day. I plan on doing this at the end of each day once my daughter is in bed.

I have a great feeling about this year. Not 100% sure what it is, but that makes it all the more interesting!

One last thing. I need to become fit again. That'll be one part of this. Right now, I have the biggest gut I've ever had & I'm weighing in at 75.6kgs; the heaviest I've ever been & I'm getting married in 2 months. Time to get busy!