Kaizen Addict

Ok, so this may not be my best entry because I am forcing myself to write it rather than being inspired as with some of the previous posts. BUT…I wanted to share how I had a conversation with myself when I started this part of my Kaizen journey that I would not let perfectionism quash productivity or progress, especially being a recovering perfectionist.

You may be saying that anything worth doing is worth doing well and all that. There is a difference between doing something well and holding a sign saying ‘Perfection or BUST!.’ I have started my the Artist’s Way journey a few times already. The proof is in my stack of un-completed Morning Pages journals (because I have to buy the journal every time I start, to make it perfect of course!). What happens is I go strong for a week, or 2, or 3…then something happens. I miss a day for some reason. Sometimes a good reason like a spontaneous road trip and I forgot to pack my journal; Sometimes for a bad reason like I hit snooze too many times from watching too much of a MASH marathon and forgot about a morning meeting, then had alot of other meetings, and they are called Morning pages so I can’t write them in the afternoon. It bugs me, but I try to tell myself it isn’t a big deal. Now, because I am telling myself it isn’t a big deal, I skip another day, and another. So, between already missing a day and not being perfect, and then thinking if it isn’t going to be perfect why bother doing it, I quit! Then I beat myself up. Then, at some later date, I start all over again.

So I sat myself down and said “Self, (and for some reason I want to write ‘and I knew it was me because I recognized my voice’), you are going to complete the Artist’s Way no matter what. If Morning Pages become Afternoon, Evening, or even Next Morning Pages, you will do them. If it takes 12 months instead of 12 weeks, that is OK, you will get it done. It doesn’t have to be perfect, it doesn’t even have to be pretty (and some of my journal entries where I kill about a dozen different colored pens definitely do not look pretty, because I must use a colored pen that I feel matches my mood…will save that for another entry though), I will get this done. ALL OF IT! If I find that I have wandered away, when I wander back I will pick up right where I left off and continue my journey, not scrap it because it didn’t fit into the perfect mold I thought it should.”

And why is this significant right now? Because part of the Artist’s Way process is doing a weekly artist’s date to be done solo. I had planned this for Friday evening or Saturday. I haven’t been going out much (ok, if at all really if you MUST know), so I was going to go for a drive to nowhere and just explore anything I found interesting. But of course since I procrastinated it until the end of the week there is always a wrench that gets thrown in.

I got called for work Friday night and figured since they (I thought) were almost done, maybe I would just grab an adult beverage and hang out on the call for morale support. I could still do my artists date the next day. So I had a variety pack of hard seltzer in my fridge I bought on a whim and started drinking. Work was finally done over 3 hours later, after midnight. THEN, I decided it was a good time to have a heart to heart with a coworker, who I can tell was also enjoying an adult beverage (for anyone judging…we were supervising, not executing work, and were by no means drunk). So, next thing I know, we are still talking and drinking and it is almost 4am! I was a little tipsy, but nothing terrible, so just went to bed thinking nothing of it.

UNTIL, I woke up at 8am to use the bathroom and felt so completely drunk everything was spinning. I spent the next 4 hours praying I would fall asleep before getting sick again, and it took a little over 2 hours to accomplish that. Until then, I was gagging at fast food commercials on TV since my tablet was spinning when I tried to read, and could not keep water down. I hurt, and I had done it to myself. Needless to say both my artist’s date and Morning Pages were the farthest thing from my mind.

So, what did I do? The old me would have said, “See, you didn’t even make it a week and messed up everything, your Morning Pages and your artist’s date, is there anything you did right? It is all a mess now so no point in continuing. When you are finally ready to be an adult and do this right, you can start again. You obviously can’t do this now.” BUT, I had already had that conversation with myself. I was going to salvage this and move on. And since I had decided this in the beginning and not in the aftermath, this felt even more OK. It wasn’t me giving myself a pass or rationalizing a failure, but part of what I decided the process would be.

Since the next day was Sunday and I had no set schedule, I did 6 pages of Morning Pages, instead of just 3, to catch up. It actually was challenging since my dreams have been vivid and I have actually been remembering them lately, so that is an easy way to fill 3 pages most morning, or at least the majority of 2. But 6 pages made me think, made me look for those other thoughts that float around in my mind. It was challenging, but I felt like it captured more of the spirit of the exercise this way. It also turns out I have to drive into the city Wednesday so I will do an artist’s date then, as well as another one later in the week. Problem solved, plan made to get caught up, and even feel better off and got more out of doing so.

So, my lesson learned here is to not let perfectionism kill productivity or progress. This reminds me of how some cultures think the cracks in pottery make it more interesting and beautiful; It can be the accidents that have the most impact and meaning.

Yours on the Path of Kaizen,

My Beautifully Cracked and Proudly Imperfect Self

I will always joke that I hate the movie Eat, Pray, Love. I vow to read the book one day so I can hate that too. I only say this out of pure jealousy because I felt like it was such my story to write. At least high level…hit rock bottom, travel the world to find yourself, restore faith in humanity, have an awesome soundtrack, yadda, yadda, yadda.

Of course my story was not as polished. I was on a ship with mostly old people, almost died, had family forget about me at holidays while I sat in an Internet cafe paying for time, and didn’t make it as far as I planned, but I made some awesome friends and really started my self discovery in a fashion I could have done no other way, allowing me to find who I was, the good and the bad.

The thing was, everything I did was my choice. When I was in college, every classroom had a framed quote by Thomas Babington Macauley, that I still recall even 20 years later. “The measure of a man’s real character is what he would do if he knew he would never be found out.” From that I can extract the best way to find out who you truly are is to see what you would do if nobody would ever find out, and I did that.

In all honesty, I think my journey made me appreciate the movie even more and I look forward to reading the book one day. I was more able to relate and understand the experience. Watching Liz on her journey not only made my heart smile and cry both at what I watch watching, but of my own similar and not-so-similar experience. Most of all, I love that she just observed and embraced rather than judge the other cultures.

I think the experience of this pandemic, coupled with starting the Artist’s Way and starting this blog, has brought a lot of these thoughts and feelings back up. I also was just mentally drained and really wanted to watch the movie tonight (which is fairly rare since I am not a movie person) and was excited to find it on Amazon Prime Video. I am actually listening to the soundtrack as I type this entry because I love it so much. I hadn’t seen it in a while and think I reflected quite differently than a few years ago.

Most of all, even now, 10 years later, I realize that it is a continuous journey that I am still on and that trip just got me my baseline, scouring away external forces, albeit for a short time, but it was long enough to start to see the glimmer of my true self underneath. That is why I call this my journey of Kaizen which will never end.

Yours on the Path of Kaizen,

My Eat, Pray, Love Kindred Self

So after I was typing my last entry on my laptop, I noticed a smudge on my laptop. I may have spent a significant amount of time this past week playing Civilization VI (I heart Sid Meyer), so figured I just spilled something and did not notice since I was killing someone or building something or trying not to kill someone as much as I was tempted. I made note and told myself I would clean it after I finished my reading…after all I’m trying to stick to a reasonable plan here!

So I am reading my book. My shiny, new, 25th anniversary edition, being careful not to bend the spine so it can remain pristine, unlike my old copy which I wrote in incessantly. As I slide my hand from where I was holding the bottom of the page all of a sudden I notice….a friggin smudge! Apparently where I scraped my hand when I fell this afternoon was bleeding through the band-aid. So now, on my fresh, new, glowing bible for this process that should bring me closer to some kind of Zen…I have blood. All this planning and still not a perfect Day 1…after today I succumb to being the Universe’s bitch…for now.

Yours on the Path of Kaizen,

My Blood-stained-Zen Self

PS – I did finish reading Week 1 before writing this post, but wanted to share the irony! I may be the Universe’s bitch today, but that plan was my bitch! Or something like that…

Yesterday I did read all of the intros of the books as I had planned, but Alexa told me it is bedtime as I was starting to read Week 1, so I will start right after this entry. So I planned ahead enough to have my Morning Pages Journal sitting next to my bed even though it took me 3 trips up and down the steps to get a pen for it (senility…*sigh*).

I decided I would allow myself to read for pleasure prior to falling asleep. I need to re-categorize self-help books to not be in the pleasure reading category. I was reading a library ebook about staying focused. And, while most of it was less than pragmatic, it did set off a few glows of inspiration in my brain. I decided that organizing my email and my time was going to be a top priority of my day today. Of course, then my monkey-minds starts swarming with all the ideas of how to do that instead of falling asleep. Definitely no bueno. But I finished the book, returned it (2 days early I might add…solely because I never do that with physical library books), and started another fiction ebook which helped me drift off to the point I was ready to shut down. I still feel better about this than needing to sleep with the TV on so I can’t hear my monkey-mind.

So this morning I woke up, it was light in my room but I figured I must still have some time before the alarm goes off so I will just allow myself to not rush. Then I looked at the time and realize my alarm should have gone off 35 minutes ago. Bonus of forcing myself to do a blog – I would have forgotten to check my alarm if I wasn’t writing about it. After some thought, and not as much panic or dismay as I would have original thought this would bring, I realize would be 10 minutes late for my 7-10 support call with my team, which was not on my bridge.

10 Minutes late for a Work Call!!! OMG! How dare I! So what if you won’t be needed? This may be the one time someone calls in and has a question only you can answer in order to create world peace in that 10 minute window, after which, the opportunity will be missed! People will think you are a slacker and completely forget how you worked 40 hours just over the weekend last week. You just can’t do that!!! Warm regards, Your Inner Voice Which Needs a Nickname

I don’t know if it was my mind trying to be more Zen due to the commitment of openness I decided to make when starting this journey, or just the overwhelming desire to not mess up on Day 1 (because who wants Day 1 to have to be a Tuesday because you screwed up on Monday which should have been Day 1), but I decided that this was OK. Looking back on this, I am shocked. I am not quite sure what string the Universe had to pull to get my Type A personality to be OK with this. I mean I am not much of a coffee drinker so it wasn’t lack of caffeine. I had worked more than half the weekend on a rollout which would impact users and this support call was for them on an as-needed basis, and I just decided my team could handle it for 10 minutes without me. I chose to complete a personal task even though it made me late for work. Even thinking about it now is giving me a bit of agita. BUT…the world did not end, there was no impact to my career (this time) as far as I can tell, and nobody seemed to think any worse of me. It really was OK. I’m not sure how, but it really was. And I don’t mean that in a very narcissistic way…I trust my team to do fine without me if needed, I feel it is part of my job as a manager to make sure of this, but I also feel this obligation to not, well, be 10 minutes late even if it wasn’t important. Anyone who has both anxiety and a tendency to be Type A will get this.

So, back to the point of this. I did my morning pages. I wrote out the first page and a half, then all of a sudden my mind went blank! Then I remember this happening before as well on previous attempts. But I continued to force myself to think of things and write them down, a bit about a dream I actually remembered, a little about my big plans for my email inbox, and just other random tasks.

This inspired me to make a task list for the day and actually try to figure out when I had the time to do all of these things, including reading Week 1 of the Artist’s Way. So, on a legal pad I had just sitting around and dusty (I am never at a shortage of any type of journaling device…more out of attempting to ‘start new’ so often), and starting to schedule out my day. Since I often can have 2-3 meetings booked at a time, I chose which I would attend when I did have a conflict and give people notice of my attendance. I also noticed where I had chunks of time available to go through my email as well as complete other tasks such as making some doctor appointments and renewing my post office box. I checked off what I did throughout the day, highlighted things that came up last minute, and even started doing the same thing for tomorrow since it worked so well today. I actually went for a walk at lunch because I had it in my little plan to do so! Granted I tripped on the sidewalk within 2 minutes so I was bleeding for the other 28, but I was not going to let the Universe deter me.

I feel that the morning pages allowed me to start the day with a clear mind which was then easier to continue into planning my day rather than functioning in a “what’s next” mentality and taking the time to figure it out after each task as the day went on. I decided I was not going to feel guilty about doing anything on my plan, which didn’t work for the walk, but I did it anyway. Although scraping my hand and knee like a child learning to walk did make me feel a bit less so since that seemed like an appropriate guilt-driven karma thing to happen. I came back a sweaty mess since I did this at the hottest time of day during the hottest days of the year, but I did it. I noticed I am still a little hurt from herniating a disk in my lower back this past January, so am frustrated running will still not be in my future anytime soon. I may not be remotely close to the build of an athlete (definitely, without a doubt, categorized as obese on that stupid BMI thingy), but I did train and run a couple of half-marathons at the end of last year, so not being able to run now makes me angry.

So, now on to the work for Week 1. So far, so good, but Day 1 always seems easy since you are still excited over something new(-ish).

Yours on the Path of Kaizen,

My Hopeful-Things-Will-Continue-to-Be-Positive-Yet-Highly-Doubt-It Self

Ok, so, the real reason I decided to start this blog was because I am once again starting on my journey with the Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron. This is one of the many tools I use to find and inspire myself. For those who aren’t familiar, this is a book that breaks down a 12 weeks program to unblock your creativity. I have started this several times (at least 3 previous looking at my purchase of new Morning Page journals for each attempt). I decided to blog about it this time to

Now, if you had told me I would have started this at least once to my 5 year ago self, I would have said you are crazy. I am an engineer. That is how my brain works. I can’t draw a stick figure never mind be creative. This is just soft mushy BS. But then I was forced to do it. And by forced, I mean motivated by wanting to do well in grad school. One of my professors took parts of this process and use it for us in class. It was uncomfortable. I looked for a way out every single time since we quite often did things I knew I would not want to do, such as take 15 minutes to learn Zydeco and then teach the class. I liked doing things by myself, I did not like being the center of attention. Just about every day in this class challenged these part of me, but I wanted a good grade. So I participated even thought I did not like it. It was scary not knowing what new discomfort I would be presented with. But upon reflecting at the end of class, this was one of the classes that made me grow the most. If nothing else, I realized part way through that creativity and being artistic were not the same thing. I was, in fact, a very creative person. Not on paper or canvas or stone, but in thinking and analyzing. Being able to do this quickly made me a good engineer.

So, at some point I came upon the realization that much of what I took away from the class as self-help, which I am a hopeless addict of, came from The Artist’s Way. I immediately bought the book and journal for the first time, and got a few weeks in before life interrupted. And, of course, once life interrupted my perfectionism kicked in and I felt that I had to scrap the whole project. That seems to be what always happens. The first time I don’t wake up in time to do my Morning Pages in the morning, or don’t read what I should, or don’t do the homework assignments, I feel like I am not doing it write and give up.

That is something I intend to change this time. I will go through each week at my own pace. If it takes me longer than a week, so be it. I will just add pages to the morning journal. I will carry on, and make time for it weekly, if not daily. And if I don’t, then I will pick right back up where I started and carry on. I will get through this if it takes me 12 months instead of 12 weeks, or even longer.

So, as I site here with my 25th Anniversary Edition of the Artist’s Way, along with the Artist’s Way Morning Pages Journal and the Artist’s Way Workbook, I decided to document this in the true spirit of unblocking. This is the part I am always good at, buying all the tools that tell me the way to make myself better. But as I sit here surrounded by these books and the color pen I chose based on my mood today (a lovely maroon color), I find myself doing what I do best – over analyzing. Where do I start. I wanted yesterday (Saturday) or today (Sunday) to be my first day but I didn’t do my Morning Pages. Can this still count? Should I read the book or the workbook first? Do I have to read the whole week before I start my week? I know not always being able to do that has gotten me off track before. What about the other eLibrary books I am reading? Will I lose access to those taking too much time reading this?

All these things are making me hungry, which I have learned is how I express discomfort, or at least react to it. I don’t know what to do because I am overwhelmed/unsure/uncomfortable/etc., so let me eat something. That is another area of self help I continually try to improve upon since I have always been overweight (which I still believe although I have since found out it isn’t true). So, recognizing my hunger is just a result of all these feeling, I have resorted to my next best avoidance tactic: productive procrastination.

And this blog is the result of that. At first it was just going to be a quick blog post about all the questions around where to start with the Artist’s Way. Then when I had to choose a name I wanted it to be bigger, to mean more. So I had to think, and analyze, and find a domain name (or 3 to pick from). What about the colors, and long term goals…I should keep that in mind when developing this. After all I want to do it right, whatever that means. Then I had to create my first blog post and then another describing what I initially intended, the start of this process. Two and a half hours later, here I am, typing this second blog entry.

So, now that we are all caught up, I the process of all this distraction I have realized a few things. First, I am really hungry and my inner voice (better name will be thought of later) was just being critical and told me I was just using food to avoid this, which may have also been partially true as well. The second is I need to set goals for myself and the steps I will take to meet those goals. I have never been good at goal setting. I find motivation for goals difficult so feel setting goals is just setting myself up for failure. This is definitely something I will explore with my therapist since I had an ah-ha moment around it, being that perhaps it is hard for me to get motivated since just about everything in my life I have done to this point was motivated by survival and fear, which is not pleasant. But I think what I need here is more short term goals to aim for, and if I don’t get them done will just roll on to tomorrow. More of like a daily plan I guess.

That being said, this is my daily plan for today. I will at least read the intros for all these books, with the intent to start my Morning Pages tomorrow morning. This will hopefully give me a better idea of how to proceed further. Right now I plan to read the book, then do the workbook pages once I get my brain a little un-stuck from the text. I have lots of colored lined paper and colored pens, which I like to use to write because color makes me happy and I feel like I can express my mood better through it. I will use these tools in case I run out of room in my morning pages and still want to keep writing, and also to write down any thoughts and exercises that come from the workbook, since I do not want to write in the books themselves.

I have already started to do this before the productive procrastination kicked in, and I was reminded of how great a writer I think Julia Cameron is. I have started reading once again during this pandemic, and there are few writers I have experienced who’s flow and imagery really come as easily as with her writing. Since writing is something I think I may want to explore, this both inspires and intimidates me. But, either way, I am hoping this will turn into the motivation I will need to stick with it.

So here I go on my journey. I will try to check in often (as in more than once every couple of weeks) to update the process. Wish me luck!

Yours on the Path of Kaizen,

My Procrastinating and Monkey-minded Self

PS – I also thought of the fact I should make a list of entries I should include in this blog about my personal life as well as my journey along the Artist’s Way to give any other readers a bit more context. I am hoping going through this process will be just one part of my Kaizen journey.

PPS – I am by no means an expert at spelling or grammar, which makes this blog a bit daunting for me. For example, I am torn because on all of the Artist’s Way books, the first letter is not capital, but I almost have it ingrained into my being to capitalize the first word of just about anything. After some thought, I decided that the author decided to do this for a reason and will try my best to preserve this throughout my writing as well. I don’t like it because it makes me feel uncomfortable, but at the same time I like embracing the feeling of the author and how she chose to do this, already making me feel a bit more open to this process.

I actually love the fact that WordPress automatically names the first post Hello World. It really speaks to my inner geek, which is one of the many things that define me. For those who have never taken up any sort of programming, usually the first assignment in any new language is simply displaying the words “Hello World!” on the screen. It is a simple task to get you used to the process and some basic functions of the new language. It is a quick way to feel like you accomplished something and expressing a greeting to this new world of a new programming language you are entering. Simple, yet profound…I love it!

So what am I really here to do? I don’t know. But I have been on this, what seems to be never-ending, journey that started about 10 years ago. It started at an all time low in my life and a realization that I was a person created by fear, insecurity, and other people’s desires.

I had left a home where I felt unwanted at the age of 15, and spend every moment of my life after trying to survive, take care of myself, and recreate an environment for myself I’m not sure I ever really had. This process took me on a path of several horrible and abusive relationships, including 2 marriages before the age of 30, one of which resulted in the birth, and shortly after the death, of my daughter due to a birth defect.

It was at this point, at the age of 32, I found myself at a low point. Probably THE low point of my life. I felt like a failure at life itself. I was trying to get a legal separation from my husband who had cancelled my health insurance and threw me out when he found out I was pregnant even though there was no doubt it was his child, after a year of emotional abuse which culminated in physical abuse. I had a job that, although full-time, was the lowest salary I had ever had since interning in college and was barely keeping a Section 8 roof over my head. I didn’t have anyone in my life that I was truly close with and nobody who I felt I could be completely open with or came close to understanding me as a person. I felt lost and hopeless. I knew something had to change, but I didn’t know what. That is truly where this journey began.

And it has been a journey. It started with a quite literal one and has figuratively continued ever since. While I do want to focus more on my current journey here for real time experience, I will definitely try to revisit this to shed some light. I have a belief that to truly understand something you have to know it’s history, where it is now, where it is going short term, and it’s long term trajectory. I will be applying that to myself in this blog.

While this is more written for myself, I can’t help but feel that there may be others out there who may be on a similar path, even if not at the same place, that could be kindred spirits as I travel along my own.

Yours on the Path of Kaizen,

My Inspired and Excited yet Doubting and Uncomfortable Self