This Week in Business 7/21-7/26

This week in business 7/21-7/26

This week has been a mental health battle, less about business. This week has been a slow start. Last week, I worked for ten hours but had zero posts, so I had zero to show for the work. I thought the whole reason I did batch work was to release when I wasn’t feeling great and feeling great has been in short supply. I have the perfect opportunity to get ahead here. It is a slow time at work which could be bothering me because I don’t do very much. On top of dog stress, school stress, and this business I am trying at. I suppose it has all added up, compounded into a really rough week filled with anxiety. Also, with my birthday coming up which is a pretty significant milestone that puts me closer to 30 than to 20. Which doesn’t feel right. It has been a weird couple of weeks. Anyways, the business. 

First order of business is to get back in the game. I can say oh I want to do this, and I can write until my arm is sore but if I don’t post it for the world to see it means nothing. I have ten ready to fire away, and I just never did anything. Very foolish. I also have several typed blogs ready to be edited that just sit unchecked in my email. This whole experience has been rough. The analogy of jumping out of a plane and assembling the parachute on the way down seems very fitting. At the moment, I am freefalling.

Here are the goals for the week.

The usual two staples. Learn marketing and engage in the community. 

Learn marketing: this has to be a staple of every week. To stand out. To deliver a message to the people I want to talk to. I have claimed several times before that I am not a marketer. But maybe it won’t be an affliction forever. Perhaps it could turn into a strength. When I was 22, I knew nothing about finances and now I know more than a majority of others. In four years, the growth that I was able to experience is really something extraordinary. But marketing and exercise are two items that I didn’t want to put the work in for: I am trying to change that with a fancy YouTube video where I come up with two ideas, and two marketing campaigns to maybe make a bit of traction into the business idea. That will drive views for me but also be of service and that is the most beneficial thing for businesses to do is benefit others. See a problem solve a problem. 

(Future Justin here. I don’t have any idea what I was saying right there.)

I’m trying to push through, to work on this project as much as I can but I just feel like I’m not in it at the moment. Like I’m not even on the planet, barely existing. Just using my phone to distract myself in a sedated manner throughout most of my days this last week. With battle after battle with anxiety trying to take over. It is spreading too. I’m also removing coffee from my life for the short term just while I get my stuff together. Which might hurt my production a bit. I am still drinking green tea as I need my caffeine and I do miss my coffee but more articles I read state that caffeine and anxiety are like gasoline and fire. I just hit 51 minutes worked and it has been an absolute grind. Even when I have no work to do at my job during the slow months and I have PLENTY to do on this project I still am moving very slowly. It sucks right now. 

I am grabbing back control of my brain and life. The anxiety has lessened, and I feel much better. Even in my anxiety moments which come and go it’s not nearly the same heaviness. I feel like I am on the hill down. I can put these last weeks behind me and feel good moving forward. 

My creativity has been foggy though. No TikToks or blogs have been made and ideas haven’t really struck. I am more interested in resting my brain with easy tasks. The work I have done this week is about an hour but if I work three hours today and tomorrow, I will be able to salvage this week as a non-failure which unfortunately doesn’t look like it’ll be the case. Just need to push and do the easy stuff which is writing blogs for me. Or get fired up again about a weekly project like other people’s finances a book or a marketing campaign. I think I have some good ideas for that which feels good. But this week is a good example of getting stuff done no matter the price. If I can power through this week with consistency and strength, I think that I have a good chance to power through most weeks. To at least get something done. 

I have only done 13 minutes bringing my weekly total to about an hour. This week was completely underutilized. I was not working to my fullest extent and now, I have to try my best this weekend. My brain is just injured, not in the best space to do much regarding creativity. In a week, I’ll be on a cruise, in another week, I’ll be in St Augustine. Could be a lot of traveling over the month and not much work. We will see. 

Missed opportunity. Total work this week was 118 minutes. 

Almost 2 hours in the week when I want that to be a daily goal. Unfortunately, mental health is declining so I had to service that before working on the business. I would love to be able to replace the typical 9-5 doing more with what I love doing but I am just not there yet. It stinks. I would love to be able to help people; I wish I had taken it more seriously back in 2020 when I first gave it a go. Every year since I did a little something to try to make extra income and have a job that would be more catered to me. Being a small cog in the machine looking for $2 when we made $100,000 in one day isn’t something I love doing. I want to push myself to do more and do it for more people. With heavy creativity use and flexible scheduling. Be at the mercy of myself. Not another boss. I get to create the marketing campaigns, the products, and the goals. Too bad I am not very good at a lot of things but I’m trying to improve. I heard something that made me feel better during this time of heavy inefficiency. Right now, I feel like I was handed a banana for the first time, and I bit right into the peel like an apple. Was I stupid or just new to bananas? If I knew the exact way to do something, I would do it immediately. Why would I strategically bite into a banana peel. It has given me grace. And with my little anxiousness coming around I need to give myself grace. Here’s to good luck battling next week.