The Mid-Quarter Slump

Ahhh, there's nothing quite like the feeling of starting something new. Cracking open a new journal or sketchbook for the first time, formulating ideas for a new project that's piqued your interest, starting a new workout regiment. Yep, there's no way you'll experience a slump this time!

How many of you have experienced that particular sequence of thoughts before, eh? Yeah, you can probably guess where this narrative is going.

Fast forward to halfway through the quarter or season. You've been grinding away at the same set of classes, etc... for weeks, the finish line still out of sight, and now the starting line has vanished as well. Maybe you're not sure you're actually accomplishing anything worthwhile, or maybe you're unsure of what the point of anything is, or maybe life threw you a curveball that disintegrated any interest you had toward a given pursuit. Whatever the case may be, you're left staring dimly at where you are versus the distance you still need to go, and suddenly you find yourself contemplating how heavenly a nap sounds.

Slumps happen. The inevitability of them is a dismal experience we can all celebrate together.

In this instance concerning this quarter's slump for me, life decided to take its curveball and sock me in the mouth with it. For reasons that are too personal to explain, I decided on Tuesday to set aside the performance I was composing for Brod. A permanent or temporary hiatus I don't yet know, but the slump that followed impacted the rest of the week as if I was working through a form of grief. Who knows? Maybe I was.

As it so happened, working on any other project related to the story and campaign became a chore. "What's the point?" those pesky little voices whispered. "It's all just a waste of time. Nobody but you and your fiancé gives a damn about this pet project of yours."

Ahh, who doesn't love their inner critic? Anybody else notice they seem to shout loudest when you're trudging through those valleys?

I ignored it like one might ignore a bully. How? By avoiding any project related to the campaign until the voice quieted. What did I do instead? I worked out. Then, I worked out some more. Two days later and my quads are still on fire, and that's after horfing all the protein I could.

Today, I took a step back to reassess my progress so that I could determine how to progress. It is an irrefutable truth that writing Cael's journals takes time, usually longer than I'd like. Gracious, I've been trying to catch up on them for over a year now, I'd say, so it makes sense to a degree why such a daunting task could prove discouraging when the slump comes, especially since I don't see the journals as the end goal for telling the story, but that's another topic entirely. By inserting that distance and then reevaluating everything, I saw more clearly how much I truly have left to accomplish.

Between the 17 journals I have yet to post to be fully caught up, only 5 of them require a full draft from scratch. That's only 29%. There are 2 journals that are halfway or mostly written that I need to finish. The rest of them, 76%, just need to be edited, which, I won't lie, oftentimes results in a complete rewrite, but even that won't take nearly as much effort as writing completely from scratch. The goalpost may always be moving, but I'm slowly closing the gap.

Because everybody's circumstances differ, there's no convenient "one size fits all" approach to overcoming slumps.

Hell, even the circumstances behind each slump can differ! That's why they can be such a pain to navigate.

I say this with a big ol' asterisk, but I believe that, if you can afford to do so, there is nothing wrong with setting aside one project for a little while in favor of starting a new one or shifting more of your focus to another preexisting project, especially in the middle of a slump. Sometimes, especially if you've been at the same project for months or longer, both it and you can benefit from a breather. The problem arises from feeding that loop of starting but never finishing.

Don't be afraid to review the tasks you've completed and list those that are left, because the perspective may surprise you! Just like how a desk can become cluttered over time, so, too, can the fruits of your labor become covered in fuzz by the middle of the season. Setting aside a day to organize and de-fluff can reinvigorate that drive to reach the finish line.

And hey, sometimes you really do just need a nap.

Questions for Contemplation & Discussion:

• What are your go-to methods for overcoming slumps? Do you just soldier through them or are you more inclined to listen to your body and mind? Is your approach dependent on each slump?

• What projects have you had to set aside, whether it be for personal reasons or because you outgrew them?

  • What projects are on hiatus but you intend to finish someday? What's keeping you from finishing them?

Other Notable Accomplishments:

• Still doing well on my runs

• Bulgarian split squats killed my quads

  • No, really, I'm still limping

• Can reach max reps for banded pull-ups and chin-ups w/ one leg out of the orange band, but having both exercises on the same day back-to-back is rough

• Nestling back into a routine

The Struggle Is Real:

• Was informed that Wix tables don't play nice on mobile; I'll need to figure that out at some point

  • I'll add it to my Wawfuls

This Week's Obligatory Cat Pic: All

This is the chaos to which I awaken....