June 7, 2023
Emotional State: Planning Mindset
Writing
Show up.
Be present.
Do your best.
Never stop learning.
That’s today’s message to myself. It sprang from my morning routine, my foray (okay, obsession) with planners & notebooks, and the book, Mindset, by Carol Dweck.
If you’ve followed my other blog posts, you’ll know I’ve been tracking time in my planner to get a better sense for where I spend my time and how much I can actually get done versus what I think I can. The other thing I’m doing, after I do my morning pages and meditate, is to write down the quote or message to myself for the day (thus the message above).
For the quote, I pick whatever comes up in my morning routine as a message to my future self (if I ever look back on these pages) to remind myself of what I was struggling with that day. I like today’s message, because it also pulls in the growth mindset Carol Dweck describes in her book. And I want the growth mindset. It’s how I will continue to grow and learn. (Although I don’t know that I’ll avoid the “get off my lawn” mentality.)
Speaking of growing, my library of notebooks and fun planners I want to buy is growing, but I need to slow down and wait to see what works and what doesn’t first. I also wondered if I’m doing it for a dopamine hit of getting a shiny new thing to play with. But I really want that other planner I saw for half off and it’s so pretty… I’ll use it, right?
Maybe. Maybe not.
Since finishing the Write-Better-Faster class, I find myself categorizing my behavior. For example, I know that getting that planner feeds part of my need for shiny, but also feeds my Input strength (wants to know all the things) and my Restorative strength (wants to fine turn and ‘solve’ the problem). Playing with a different layout will capture those two strengths, but it won’t necessarily solve the problem.
Sure, it’ll tell me that it works or doesn’t work, which is learning something (hello, Learner strength #9), but I’ve not put in enough time right now to make that judgment call. And if it is for the dopamine hit, then I need to figure out why that keeps coming up and address the root issue. Or issues. Either way, I see some interesting morning messages coming in my future.
I’ve not bought that planner, even if I’ve looked at it several times over the past two days. Instead, I’m playing around with creating my own planning template in Canva, because I just can’t seem to help myself. I need to find a new obsession, stat, before I bury myself in products.