When progress falters… but what about the day after, maybe even two days after? What about the happiness that comes with breakthrough? The joy that comes with seeing the solution reveal itself! By showing up day in and day out you create hope that the next day there will be something better, that it will be a day of new discoveries and new revelations. When you show up you create a bridge between your desire and what you want to be true about yourself. When you show up you prove that you can do it, that the task is not too much, that you can build something awesome and cool, and maybe, even neat.

Even if progress falters, don’t give up, if you keep showing up breakthrough is just around the corner. This is written for me just as much as anyone thats out there reading it, because this pass week progress faltered, and i’m sure it will happen again soon enough, but i’m gonna keep showing up I hope you do to. : )

You watched Avatar: The Last Airbender, you played Loop Hero, you read Percy Jackson, and you felt like you could do it. So you started coming up with ideas. Worlds opened up, mechanics began to flow through your brain, and conversations nestled themselves deep into your subconscious. After churning for days, months, maybe even years, you consumed all the content about how to start, how to act. And then you dropped it, you watched some other show, played another game, read another story and you moved on to some new idea, and the cycle repeated itself probably 20-30 more times (being conservative).

You dint give up tho, it took you years, and years, and years, but you did it you broke through and started. You followed the path you had seen many times before and after an especially hard climb you saw it, the insurmountable peak that been hiding from you all along. The climb was not gonna get easier.

Its hard, its going to get harder and to be honest I’m not sure I know if it ever gets easier. Ive been learning programming and game dev for 2 years now and when I look at my stuff I see all the growth and progress I have achieved and it still feels insufficient at times. I don’t like comparing my work with others and yet I see the rate of learning that others have achieved or the accomplishments of other devs and I am floored by their progress in comparison to mine.

Even though that might be the truth, even tho it seems others are farther up the mountain I am still climbing, and I invite you to do the same. Do I have to make it to the top of the mountain, I don’t think so. This one climb does not have to define who I am forever. I have resources, I have friends, I have all the experience I have gained and I have life in so many other areas. Right now I just to want to climb this mountain. I encourage you to do the same, if you are starting to love it, if you are starting to get good at it, its still a long way to the top, but as long as you want to keep enjoying the scenery. Keep climbing.

I’m enjoying the sights, I hope you do too.

I would love to here where you are on your journey, if its writing, game dev, art, whatever it is it be awesome to hear what your perspective of being a beginner at something is. Thanks for reading.

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30 day experiments are a great idea! Im thankful I read the book Tiny Experiments by Anne-Laure Le Cunff she has so many practical and helpful advice on really answering the big questions you have had for a long time.

I started on an intermediate experiment of 30 days as I have some experience with game development at this point. Ive been creating games on an off now for 2 years, and that gave me the courage to do more than the first recommended time period she recommends which is 10 days.

Now for a list of all the little helpful things I did and learned to do:

1. Start a journal, I decided to work on a small distraction journal, I just write in it Time and what I was feeling when I got distracted from my tasks. I also used it as a tool to observe my day to day feelings when it came to the project and the tasks I was working towards.

2. Even tho I set 1 hour to work on programming my project I did take time outside of that to ideate and play around with ideas and concepts in other times of the day. After all game dev is just as much idea generation as it is the programming itself.

3. Stopwatch! I decided to opt for a stopwatch method rather than a timer, for me something about seeing the stopwatch rise and the timer slowly reach your goal of one hour warms my heart.

4. Sprits, each hour feels like a sprint and I love the feeling of racing against the time you have set for yourself to finish one of the many tasks in front of you.

5. Be messy, I decided that I would just solve problems, I would not try to optimize my solutions. Ive always worked that way to an extent, and I still have much work to do when it comes to polish, but the mindset of just getting started even if messy is so helpful to learn and get things done.

6. Show it to someone, talk about it. Honestly even tho its likely no one will read this posting on substack has been a huge help in getting me to the finish line. It really feels like im sharing my progress with the world.

7. The magic of consistency, showing up everyday makes it feel like you truly are building towards something, so knowing that you will be touching the project very soon again is comforting and mind appeasing.

8. 1 hour, 30 minutes, 15 minutes. I find that 1 hour works so well with my life, it gives me enough time to make progress in my project, but it dosent encroach in my family time and other responsibilities. Find what works for you but do set an amount of time so you know what your marker is.

9. I learned so much about programming, game dev, and myself. I dont usually share the things I learn when it comes to programming, but its probably just cause im still learning so many things, Im sure im doing like 70% of things in an amateur way but I am still pushing forward and having fun

Experiment! Try to find answers to the questions you have, it will ease your mind, it will lower your anxiety as you will be taking action towards your desires. Man this has been such a fun journey and I am going to continue it. Ive decided to do another 30 days of programming with some game dev obviously mingled in there. I want to be a bit more visual in my journey so my goal will be to post more screenshots and video content on here.

Thanks for reading. Hope you go chase your dreams.

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It’s Thursday, I look at my phone, seconds later I take a drink of water, I look at my sketchbook next to my computer, I tell myself I should work. I look at the computer screen and I open a tab on my browser, its time to look for some new furniture, cause the house needs a little something extra. Not again I did it again, I open up Indesign to get to work it takes a few minutes to open, I look at my sketch book start doodling because I have some moments before it opens. After drawing a little I decide I need some music so I start scrolling to see what I am in the mood for, takes me a few minutes more to realize I am once again not doing anything.

Thats pretty much what a day feels like to me, but multiply that by a million times and you get my days. Sometimes I eventually hit a state of flow and then someone interrupts me. Ive tried so many times to change my behavior or “fix” whats going on, but I think there is still a lot of time ahead of me. Theres a thousand ways to try, so many ways I could become a little more aware. Distraction can be a wild ride, It can be very disheartening, but I think I have a bit of hope, there are so many things in life that take so many tries to help or change, or get somewhat right.

There are so many opportunities out there, chances galore of hope. Distraction might always be knocking, but so is opportunity. I think someday Ill be able to find something I enjoy so much nothing can quite distract me from the beauty of it.

This is quick and short post, but I just wanted to kind of make this exist out there.

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Let me know if you also struggle with distractions that way I wont feel like i’m the only one.

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If you ever have, there is a high chance you are just like me, someone who worries a lot about the results, who worries constantly about outcomes. Results are kind of scary, results mean you have to succeed, results mean you have something to show. Results mean you arrived. But like why are results so important? Are results the only way to measure success? I am going to try my best to introduce you to something that ive been working on and working through for the past few years.

Context
The Age of exploration a period of time from like 15th – 17th Century a time period where a bunch of people mostly of European descent decided it was a good idea to travel across the world to try to find something they had never seen before, or something that had not been quite achieved as of then. These people were highly imperfect and they did a lot of damage in their time exploring but I think something of note here is that they looked out into the world and saw the possibility that there was more to their world than what was immediately in front of them, they had theories and idea, concepts that took them to other worlds filled with the possibility of something new, something beautiful, something that would bring them good (also greed but thats not what I am trying to get into toda

y).

They had methods, they had resources, they had help, but the journey was unfamiliar, and maybe even impossible in someways. Im working on encouraging myself to see my creativity in a similar light. I have goals, I have creative vision for what I want, I want to make stories come to a reality, and I want to make things that have an effect on peoples lives.

The Vessels

Each one of the skills I have honed throughout my life is a vessel I could use to go exploring and pursue the dreams I have had all of my life.

Each one of those vessels will come with its own set of tools and its own specific problems and nuances. I will use some and find others not useful for a specific trip, but they give me experience and help sharpen my exploration skills even further. The beautiful thing is nothing is lost, each trip will help you learn something, and each journey will lead you a path that will lead to another. Pick one and run with it for a while get lost and have fun exploring, that’s what I am doing.

And The Goal?
Im okay with goal being a far off cause I am not responsible for the results. I am responsible for learning, growing, and enjoying. and who knows maybe I will find a new world of possibilities on the way.

Thanks for reading! I hope I can keep doing this weekly, this is just one of the many little boats I want to send out to learn and grow.

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I woke up, I wanted to go and sit in front of my computer, and work on my indie game, everything inside of me screamed. DONT DO IT. Stay in bed, relax, play a round of Pokemon Pocket, look at your email, check the group chat, search a random topic that fills you with anxiety, but for the love of all that is good do not do what you want to do.

Why? Pain, it hurts to go do the things you want to do, it hurts to try, it hurts to fail. It hurts to do anything worth doing. Diet, Exercise, Socialization, Work all things that in one way hurt, require some sort of sacrifice and our body just dosent like it when we experience pain.

The pain of getting up in the morning is immense in itself, so I decided to find ways to isolate the pains. Waking up is a pain in itself so how can i make that a more interesting part of my routine, you start with making it fun and then once you are used to the pain of waking then you can move to the next pain.

Steps I am currently taking to sit down and work on my game in the mornings:

1. Go to bed early — This is a huge one for me as my goal is to wake up at 4am (insane I know), going to bed around 9 has been big as it gives me a chance to feel sort of normal at ridiculously early hours.

2. Use a light alarm — Life saver here, light works so much better as an alarm than super loud beeping sounds, it feels so natural.

3. Allow yourself to do something Fun — atleast for the first few days or weeks as much as you need to establish a brain relationship with waking up.

4. 5 minutes — promise the old brain you are only gonna do it for 5 minutes, this is such a good way of just starting and getting into hard part. (This is where i currently am, building that confidence with my self)

5. Keep showing up — If you keep showing up even if it is for 5 minutes then your brain will in sense give up and be okay with your new routine.

This is just the beginning of my journey through making my mornings a fun and productive time. I hope some of this was helpful as I continue to learn new things I will continue to write more posts like this one.

Thanks for your time!