I actually had a different post in the process of being written, but I discovered that the concept I was writing up was too big to be just an impromptu script of my thought collection – no matter how simple it seemed in my brain. That would be the downside of by 2017 goal of not “pre-writing” a bunch of blog posts.
Don’t worry, I am still working on that megalithic-ly long post – and will send it into the electronic web when it is complete. But, it has established a couple “events” in my blog writing world.
It is the first post that I have had to print a copy and then try to edit with a pen before I am complete, in order to try to make sure my thoughts coherently flow together. It is still a work in progress, and will be my biggest blog post to date.
It has made me realize that there is a strategy to putting more complex thoughts on paper.
It made me reflect on the specific task of post writing, and what my intentions were, and most of all – what was my strategy.
Strategy became my buzzword in the last couple of weeks. I am writing letters to try to obtain donations or sponsorships for charity events and I find myself asking “what is the intended strategy here?” By this, I mean – is the intent of the letter a simple “request to discuss” the possibility of a donation/sponsorship, or is the letter intended to be everything that the reader needs to decide if they are donating or sponsoring the event. Each option is substantially different.
Then I had my laughing light bulb moment – as in – when alone in my house, I laugh out loud at myself (LOLAM – new text form?) for not realizing it sooner.
As a self-professed over-analytical, anal retentive, research-geek, type, I pretty big on developing plans. I try to plan my future living with Cancer. I try to plan vacation options. I try to plan our monthly household budget, our annual budget, and long-term finances. I try to have a plan for everything.
So, why did I try to go without a 2017 plan when it came to blog posts?
It turns out – that I still don’t have a strategy of what I want from this blog. I don’t yet really know what I want my future blog posts to be about – or what they will be about. This actually bothers me.
I usually think of a strategy with most things – it makes sense to me the way my mind works. I don’t seem to do as well with random anymore.
I attended an entrepreneurial 1 day workshop in February. It has my creative juices flowing, and ideas starting to fill a notebook. Many of my ideas are pretty bad, if not downright awful. The workshop helped me reset to the beginning. This is why it is relevant to strategy.
As part of the workshop, we were spit-balling our ideas with a table of peers – serving or former military trying to figure out what to do when it came to “growing up and getting a real job”. I have mentioned that concept before. The biggest thing that I discovered, is that the ideas I came to the table with, fit only 1 criteria, and I was ignoring the fact that they didn’t fit within any other effective business models or plans.
The 1 criteria they matched – was that I felt I would have the capacity to do ‘this’ concurrently with being a cancer patient. It didn’t matter that I wasn’t solving a problem people would pay money for, or building something people wanted, nor could I actually tell people about my product/services. It was something that I thought could fit my future lifestyle as a Cancer patient. This all circles back to my lack of strategy.
It looks like my strategy was to load the horse into the cart and wonder why it wasn’t moving – then try to pull the cart, with the horse inside, myself.
During this journey, I have struggled with many things – lack of energy, lack of motivation, lack of commitment, among others. I know that I took a long look at the blog/website/YouTube last fall, and had some ideas that I started to implement. The good news – they will still happen. It will happen at a slower pace and not exactly what I thought about a few short months ago.
Ok – speaking of updates….
February was a pretty good month. I feel that I am really becoming in tune with my body physiology and the reactions I have in the weeks that follow treatment. That is a good thing.
I had a cystoscopy – with 3 days notice (good thing I am not a busy person), and it was good news. No new growth – calling that a streak at 3 now. That is a good thing.
I am absorbing the punishment of treatment well. So, the Doc will book me for another year of it.
I know that is a good thing, but this is where the mental drain comes in.
Much of my challenges with planning our future life, is that I have no ability to develop a plan, as my long-term limbo and major decisions will be made – eventually, later. This is really, really, frustrating and depressing.
So – what have I been doing with my time, you ask – 1 word answer – PARACORD.
Please look at the photo(click to enlarge if you wish) – 1 on the left, 4 on the right – which one do you like best? Vote here (opens in surveymonkey)
OK – the theme behind these is Bladder Cancer (go figure). If you didn’t understand that – feel shame. The Bladder Cancer Canada main tagline/message, talks about blood in your urine (hence the yellow and red colours). But, how much red should I have in them? If you haven’t voted yet – go here.
Funny story – I was having lunch with some local YouTubers, and walked into the mens room. The urinal had a motion activated TV screen above it, and when I stepped up – the first commercial it played was the Bladder Cancer Canada one – how cool was that. It happened both times – so … not a coincidence.
Anyway,
Thanks as always for following along in my journey. Consider subscribing to my various channels to see what I am up to. I will go back to a more structured schedule of posting soon.
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