December 1st. Yikes. Where did the year go? Seriously. On the one hand the year flew by, feels like just yesterday I was crafting my brand spanking new exercise plan and outlook for the year. It doesn't help that I prolly look the same as the start of the year. *sigh* A story I am so not looking forward to sharing, but I will.
As for personal development goes, November was pretty intense.
In future months I may look back on November as a turning point. I made some strides in paying down my debt, but turned right around w/a plan to get into deeper debt in the form of going back to school. I'm still grappling w/it and have a gut feel it'll be worth it in the long run, but sometimes it feels like I'm always spinning my wheels and progress will never come.
As far as personal relations, I'm getting better @ standing my ground and asking for what I want. And while I hadn't planned on working on my rejection fears, I had lots of opportunities this month. Lots.
I was helping someone do some technical stuff and over the course of about 5 hours, we must have emailed back and forth about 50 times. By the 20th time I had had it, but felt obligated to just follow through and be done w/it. A few days later, they wanted more help with something.
@ first I was going to ignore them, but w/the whole, I respond to all, or @ least try to, the emails I receive, I relented.
I took a few days to gather how I wanted to tackle this, in that time they wrote me back reminding me they had asked for help, so I replied. In my reply, I basically told them, my time was extremely limited and given the amount of time it took me to help them the last time there were two choices, they could either find a person they know who can tackle the problem for them or for a small fee I'd do what they wanted. I never heard from them again.
And when I say small, I mean small...5 bucks small.
Now, why did I do that?
Well for a few reasons, one time & knowledge are very valuable. I am not above helping people w/in reason. Want to know the script that makes my entry open on the page? Or how I do any other fancy thingamabob on my site(s)? I'll be more than happy to send the links to where I get these things. And in some case, if I want to learn something or practice my skills, I may even do it for ya. That's what I consider a win win situation, I get to learn and practice, some else gets coding help.
But I had to draw the line, especially when it comes to someone I really don't know, practically draining me of my goodwill and time. 5 bucks won't make me rich and for the most part if someone is online w/their own blog, it won't break their bank, but it's symbolic. And in my above case, it worked.
The next scenario involved me joining up w/someone and for the most part, it seems to have gone down the drain. @ first I was a bit bummed, but by the end of the month, my epiphany to return to school came and now I'm wiping my brow and breathing out a huge sigh of relief.
Many moons ago @ college #2 no make that #3, I worked @ a college radio station in the promotions dept. I "interned" @ a local music company. I put intern in quotes b/c I didn't get school credit, nor did I get paid. I basically did it for the connections b/c @ the time I wanted to major in public relations, specifically the entertainment industry.
Around that time I fell in love w/web design and yada yada yada here I am doing web stuff not public relations stuff. But I skipped a major plot point so let me go back.
So I'm interning, helping produce live shows, brainstorming their fledgling website and I had pie in the sky dreams. I knew I was in the right place, I believed all the hype and high hopes the owner spouted and I was hooked. If only I continued to volunteer my time and talent I'd be sitting pretty come graduation.
The problem was, I was helping him fulfill his dream more than working on my dreams. In retrospect, I promised myself to never ever do that again. It's so easy to get caught up in the moment and get dazzled by other peoples vision and while that may work out well for other people, like the owner had other interns that thrived, it really wasn't for me.
It's been awhile since something like that happened again, but last month it did. And like before, hearing the other person talk about all they had planned, I started getting excited for them and me too, but mostly them. There's a bit of ego stroking involved. I was flattered that they asked me to participate and struggled w/feeling obligated due to that flattery.
Then I did something, that I hadn't thought of ahead of time, but sorta came to me.
As we talked about what we wanted and how we'd work together, they asked me for some specific help and seemed to want a commitment right away. In my past life as an intern, my MO was to say yes first and then wonder what the hell I got myself into later.
Not that night.
I told them I needed a few days to sort it all out, figure out how what I'm already doing on my own is going to be impacted and then make a decision. They agreed and we left it that I would follow up w/them in a few days.
That weekend, after rationally weighing the pros and cons, debating how involved I wanted to be and how much time I had to devote, I sent them an email.
That was 3 weeks ago. I haven't heard from them since. Granted, it's the holiday season, but still.
Now intern Renee would have felt hurt 8 ways from Sunday. She would've kicked herself for being too uppity, wishing she just signed on upfront and sorted it out later, I mean opportunities like this don't come along often.
But this Renee is sorta relieved. For one, being involved w/other sites to that extent don't really interest me, I really have big plans for the fatfighterblogs.com site especially after the first of the year and I didn't feel selfish for thinking of me.
And up till the day I decided to go back to school, I was feeling slighted that they didn't reply and wondered if all they were interested in was info from me...when we corresponded they had a lot of questions about stuff I do, maybe that's all they were interested in.
But when I realized in a few months I'd be in school, it was clear that us not working toghther...worked out for a reason. There is no way I'd have been able to devote the time they required and still have me time and school time. Something would've had to give and I'm glad it was them and not me.
This was a pretty good month in terms of me continuing to stand my ground and be firm w/what I want. Feelings of people pleasing and stifling myself still came up. Those may be with me for the rest of my life, but @ least I'm not letting that keep me stuck.
This month will be a doozy, of the family relations kind. Lots of interactions w/them in the next few weeks. It'll really put my boundary building skill to the test.
