I am writing this on the 21st October to be published afterwards for obvious reasons as you'll see below.
Over the past several years, four at least, the 21st October has been my ceremonial breakage day. You can read about my previous experiences on 21st October here and here.
I suppose the most dramatic one was the day that I received the letter from the GDC but year on year, psychologically and physically this is the day that it's at its worst.
The crazy thing is that on reflection of these past few years I 'bottom out' on 21st October but probably don't even start to rise again psychologically until March (classically I fecking hate the winter)
I haven't done that this year.
I have broken the cycle this year.
September to the end of October is a difficult time for everybody in our world - the kids go back to school, family harmony reduces down into every day being a military exercise of logistics and precision. Stress increases, work increases, light decreases, weight increases, fitness decreases, libido decreases - it's a hellish cocktail for psychological stress, depression and general crapness.
Over the past few years I have identified various signs to show that i'm heading in the wrong direction, I even wrote a little checklist for myself. I have started to understand that I need to put breaks in the system and it's ok not to be working in a crazy fashion 24 hours a day 7 days a week.
Don't get me wrong, i'm tired at this time of year and it's still hard to train. I have managed to put on at least half a stone since July but i'm much more accepting of the fact that, on average, it's probably reasonable for me to work 8 or 9 hours a day and that means that if I do 14 hours (like yesterday) it's alright to only do 3 or 4 today.
It may well be that i'm just postponing the breakage day a little bit this year and it was interesting to speak to my friend and mentor Chris Barrow (#CBismycoach) but he is now complaining that I have infected him with CC Day and he was predicting the 21st October as his breakage point (there is a price to pay for success and busyness.
My schedule now though is to maintain the greater degree of health and well being that I have on 21st October 2016 all the way through now to 20th December when I break up for my self proclaimed sabbatical and then there is almost 7 weeks of removing myself for the rat race. So by the end of January several glass ceilings should have been broken, several paradigms should have been shifted.
That's the plan in any effect. I am happy to talk about it when it's crap so I should be equally happy to talk about it when it's going better.
Happy CC day!
Blog Post Number: 1110
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