Editing The Pen Addict 545/transcript (section)

== Yearly Themes and Goal Setting ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' All right, Myke, one of the topics we like to cover here is a bit of a tag along to your cortex themes, which I enjoy talking to you about. Now you have an episode of cortex episode 136 where you and gray, this is the most recent episode, right? This was the last episode.

'''Myke Hurley:''' we haven't, we haven't put one out in January yet.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Okay. So where you and gray go over your previous yearly themes, talk about, well, you know, what went well, how things went, then talk about your themes for 2023. And it's an idea that I've always, you know, appreciated that y'all, y'all came up with because it's kind of how it's definitely like in line about how I think about, you know, coming into a new year, not necessarily making resolutions because you're just kind of setting your up yourself up to fail and kind of these black and white situations. A lot of times with these resolutions and the idea of a theme, just having this overarching kind of like, guide or, you know, light, you're like, you're heading towards kind of thing, um, is, is really a good way to think about, you know, starting a new year. If you want to implement some change in your life, right?

'''Myke Hurley:''' You set yourself up to be able to succeed rather than setting yourself up to fail, like resolutions, strong resolutions, or goals that have, uh, a completion state to them. They are inherently there for you to fail. And like one of the, you know, some of the great ones that like we've come up with over time, we use as examples of like, you know, if you said, I want to read 20 books this year, but you read 19 or you didn't, didn't do it. You failed. But if you instead made it the year of reading, you'd be like, wow, I read 19 books this year. Cause that is a success. If it's more than what you've done before, right? Like, and that was the whole idea of the year theme. So like a theme for the year will allow you to just focus on a thing. And if you make any positive improvement towards that thing is great. Like for example, you know, like, um, people might try and say like, Oh, I want to get stronger in the gym this year. So I'm going to do a bunch of, uh, health training and like in strength training. But then what if you hurt yourself and like for a month you can't, but then you focus on your mental health. Well, if you had a year of health rather than I just want to get stronger this year, then you'd be like, well, I focused on my mental health for that month. So I still contribute. It's that kind of idea of like, you're giving yourself a little bit of leeway while also allowing you to improve your life in a way that cares, that you care about that's meaningful to you.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right. So I like these, these thoughts, uh, going into the year in the past, I've done like, um, year of ideas, year of creativity. Um, a lot of it is, you know, me thinking about, okay, how can, you know, you know, do like a good work, good work life balance. You know, it's a lot of personal stuff like that. And you're, you're a lot the same way listening to yours. Um, and then I'm going to take it a little bit today. I'm going to talk about that, but you know, I'm going to relate, try to relate it to how I use stationary, because really that's like, y'all, y'all cover all the theme stuff, right? On, on cortex and talk about how the house and wise, and I'm going to do a little bit of that. And then think about how I can implement like stationary in getting to these goals or getting to these, you know, living up to these themes. And, you know, I definitely have some questions and I'm still a little bit working this out. Um, but I'm just going to go ahead and, and tell you the, the theme for this year is the year of the healer, which I will greatly explain here momentarily. And it'll make a lot of sense, um, momentarily, but I just like, if anyone, we have any, uh, cortex listeners here. If you listen to Myke, he changed his theme like five minutes before the show. He finally came up with the name. I was having trouble coming up with a name for this, but the idea I had for myself in 2023 was I need to be better with myself, to myself, to the world around me when I'm off, when I'm not working. And, you know, I think of it, you know, just like an on and off switch. Right. And trying to think about this, you know, I have you being a video game fan and me being a video game fan, you know, and the classic dungeons and dragons, you know, idea of a, of a party, right. You know, you have your, your warriors and your healers and your, your rogues and your wizards and things like that. And the healers job is to keep everybody alive. But what's the one thing the healer can't do? Well, the, the healer can't die, right. The healer has to heal themselves first, right. Before they can heal anybody else. And that's kind of like the concept I was working on this year.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' As let me, let me state it this way.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I know what I do good. Right. And so when I started thinking about the theme, I had to say, what do I do good? And what do I do bad? And I think I'm a pretty good worker, right? Like I think I do my job. Well, now there's obviously huge room for improvement, huge things to change in, in those areas, but I'm never going to be great or do better work. Work. If I'm in a bad mood outside of work, if I'm thinking about work, when I shouldn't be working, if I'm not taking care of myself first, when I'm not tasked with getting, you know, a job done. Right. So I feel like when I'm working and when I'm on, I'm really good. Like I'm confident in what I'm doing. I feel accomplished. You know, there's obviously things I want to change and you want to keep improving and I'm at my worst when I'm not working and I'm sitting around thinking about working and I'm sitting around. Oh, should I check my email? Well, no, I shouldn't check my email. Well, now I'm thinking about checking my email for the next two hours, even though it's like seven o'clock at night. And I really did. There's no, nothing good is going to happen by doing that. And it's this mindset that I have that I'm not taking my down times more seriously to be even better when I am working or when I am on. So like my off times just don't work well for me. And I get myself in bad moods. I'm not the best husband. I'm not the best dad. You know, all of these things just kind of roll up together. So the idea is, Hey, I have to take care of myself when I'm off a little bit better. And that makes being on that much easier. Right? So like, I feel like I have a good work. I have a good relationship with working, but I don't have a good relationship with not working, which is strange to say. And it's, it's definitely a unique situation because I, I just work for myself. Right? Like I don't, I'm not responsible to anyone else. You know, like I'm obviously responsible to my family, but like, as far as a job goes, like I am only as good as like the things I create. So it, it, it weighs on me differently than, you know, if I have a corporate job or if I work in a group or things like that. So this is very specific to me. And I definitely, you know, admit that. So like the things I do good, you know, I, I, I'm really good at working around a schedule. I'm really good at executing tasks, right? I'm good at helping people. I'm good at, you know, creating like a positive environment. I'm good at creating an open environment. Like those are the things I do good. Like the things I want to do better is to be more content when I'm not on. Like I'm really content when I'm working. Can I ask you a question real quick? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Please.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Do you mean like feeling good or on work? Like what, what is on and off?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. On work. Okay. I mean like physically working versus like the act of working versus the act of not working. So on would be working, you know, working, you know, on the blog, on the podcast, on spoke, on any of that stuff. And then off being when I'm not, you know, working. So yeah, not like on a, not like on a mindset, but being like on the job or off the job type of stuff. So like, I have a hard time when I'm not working, but I'm also a person that cannot and will not work all the time. Right. That's not my mindset, but I don't give myself like this, this grace of being off. I don't, I don't do off. Well, so that's like what I'm trying to work on. You know, if I can be good when I'm off, that just makes the on that much better. Right. And like getting in the right headspace when I'm off, like that's, that's a tough time. That's a tough thing for me. You know, and I think a lot of people experience that my, my alone time attitude is very challenging sometimes. Right. Like I don't have a really good baseline of being off. So it's, it's, it's,

'''Myke Hurley:''' I think that comes from those. It was like, you've always got that one step in your mind back into work. Like, is that?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Cause the work is like the singular responsibility. Right. Like, and it's, it's not overbearing or overwhelming, but it's always there. And only I'm responsible for it. Right. Like I, you know, I'm not going, you know, I'm not going into an office where there's 10 of us, like, you know, you know, going towards the same goal. It's like, it's, it's me, right. Like I am responsible. Um, so, you know, I, I try to think about those things and try to, I never feel burdened by work when I'm working. Right. But I feel burdened by work when I'm not working. Does that make sense?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yes. Well, you're, you're actively in it. You're progressing it forward. Yeah. But then when you're not there, you're like, Oh, could I be doing something more right now?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Yeah. So like, you know, all the work stuff I do, like writing and sharing content, creating content and, you know, doing all that stuff. Like that's all great. All kind of pulls towards the same goal, the same, like the pen addict job. Like it's, it's all really good. So it's feels a little bit weird to not focus on the work stuff, but that's where the healing comes in. Like if I'm not, if I'm not a good healer, if I'm not taking my care of myself when I'm not working, well, work's going to be worse, right? Work's going to suffer if I'm not taking care of myself first when I'm not working. So the hard part of this is, you know, what, how can I track this, you know, or how do I have tasks or deliverables? And it's hard to have like these little check boxes for, Hey, relax better. Right. You know, take care of yourself better. Like that's broad. Right. So high school and college me would have been shocked by this next statement that I'm about to make, but I actually genuinely love writing. Like I like the experience of writing. I like the thought of writing. Now I'm not going to write a book, right? Like I'm not going to write stories, but just the act of releasing ideas with a pen onto the page is very enjoyable to me. The act of exploration of, you know, the paper and the ink or the graphite or any of that stuff. So this goes into, Hey, journal more, you know, write more, be more creative when you're not working.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And like, I've never been a traditional journaler and I'm, I'm not going to start now. Like I've, I've proven over the years that like traditional at two 30 on the page that says January the 4th. Okay. Go that, that doesn't work for me. Right? Like that will never work for me. It does not work for me. But just having an open page where I can write stupid stuff or I can think about, Hey, what does it mean to heal yourself first? You know, those kinds of things. I like that type of writing. I really enjoy the tactileness of it too. Right? It's the separation of the analog and digital, which I know a lot of us struggle with. Right? That's why we're here talking about pens. Right? It's, it's different. And how can I use my pens and paper to be, to heal myself better when I'm not working. Right? Because I, some of this, sometimes the pen and paper is work, right? Like if I'm reviewing or testing or doing that stuff. And I, I'm pretty good at separating that type of work writing versus pleasure writing, but I don't know enough pleasure writing. I don't know enough exploring. So, you know, I started a five year journal this year. So that's one little task that I'm using to, Hey, write one or two sentences a day, right? Take this little journal. And it's, there's like each day has like six lines and it's like, it's a very short compact thing. It's like, okay, let's start here, Brad. Let's write one thing. And it doesn't, I don't even, there's no rules in that. I'm not, it's not a gratitude journal. It's not a pen tracking journal or ink tracking journal. It's just like, Hey, talk about today real quick. Like anything specific, you know, I could write it at nine o'clock at the morning. I could write it at nine o'clock at night. There's no like hard, fast rules other than it has to be done every day. That's where I'm starting. Right. So I'm starting there. And then that has made me want to write in my notebooks more. So just thinking about this yearly theme for 2023, I've written, you know, just like two pages in an a five notebook, just exploring thoughts. And like a lot of it's garbage. Like it doesn't matter like that. I don't worry about what goes in my notebook. I just worry about like doing it, like picking up the notebook and the pen and writing you like just for myself. Yeah. Right. So like, do I have any like tasks or deliverable deliverables for this? Like one of the things I want to do is just maybe think about like the things I'm consuming a little bit more because I'm a very avid music listener. I like to read books. I like to play games. And maybe I take some time to have like a little bit of a media journal. Right. Just like I get to use my stuff. Right. You know, that's always important to all of us using your stuff. You know, so maybe I explore, Hey, this new album I listened to today or this song from 30 years ago. That's all of a sudden now in my playlist. Why? Like think about those types of things. And I give by doing that, like being direct about that, it gives my brain this complete separation from work. And I found whenever I've done that, that I have a better, like a more healthy relationship with myself, you know, with my family, my friends, my work. So this hall kind of ties back into the year of the healer for me. You know, I can't heal anyone else. And I'm not, believe me, I'm not trying to say it that way. Like, Oh, I need to heal people or things. I'm not saying it in that context. I'm saying I can't be my best me unless I take care of myself first. Right. And which is the real, you know, common, common thing that a lot of us try to work on. It was like, well, I need to work on myself. And then like everything else kind of comes easier, but like putting that down and writing and actually writing about it and thinking about these things, that's something I'm going to work on. So figuring out what that balance is. And I know you've talked a lot about this and I was listening to you. We have pretty similar themes. Yeah. I was listening to you. Yeah. In this episode, I was like, I'm just nodding my head. It's like very similar. It's like, we have to have some type of separation in like work life balance. Right. That's like the common phrase, but then figuring out what it is that's going to work for you specifically, you, Myke and me, Brad, what are the things that are going to work specifically to set us up for success? In other areas of our life that we want to be successful in too. Right. Like we're not focusing on one specific thing. I'm not, I'm not focusing on, you know, Hey, watching more movies because that's going to make me a better pen addict writer person like directly. But I'm focusing on watching more movies because my mind needs the space to escape and give me the freedom that I'm, when I'm working, I can work better because I'm not thinking about other things. Or when I'm off, I'm not thinking about work. I'm thinking about the movie that I'm watching instead of like, you know, looking at messages or things like that. So yeah, like it's a pretty common idea, right? Overall. I think, you know, a lot of people probably have like very similar ideas and concepts, but, you know, figuring out the way you can break it down. That is, is most useful for yourself. Like, I think that's my challenge. Like over the next week, like I've really been thinking about this a lot and, and writing things down and trying to figure out, like, you know, I want to talk to you real quick and get you to shout out the theme system journal. Like, I think that's a great product. Like I've used it in the past. And, um, like I, I can't really mix in another journal right now. I'm going to do this five-year journal. And that's kind of like my journaling for that. But what I really like, and I said this to you in the past, like, I can't believe how valuable I found like the habit tracker pages. Yeah. In there, or you might call them, there might be a different terminology for that.

'''Myke Hurley:''' We, we differ on that a little bit. It is like a habit tracker. We call them like daily themes or daily questions a lot. Yeah. Um, and they're just like, and for me, like these are things that they persist year after year, no matter what my theme is, because I consider these to like, all right, I can have a theme and my theme can be focused on whatever I want it to be. But to actually be, to be like effective in all of the things that I need to be, there are certain things I have to hit every day. Like, am I being creative today? Am I advancing something forward? Am I being a good husband? Am I being a good friend? Like I still have to do all that stuff. If I don't do that stuff, that's like my foundation. Then I can't move anything forward. And then over time I've added some in, right? And sometimes they relate to my theme. So like my last year was year of structure and I added structure and free time into my daily things because I've realized they're important for me throughout the day. And then this year I added something called home because that's also important to me right now. And like they can move on and off, but like they're the things that are like, I have to do those every day. And like really the theme system journal exists to remind you about your theme. Right. Like if you find another way, do that. Like you don't have to buy the journal to do this thing. Right. Like having a theme and thinking about that, working on that does not require the journal, but it is just a good way to like keep that in the forefront of your mind. But if you're doing that in your five-year journal, then do it in your five-year journal and keep your theme in mind that way.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right. And I do want to, I, one of my tasks is to like think about these daily themes a little bit more and how I want to integrate. Like you, you have to have as much as you and I hate this, this corporate word, you have to have some deliverables, right? Like you, you have to have some accountability to making yourself better. Right. Like there's not, there has to be some hard stuff in here. Right. It's just not all la la land. Just trying to, you know, Oh, I'm going to just going to do whatever. I'm gonna go watch a movie now and read a book. Like you have to have some accountability to have some like real gains in like trying to improve yourself. So like maybe I roll my own like little daily themes or habit tracker or things like that. Or, you know, maybe I'm, I'm been bouncing around looking at a few apps. I don't know that that's going to be a solution because they, there, there tends to be more too much overhead. I really like mentally.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Imagine, I disagree with doing this stuff in an app. Like I know that people have their own ways of doing things, but I think that there is such value in sitting down and writing it out, especially because it's then different to everything else you're doing on your phone. Yep. Right. And especially for me, right.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Like who has literally has all the stationary in the world. Like, it would be very easy to like roll my own. So like I've, I've downloaded like six apps and I'm just like, I'm opening and like lasting like 30 seconds and instant deleting. So I see where this is going. Like, that's not going to be something that works for me, but Hey, guess what this notebook is, or, you know, any, something like that. So, yeah, that's what I'm working on. We've got a little, a little, little personal here, not totally stationary driven, but like the stationary is such a core part of my life. And I don't just mean my work life. Like it is, it is important to me regardless of my job and how can I use these pens and paper to improve myself. And like, I really want to work on myself this year. Just as this baseline, like that was my original name for this theme, the year of the baseline, but I couldn't really wrap my head around that. But if I have this good off, off baseline, then that just makes on that much better. And like, I feel like I'm pretty good at on, but it could be better. So, but how am I going to do that? Well, I have to be better when I'm off. And that's, that's a challenge for me. So I'm going to work on that.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I like this. I mean, like, so basically if I can, I just want to try and summarize on your behalf, like there are kind of two areas that you're looking to focus on with the year of the healer is one is just like switching off from work more and being more present in whatever the thing is, right? that you're doing that's outside of work. And then two, using the things that you love as a way to give you comfort as well as content. Yep. Yep. Yeah. I love it. We're pretty similar. Like, so my theme this year is the year of the weekend, which is a fact of his music. Yeah. Effectively. Like, yeah, I have had a blinded by the lights. Is that the name of the song from the weekend in my head constantly? I love the weekend, by the way. Great. Great musician.

'''Myke Hurley:''' But the, for me is, in essence, I want a better work-life balance. And something I have not done for like, maybe a decade is like truly have weekends, like, in a way that like you work Monday to Friday, and then you have two days off. And like, during those two days, you're not working because you're not at work. You're like, that's like a very typical thing that I think less and less people have these days, but was a thing that I used to have and is a thing that is achievable if you have a good kind of working environment. So it's more about like, then when I have days off work, like once, one thing is making sure I have those days off every week, at least one, two ideally, but you know, and then when I'm taking them off is to do a selection of things that's either A, nothing, right? Right. spending time with my loved ones, or C, doing something to improve my home. Like that, that's kind of like the real simplified version of what the year of the weekend is for me, but there's a bunch of other stuff to it. And I won't do the whole thing because there is a podcast where you can go and hear it, you know, but that's kind of my idea. Yeah. Yeah. But I think like we're circling on some similar stuff this time. Definitely.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Definitely. One of my favorite tweets from last year that, that I made, I don't think, no, that it's, it's not unique, but like my, my comment was do nothing better. Yeah. And like, that's really hard. Like it's, it's, it should be easy, but it's not in the, in this day and age and the, like the type of like work that I do and things like that. So like, I'm always, you know, thinking about things when I shouldn't be. So yeah, we got, got some work to do there. So I love it. I love this idea. I love it. Just, you know, the idea of themes just to, you know, help us be better people, do better, do better work and lead better lives. And, you know, there's a lot of stationary that drives mine. And I, I look forward to exploring even more. And we'll, we'll talk about stuff. Believe me. I, I've used plenty of stuff right now. I'm super mad at sheening inks, like what y'all already know. I am not, I don't like super sheeners, but I'm really mad. I've been using the sheening ink in my pen and it's really, really great. And it's beautiful on the page. And then I come back a day later. And if my hand's a little wet and I touch the page, guess what? It gets on my fingers. And that makes me mad.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So I didn't know that was a thing.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Super sheeners tend to not dry very well, not dry very well. I mean, they're technically dry on the page, but you cannot like touch them again. Right. If you touch them, you're going to smudge them even if it's days or weeks later. So anyway, let's cook a pizza. Yeah. Let's,