Just as I was headed to bed last night, I got some very welcome news of an easy security guard shift available. Yes, I had to get up early but in the end it is easy money so I am happy about that. My days of working hard are over and I am happy to do a cost/benefit analysis before taking a shift. The shift has to work for me every bit as I have to work on it.

I wish things would continue to get easy, however, they won’t. Life threw me a bone for today. It’s not even scraps, it’s merely a bone. I know I have two events this afternoon which I should be home in time for. One of these events is a webinar called, Manage Your Finances With Confidence Using Scalable Accounting Systems. The other is simply a telehealth appointment. I want to learn about what others in small business are doing.

I might do some work today using Claude. I want to use Claude to help me conduct some market research. I will have to remind Claude not to use its positive bias here as I need the truth. If I have a bad idea, I need to know that it’s a bad idea.

It is so hard to see my mom in such rapid decline as a result of Alzheimer’s. My mom had another fall and she’s clearly not remembering who I am but for brief moments. I feel like I am in a Salvador Dalí surrealistic painting. Maybe something like hell but I really don’t know.

I’m tired and fighting the potential for mental health relapse. It’s been a tough time all around. I don’t always know if I am getting worse or better. I don’t know what’s up, down, left or right anymore.

Again I had grand plans to go to the library and accomplish things. And yet again, it just isn’t going to happen. No sense in putting a square peg in a round hole. I’ll simply try again tomorrow.

It’s finally that time to push the clocks forward and it feels really weird. My body clock and biorhythms are going to be really off for a good two weeks. I still don’t know why we do this nonsense. But we human beings do a lot of nonsensical things and hold on to core beliefs despite them being patently wrong.

I feel oddly relaxed this morning. I don’t know where it’s coming from but I’ll take it. I wouldn’t say I feel like I am floating but I feel okay. I want to be productive today. I did not get anything accomplished on my business plan yesterday.

Today I want to accomplish yesterday’s goal. I want to work on my business plan for 2-4 hours today and get 2-4 of the sections completed on the template. This looks reasonable and I’ll feel better for having done it. Writing a business plan does seem daunting to me and it helps to acknowledge this.

Writing a business plan is a crucial first step. Before I even think about a website, I need this business plan. The business plan will be the guide and it can also be a living document. It’s going to evolve through trial and error.

I am just getting started and allowing my brain to wake up. It’s taking a lot longer this morning as yesterday was so mentally tough. I wish the inertia was not so prevalent this morning. I feel a marked lack of ambition today and I don’t like where this is ultimately headed. To be frank, I know that it’s up to me to change directions into a more positive one. With that in mind, I have some goals for today.

My goal is to spend 3-4 hours today working on my business plan. I want to get 2-4 sections completed during this time. My SCORE mentor gave me some homework to get a mini-business plan template completed by Wednesday, March 18th. With some concerted effort this can be done. I know I am not in the best place mentally because I am finding myself wanting to retreat into cyberspace. It’s times like these, that SMART goals come into play. SMART stands for specific, manageable, achievable, realistic, and time limited.

SMART goals are a good way to go about getting over inertia. They talk about doing a variation of this in the mental health community. One of the things I need practice at is setting these goals. Today’s goal is definitely doable. I notice that a large part of my personal experience with feeling despondent is the really short attention span that comes with it. I feel myself grasping at straws for idea and going off on tangents or even doing things out of order.

I am used to somewhat circuitous and non-linear thinking when business is very logic and order oriented. Brainstorming sessions are for non-linear thinking. Writing the business plan needs to be done in a more orderly fashion because each step is dependent on the one before it. I envision my business progression happening in stages.

The first stage is bootstrapping. During this phase, I will need money coming in the door and flexibility. I want to try being an Uber driver to bring in the money and have a flexible schedule. Since Uber might not be sustainable in the short-to-medium term, I will be slowly offering various services geared towards the business-to-business sector: logo design, logo merchandise and apparel, virtual assistant services, and virtual CIO services. From these services, I see myself towards my ultimate goal of having my own fashion and apparel lines.

I am definitely feeling more fear, uncertainty, and doubt this morning and it is feeding the anxiety cycle. I don’t know why I feel so awful this morning. The past couple of days I awoke feeling at least at baseline. But today, I feel like I am “waiting for the other shoe to drop.” I know it’s not good for the mental health to ruminate on this subject matter but I am writing my thoughts and feelings down to stop them from swirling. In many ways, I want to completely give up, yet I know that giving up has never really been in my wheelhouse. As a former psychiatrist once noted about me, I have an innate stubbornness.

It just dawned on me that I am still very much a creature of habit, maybe even somewhat Pavlovian. I am still finding myself wanting to reach out to food for comfort despite that no longer working. Food just makes me feel full and no longer gives me satiation. Don’t get me wrong as this is a good thing but it is a habit that is hard to nix. I used food for damn near all of my life as a coping strategy.

Okay, I digress …. I went off on a tangent because I used to use food to handle the fear, uncertainty, and doubt. Another insight came as a result: As much as I tell myself that I do not live in fear, I am merely only denying it. I guess I live in more fear than I really want to admit because I look down on people that live in fear. Ironic, isn’t it!? Having some fear is healthy and hopefully deters us from making poor decisions. But a life lived in a disproportionately fearful existence, is very unhealthy.

I need balance in my life and I miss the restorative power of simple Zen meditation. When I regularly practiced the pure unguided meditation, I felt much better mentally. Since I felt much better mentally while I was regularly practicing, I found myself not using maladaptive practices like reaching for food as a coping mechanism. It took time, patience, and effort to see benefits, but the results were nevertheless tangible.

I find myself asking the same question day in and day out: How am I going to survive today? I would love to see life beyond simply surviving but that’s where my present state of mind is. Maybe my one goal today will be to seek out a mediation center in Delaware and restart this activity. If I can lower the anxiety to reasonable levels, I know I will see benefit. Fear, uncertainty, and doubt are a part of life and meditation helped to keep it in check.