The Week I Hit A Mental Slump

Tidbits

Hitting a mental slump this week. Did I overwork myself?
A crunchy, hard-packed, bluebird day at Brighton.
Making salmon tikka masala IN MY VAN #vanlife.

February 2023

Su	M	T	W	Th	F	S
29	30	31	2/1	2	3	4
5	6	7	8	9	10	11
12	13	14	15	16	17	18
19	20	21	22	23	24	25
26	27	28	3/1	2	3	4

Where In The World Was I?

Salt Lake City, UT
⛷️ Brighton
Salt Lake City, UT

Inputs (☕️ 💻)

Bjorn’s Brew
Urban Sailor Coffee (x2)
3 Cups (Holladay, UT)
Honeysuckle Coffee Co. (Sandy, UT)
Woodbine Food Hall (3 Cups)
Salt Lake City Public Library
Sprague Branch Public Library

It was a coffee-shop kind of week 🙂

Outputs (✏️ 📚 📈)

Video posted for Denver’s Best Kept Secrets: The Top 5 Coffee Shops for Remote Workers
Business venture
- Lots of market research
- Research into the bootstrapping process
- Research into startup/no-code tools to use
2022 Year In Review reflection
New Time Tracking Table note for rewarding good habits, disincentivizing bad habits (aka YouTube)
Notes and takeaways from Goals by Brian Tracey

The Wall 🧱

On Wednesday, I had planned on skiing, but I woke up and checked the weather at Brighton to see:

0ºF
50+mph winds
Zero sun

… and thought, well that doesn’t sound very fun 😅

So I called an audible and went to Honeysuckle instead.

I continued with a bunch more market research. And after looking up so, so, many competitors… I started to feel a bit discouraged.

This pivoted idea came across my mind and I decided to look into that a bit. I hit a rabbit hole, getting quite excited, scrapping the rest of the plans I had for that work session.

My brain was/has been working really hard to piece all of this information and data together, to find the opportunities, the cracks in the armor. I just hit a wall at 10:45am that morning, way before the usual time I throw in the towel, around 12pm.

I spent the afternoon chilling at Sugar House Park, doing some shallow work, watching some YouTube, doing some little tasks around the van, etc.

I ended the evening with more market research, struggling to piece everything together.

I meditated twice that day, but I didn’t really properly disconnect or walk much.

I ended the night trying to wrap my head around everything, just exhausted.

I boiled it down to a couple takeaways:

These are hard problems I’m tackling right now. Harder than the previous couple months, where the focus has been on getting into publishing content rather than solving problems.
I believe working every day can be sustainable ONLY IF I properly disconnect from everything in the afternoons (read as: walking for an hour with no music; not-read as: watching Meet Kevin market updates at 2x speed on my bed, lol)
I’m in a transition period right now, juggling a lot of balls. Maybe I need to put a couple down.
I’m trying to learn a new process (bootstrapping) and I’m getting frustrated because I don’t know the process. It’s worth spending some time to actually learn the process.

I decided to take a break and ski the next day. It was gonna be 10-20ºF and sunny 🙂

⛷️ Brighton Ski Day

First day there!

It seems to be a smaller resort than others I’ve been to. More chill, lots of nice groomers, and less crazy terrain (think: Snowbird). The snow was unfortunately quite hard that day, but the sun was out which helped.

It was just nice to get outside, take a little break, explore a new mountain, and get some turns in.

Unfortunately I’m starting to deal with more knee pain after skiing than earlier in the season, which I think has also contributed to skiing fewer days lately. I’ve been trying to give my knees adequate rest before destroying them again and again 😅

Getting OVER The Wall

I made it a point to prioritize walking and disconnecting wayyy more.

I did, and it worked.

(Wed – the day I hit the wall; Thu – the ski day)

I spent quite a lot of time at Sugar House Park this week – bathrooms, tons of parking, lots of space to walk, space to charge from solar, right next to a great commercial area, close to Anytime Fitness. Just, perfect.

It’s amazing what a little break and a whole lot of disconnected walking can do.

I felt quite good Friday and Saturday, good enough that I decided to go to the library in the afternoon to squeeze in another hour behind the laptop each day. I definitely ended with a fried brain, but not completely exhausted. The balance of walking/working out with focused time worked quite well.

I wasn’t worried. I knew what to do – just get back to the basics.

I would’ve made that video talking through my struggle anyway. I decided to post that moment in an effort to share more authenticity. I think there’s an opportunity for more transparency and authenticity on social media and I’m trying to do my part.

I talked through some of this during my DailyV right after skiing Brighton that I thought was interesting.

The more I reflect, the more I think it just came down to:

Loss (more like change) of focus/direction
Tackling tough problems
Not enough disconnect relaxing time to balance out the focus time

It’s all been a nice reminder to take care of my mental health, to disconnect more fully, and get outside and walk more.

Food From The Week

So I went to this fast-casual (think: Chipotle) Indian place (Makam’s (Millcreek)) this week, as I was overwhelmed with a craving for some Indian food.

It was a little on the pricier side, so it pushed me to think, could I make this in my van?

So I did as any normal person would do… and asked ChatGPT for an easy salmon tikka masala recipe 😂, got all the ingredients, and followed the instructions.