What should I focus on? Fears and bad habits

It’s been a while since I’m home and without a nine-to-five job or a project that can consume my energy in a good way. I always say that I’m an entrepreneur but right now I’m not feeling that I could handle any contracts. And now I don’t want to trade my time for money. And here comes the question. Then, what should I focus on?

Making contact with others is not for me because I’m an introverted person. I love helping people but I get exhausted very quickly doing so. Then what are my options then? I could make tutorials on some knowledge-sharing sites. But to get a decent revenue I must skip speaking in Hungarian and start using my rusted English knowledge.

And here comes my fears.

  • I’m afeared to show myself.
  • I’m afeared of that my speaking skills are laughable. My writing skill is also terrible as well.
  • I know almost nothing about video recording and less about editing. Not to mention being in front of a camera is also not my cup of tea.
  • Social contact makes me tired very quickly. This leads me to procrastinate on sharing. Because it is a source of getting feedback and feedback is a source of social contact.
  • I don’t have expansive equipment that could be used for good-quality footage. So my recordings will not so great.

Right now I’m listening to two great audiobooks:

  • Show Your Work by Austin Kleon
  • Atomic Habits by James Clear

I think these two books are life changers for me.

After listening to the Show your work audiobook I had to realize that I have many things to share. For example, starting a new blog, how I’m learning about the process. How I overcome my fears.

Okay, I have already tried this one. I had a blog About the IndieMonkeys which was one of my projects back in the day. And it went terribly wrong. We started an indie game developer “company” and our goal was to make us notable. Unfortunately, the game was stuck in a project planning phase and the team went apart. I have even started my personal blog twice. And this one is my third try. So what is the difference? The habit. I want to make this process a habit. A habit of creating something and sharing it. This brings me to Atomic Habits.

Address my fear of showing myself

I do not have the habit of creating videos. So I’m going to record one every day after my morning walk. Not because I want to share it. Just because I want to make it a habit. Then I select a few, that I think are worth sharing and upload them to Youtube as public. This way I’m going to make sharing my habit as well.

These two little habits will help me to address my first issue. Fear of showing myself. But what about the language issue?

Address my poor language skill

Well, every evening I try to relax with my pair Szofi and watch the news or a TV show. I thought these activities were a complete waste of time. But now I made them a challenge. Now I try to translate every single line that I hear on the TV into English. It helps me to find the long-lost expressions in my mind. In the process, it helps me to create sentences faster. I have already noticed that it made my sentence create almost as twice as fast as it was before.

How about learning new words? There are plenty of apps out there to increase my vocabulary. Currently, I have signed up with Xeropan and after my mind gets exhausted by the on-the-fly TV translation I can which to a bit easier activity. My other source of new words is Audible. There are plenty of good books about personal improvements, business, and others. Which are not related to my professional English knowledge.

And the writing skill I have found that my biggest issue is not writing. I try my best to just put something on the paper or in a post like this. And Grammarly can do the rest. This technique helps me to not focus on my grammar. But instead of finding the words. And after I’m finished I fix my mistakes and Grammarly gives awesome support in it. Meanwhile, I learn.

But why not take a class and learn in a professional way? I’m not up for a class yet. And I want to address my other issues as well. I’m going to take a class to practice my pronunciation, I will join some Discord servers as well, but not till I found my self-confidence again.

Address my leak filming knowledge

While I’m addressing my show-myself issue by making and sharing videos I also learn about it. I do not want to be stuck in a state that we call software development the tutorial loop. A place where I learn all the tips and tricks about the topic, but in the process, I do not try them out. I want to create as many videos as I can. And in the meanwhile, learn just one little new thing that can make my videos better. For now, I’ve installed DaVinci Resolve and try to get familiar with its user interface. Maybe tomorrow I will try to make my first cuts.

Address my fear of feedback

To be honest this is my biggest reason for procrastination. I try to overcome my fear by just not reading the feedback right now. I already know my fears and my deficiencies. And I try to improve every day. As in software development, I now establish a pipeline of production and over the iterations, I try to improve it on the way. After I feel comfortable enough I will revisit this fear and find a way to handle it better.