Hey Everyone!
With 2018 freshly upon us, I thought I’d take this time to talk about New Year’s resolutions. Luckily I’m not planning any crazy diets or hoping to spend more time at the gym. But rather, my goal for 2018 is to focus on the work that makes me happy, keeps me productive, and keeps me on track for my long term career goals.
I briefly talked about my job situation a few months ago when I did my Life After Film School video (link here) and how I was working two part time jobs: one video related and one retail job. I didn’t mind the work but I felt frustrated that there was no growth in either positions and I ultimately wasn’t very happy. I made it my goal to get a full time job by the end of 2017 and I wasn’t going to give up until I got one. I went to about 5 or so job interviews back to back in the span of a month, which was the most I had ever been on since graduating from NYU’s film program, and I ended up getting a full time offer for a sales position from one of the companies by the end of the year. Sadly, it still wasn’t a film industry job, but I knew it would still be good work experience. But since I started there, I have realized how important it is to not lose focus on film and video projects.
The job takes up about 9 or more hours of my day for 5 days of the week. That means that when I get home, I have about 4-5 hours of free time before I have to go to bed. If you know me, you know that I love to relax, and procrastination is second nature to me, and after a long day, honestly the only thing I feel that I have energy for is bed and Netflix.
I was using this new job as an excuse to not be productive and ultimately I was being unfair to myself because I wasn’t making time for the projects that make me happy.
In school, I procrastinated homework because I didn’t enjoy it and I thought it was a waste of my free time ( I still did it, though, and you should totally not listen to me and definitely do your homework). But now when I put off doing things for myself, it feels wrong. Sometimes it is hard to push yourself into a creative mindset, but my resolution for 2018 is to push myself to write more and edit more videos and work on things for myself. Since I’m not working in a video related job right now, I can’t be creative throughout the day. Coming home and working on personal projects is almost more important than relaxing at the end of the day.
That’s not to say that I’m not totally tempted to just go right to bed after work and watch netfilx for 5 hours, but that doesn’t get me anywhere in the long run if I spend all my time doing it. This week, I’m trying to stay on track to my long term goals by spending 45 minutes each night with uninterrupted time to work on my personal projects.
I will check back in next week with the updates on how successful I’ve been. 45 minutes doesn’t feel like a lot of time when you’re being productive. It only feels like forever when you are watching the clock. If you are hoping to stay on track with your goals in 2018, join me in the 45 minute challenge and let me know how your first week goes.
Here’s to getting stuff done this week!
