Feels Good To Be Back - My Plan Going Forward

Things have been a little quiet here on New Rising Media, but my break is over and here is the plan going forward.

A lot of you may have already read about it, but to sum up what happened - my mental health got the better of me and I needed time away. I’ve always dealt with issues of anxiety and impostor syndrome through my life, but recent events had caused them to overwhelm and plunge me into a depression of sorts.

Let’s dive into the actions being taken to combat this. I’ve gone into therapy - Cognitive Behavioural Therapy courtesy of Insight Healthcare to be specific. Their work so far has been nothing short of incredible. It really hammers home the importance of being able to talk openly and frankly about these issues you may have in your life. The British “stiff upper lip” approach to mental health just doesn’t cut it anymore.

Beyond that, I also highlighted in the seventh anniversary of NRM post that my problem was an unhealthy work/life/hobby split. The positives of this hobby meant I dedicated more time to it that I really should, harming the equilibrium of my day-to-day. This blog became a drug that distracted me from my bigger problems, and a good one at that.

That’s why I need to be clever for once in my life and figure out how this is going to work on a weekly basis. This blog will now take the form of me just outpouring two weeks of my brain’s inner-workings, to figure out my plan going forward.

Made a new trailer for my blog…

The Podcast

I’m going to go ahead and reduce the regularity of these podcast episodes. Daily was just impossible to keep up before, and weekly doesn’t quite walk that fine line of being enjoyable enough to be worth the work.

So, Learn Something will become a monthly show - going live on the last Friday of every month. This lends more time to put something together that actually gives me a sense of pride, and a show worthwhile of your commute time.

The Stream

Video games have been an incredible tool of therapy for me over the past couple of weeks. The sense of escapism you get from immersion into a single-player experience soaked in atmosphere - it’s unmatched by any other media form.

However, the current schedule of “telling myself I’ll play for a couple hours, but actually losing track of time and playing for nearly seven hours” is impossible and ultimately destructive to the balance of my life.

Therefore I’m going to strip Emotion Engineer all the way back to once a week - every Wednesday evening to be specific.

The Blog

Out of the three different elements to this hobby of mine, this blog is my favourite part. Written word is my strength and it shows in the confidence of this work, when compared to my stream and podcast.

I will continue to do three posts a week - either all on NRM or a combination of on here, plus any posts I create for other sites on a freelance basis. 

These will be published on a Monday (for the “I need something to look at other than work” crowd), Thursday (for the “almost the weekend” spike in traffic) and Sunday (let’s be honest, you normally don’t have anything big planned on the weekend, so it’s the perfect time to get a post up for your attention).

The Life

Compartmentalising my NRM efforts to these chunks of time will give me a fighting chance when it comes to living a normal life (or something close to it). 

I can give myself free time to spend with my girlfriend, my friends and my family. I can finally kick myself into going for a run every Tuesday evening and Saturday morning with Park Run. All it’s going to take is some self-discipline to ensure when I have done with my blog, stream or podcast for the day, that I actually put it down and focus my mind elsewhere.

Will it work? That’s the question I’ve been asking myself for the past 14 days with only one answer… Guess we’ll find out.