I’ve been run down for the past few weeks, and not exactly motivated about doing much of anything, including blog posts. I’ve been really bad about hitting Twitter and commenting on other people’s sites, and need to get my butt back into gear. If I seriously want to make a go of this blog, I need to make more of an effort.
I’m hoping today will give me the kick I need. About a year ago, I switched positions (by choice) but stayed within the company. I’d done my old job for a total of 12 years (2 with my current company, and 10 with another one before that), and two things made me decide it might be time for a change.
1) I had a co-worker who has evil and just awful to work with
2) There wasn’t really anywhere to go with the job I was in.
So I made a switch. I knew it would be hard to start a brand new job, but it ended up being a lot more brutal than I expected. My boss was completely hands off, and my “mentor” was a type A personality who never bothered writing anything down, and often left me out of meetings etc. I needed to be part of. I was miserable for about six months, and had great plans of freelance writing, etc, but never really made a serious go of trying to break into it.
Things seems to improve, so I decided just to drop the freelance writing idea. I finally started this blog, but certainly haven’t been putting the work into it that I could. I’ve been coasting.
I’ve now hit another major roadblock at work again, and realized my chances of going anywhere on this team and with this boss are limited. I don’t think I picked a bad job – just not one I can handle with a boss that refuses to train me or provide me with information I need. It’s frustrating and demoralizing.
The “silver lining” in this case is that I hope it’ll kick my butt back into gear, and I’ll get a bit more motivated with this blog and looking into freelancing. My goals for the month of June are:
1. Set up Twitter on my phone so I will actually be more active on it.
2. Take out the “Canadian Writer’s Market” from the library again, and actual make a serious effort to try and find some magazines etc. I can work for.
Small goals, but realistic ones. 
If you are aware of any freelance (paid or unpaid – portfolio building is always nice) work, please let me know!
What does it take to get your butt in gear?
My butt’s always in gear, simply because it HAS to be with my life. But, I’m terrified of what will happen when I graduate. I might fall out of gear.. haha.
For me it took a lot more than a single bad day to really get my butt in gear.
It sounds like you’ve realized your limited opportunity at your current job. Perhaps it is time to start sending out some resumes and see if you can find something better. There’s not much you can do about an unsupportive boss.
As for getting more active blogging, I would try setting some weekly or monthly goals with stuff like number of comments on other blogs, alexa rank, daily traffic, etc. Have something that you want to push to achieve.
I’m not sure how to get decent freelance writing gigs, but you could try sites like elance.com or other outsourcing type sites. Or if you really focus on building up your blog, that would be an awesome reference that could lead to more writing elsewhere….especially if you eventually get guest posting on popular blogs.
Hey Daisy – yes, I don’t know how you do everything you do.
MM – You raise a good point – It’ll be sustaining keeping my butt in gear. I am okay to coast in my current job for now, with putting my energies into other areas like the blog. I tried for a few things on eLance, but didn’t get them – that being said – I should get back to it.
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