5, 4, 3, 2, 1!

It’s been far too long since I have spent any effort on my personal growth. I have talked about doing things till I’ve been blue in the face, talked about countless project ideas with my car or things around the house, planned out game ideas and made some rough design documents, prototyped card games with my wife and friends and done the occasional game jam but each time not matter how hard I have tried, I have not been able to get beyond that first initial hump. The hump of self-doubt that looms over everyone at the beginning of an idea right after the initial novelty and excitement has worn off. The feelings that attack with full force, screaming at you saying your not equipped, you don't know enough, how are you going to do that!  Starting now, this is going to change!

(Author: Mel Robbins)

My wife and I have been listing to quite a few books on Audible, we have listened to self-improvement titles such as “The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck” & “The 5 Second Rule” to the suspense novels like “One of Us Is Lying” & “Death of Mrs. Westaway”.  I have really been enjoying the time we spend together listening to these titles. When we listen together it feels like we are growing together and after each time we listen we always seem to have a brief chat about what we just listened to and I really feel like that brings us closer as a couple.  While listing to “The 5 Second Rule”, author Mel Robbins said something that really hit home for me. She was talking about how the human mind is quite literally wired to run and flee when faced with adversity and the unknown and when that happens the only way to overcome that is to just do! Push though and face that fear head on.  Hearing this simple truth was so profound and enlightening to me that I literally felt something change.  I can’t really pinpoint what changed but I can definitely say that a weight has been lifted and I feel like I now am able to face these roadblocks head on.  

The truth of that statement is so simple and deeply ingrained in everyone that we already know it to be true, but the power in having someone else tell you those exact words, hearing it come from outside of your own head, from an outside party with zero connection to you and your life is simply incredible.  The premise of The 5 Second Rule is that every time you realize your brain shutting down due to adversity, that moment when you start making up excuses trying to get out of something you don’t want to do you count back from 5 and just do it.  It’s a brutally simple concept but it stops your habitual self-doubt mode of thinking and refocuses your brain and allows you the time to push yourself to do what you need to do. 

(Mel Robbins)

For the past 10 years I have wanted to create video games, create works of art and share them with the world.  I have wanted to build a personal brand and build a company with my wife, I have wanted to talk about the projects I am working on or just random ideas that have been plaguing my interest.  These are just some of the things that I have wanted to do but have been too scared to do for one reason or another.  Either due to fear of rejection, fear of my ideas being called stupid, fear of failure or plain old just don’t feel like I am good enough or know enough to do the things that I want to do. 

Recently I have found some self-motivation and begun to learn some new skills, practice the things I need to improve on and just do the things I’m interested in and if I enjoy them, well then I’ll practice and get better and learn along the way!  It doesn't matter if I fail along the way, because now I realize that there is no reason to fear failure.  The trick to success is to fail quick and to fail often. After all, one of the best ways to learn is through failure. when you fail it gives you the chance to apply critical thought and problem solving skills to that failure and learn why the failure occurred in the first place.

It’s still very early in my adoption of The 5 Second Rule but I have already started my blog again, although its just my first post back, I have committed to using Twitter to help build a personal brand and show off what I am working on, complete at least an hour a day into game development and communicate my needs and wants better to the world and my wife.  I can’t stress enough how excited I am to see what this year brings to my wife and I but I can tell you that we are going to be making things happen! 

Slow and steady wins the race

NPittak on #1GAM

In comes One Game A Month! One Game a Month is a website that is run by fellow game developer Christer "McFunkypants" Kaitila, (twitter) who has created over 40 games and written a couple books to boot.  This amazing brooding ground of creativity runs a month long game jam that happens every month of the year! 12 game jams a year, 365 days of game developing bliss! I mean this site is so devoted to game development and fostering the creative freedom that game creation allows that Christer even turned the act of participating in a game jam into a game! The website awards you for participating in their monthly jams by granting you an achievement that is displayed on your developers profile on the site. My profile actually says I am currently a level 4 game developer, I intend on getting this as high as possible over the time frame of the foreseeable future.

One Game a Month was originally introduced to me a couple years back and although I have not submitted a game yet, I have participated in monthly jams offline by coming up with new ideas for the current months theme.  When looking into ways that I can keep my motivation up while working towards becoming a professional developer whilst also working full time as a Security Analyst I rediscovered this gem. I also found that blogging about what is on my mind and holding myself to a schedule will help strengthen not only my writing skills but also keep me thinking critically about game design and theory (even is that schedule is once every other month).

If there is one thing that I could change about my current situation it would be to have more time.  More time to learn, more time to chase down my dream, more time to do things that I think are interesting and more time to devote to my wife and our relationship.  But the truth of the matter is that time is a finite resource and we as intellectuals need to learn to use that resource as efficiently as possible. This is where agile management methodologies come into play.  In my personal life I have never been one to make or keep to a schedule. I have always been the kind of guy to just go with the flow. But when the flow pulls you farther and farther away from your passion or goal in life something has to give.  I started planning out time throughout the week where I can sit down and work on my skills as a designer as well as actually using tools like Kanban to track my projects.

hacknplan Project Management Tool

I found this awesome tool called Hack n' Plan (hacknplan.com). This tool has really streamlined my game projects and made organization of my ideas much more manageable. This tool incorporates some key Agile methodologies and allows for very quick idea iteration while keeping track of your work backlog for you.  It also keeps all your design documents in one spot! I would totally recommend this to anyone interested in a project management tool or just wants to organize their projects a little better.

When it comes to keeping track of my day to day activities I took the advice of a coworker and grabbed a TUL Custom Note-Taking System. This binder paired with the Passion Planner printable pages have been a god send! The pages are very detailed a modular to accommodate any work style.  If you are struggling with time management at all, I would highly recommend looking into some sort of tracking method.  It does not have to be what I suggested but I cannot express enough how helpful it has been making time to stay organized.

I would be remiss if I did not say that its hard to change old habits.  It has been hard to be more organized but you cannot argue with how much less stressful it is when you have something written down saying you should be doing something at a given time instead of just going with the flow.  Don't get me wrong, there is something to be said about being flexible and agile but there is defiantly a need for a good framework for that flexibility! I am doing my best to become a better version of myself every single day, on step at a time.  Like the old saying goes, slow and steady wins the race!

Game jams are amazing learning tools.  They afford you the creative freedom to try new things, take chances on experimental design and make risky mechanical choices in order to see what works and what doesn't. They are also extremely social opportunities for like minded individuals to get together and do something creative while learning from one another. Only problem is that game jams do not happen constantly, or at least not with the social aspect that also comes along with them, or so I thought.