My general plan for January was pretty simple: Take some time off around Christmas, take my concepts and initial idea-proving work and come back at it refreshed and full of energy and pep!

Things did not go as planned.

I found myself just as exhausted as when I decided to put a proverbial pin-in-things in December. “This ain’t right” I thought – I mean, I explicitly stated I was taking time to relax, so I should have relaxed right?! That’s how it works!

That is, apparently, not how it works.

So I’ve learned at least one thing, I don’t know how to relax right now. That’s… a step, but doesn’t really guide me to how to, y’know, force that relaxation on myself so I can get back to the high levels of energy that I’m used to. The level of focus that in the past meant a new person at my desk interrupting me every 5-15 minutes with brand new questions, swapping topics to solve problems while threading in my own work without a hitch. I had it! I want it back!

I’ve swapped people at my desk to assist in questions around school or helping get a cup that’s in the high cupboard, but I find myself playing catch-up far more than I used to when I sit back down to get back at it. We’re living in some pretty crazy times with some massive disruptions in all sorts of things, I’ve even started a “scrapbook” of things I just stumble on in my day-to-day that really highlight the… casual insanity. I’m hoping years from now some of the massive problems that have been exposed lately world-wide are addressed and that I can look back on that scrapbook with friends and have some head-shaking reminiscing moments. The state of the world is occupying my brain space much more than I’d like, is that it?

I don’t know. It could be a number of things, this is very new for me (a phrase I’m sure many people in their own scenarios can relate to in 2020 and… beyond…). Tackling new frontiers is very important in game development. Staring the unknown straight in the eye and saying “… I will google that” as opposed to passing-the-buck is a solid skill to have. To leverage that skill though, you really should have a basis of foundation to ensure you’re asking the right questions, to even know what you should be learning. Just try googling “how can I force myself to relax?“, there’s a plethora of suggestions out there, but also I don’t think I’d be asking the right question to begin with, I think the problem is more complex than I’m even able to articulate right now.

So where to go from there? Well, I’m trying to make Gilroy Games a sustainable source of income for my entire family. I’m my best asset, I can leverage my experience in both game design and engineering to accomplish any array of tasks generally assigned to a group of people, sometimes faster than the group. That’s not a flex, years ago when I was a single person assigned to a project (and only half my time at that) the progress of that project was praised and directly compared to fully staffed other teams in the company. It’s a phenomenal advantage to reduce communication time between workers to nothing (honestly, that praise is what planted the nugget that it’s a totally reasonable thing that I could just make my own games).

So the hard truth I need to accept: My best asset is not functioning at peak proficiency.

This is a problem I’m not familiar with solving. Just like I buy assets or modules to help speed things along in areas that I know from my experience would save me a ton of time (or in the case of assets, hit an artistic quality level I could never hit myself!) I think I’m going to need some outside help. I’m going to try something that is radically new to me. I’ve now had two chat sessions with a therapist.

Way I see it, it can’t hurt to talk to an objective human about this weird problem I’m having, a weird problem I’m having trouble even putting into words. I think this very post is an indication I’m doing something right – cause if I’m being real here the bucket of work that contains things like [journal updates, page updates, business administrative work, promotion] are for me some of the hardest things to do, requiring the most amount of energy. Here I am, doing it!

It’s a strange thing to ask for help when you don’t necessarily know what kind of help you’re even asking for, when part of the help is… defining what’s being asked for. I think that’s probably true when it comes to mental health in general, so all I can say is I encourage anyone reading this feeling any weird vagueness like I’ve described, just go for it. It’s a strange industry that weirdly specializes in that exact scenario.

Lesson learned this month: I need to keep working on and investing in myself if I want the games I make to be the best they can be.