Good evening, friends and neighbors.
The idea of “faking it till you make it” is that, by somehow pretending and acting that a situation is different, you can make it become different and thereby make your fantasy real.
As you can guess, I don’t exactly buy into that. The reason?
I’m a shitty liar, and I know when I’m trying to lie.
Good morning, friends and neighbors.
I’m finally attending to my side work, and not a moment too soon. It’s starting to get a bit too real out here.
For reference, “side work” in this case doesn’t mean I just decided to start cleaning down my tables, scrubbing floors, and organizing the walk-in in the bakery. That’s an expectation of kitchen life. I use the idea of “side work” as a metaphor for self-care. The stuff that isn’t necessarily anyone’s job, but it needs to get done or things get pretty gross pretty fast.
In everyday life, “side work” is things like making dentist appointments, cleaning your house, balancing your check book… and in my case, getting myself back in front of a psychologist.
Lately, my stress levels have been a bit higher than usual. A large contract is coming the way of my bakery, and my team is central to completing it. Over the time we’ve had to prepare, there’s been delays, meetings, and higher priorities left and right. Then, in the final week we have to prepare- we don’t have enough ingredients, and won’t till the end of the week.
I’m frustrated, I’m stressed, I tried to avoid this situation happening. In the end, it’s going to be me working extra hours trying to make the deadline- and I’m more pissed about not making the deadline than I am the extra work.
Good evening, friends and neighbors.
This might be a bit of a shorter blog post than usual. Recent shake-ups at work have left me nearly drained everyday, and I haven’t even had the energy to work on my other projects (namely, my next book and a free ebook on time management and mise en place!)
Thank you for being patient with me on those!
If you’ve been reading this blog for really any amount of time, you probably know that one of my ongoing frustrations is my relationship with productivity, anxiety, and my own self-worth. In brief, any time that I’m not directly working (or working on something) feels like wasting time on some level.
“Wasting time” is something my brain translates as “laziness” or “shiftlessness”- and when your self worth is connected to how busy you are… it’s kinda hard not to feel like a bum for needing a break. And yet, taking a break is needed not just for creativity… but for being alive.
Continue readingGood evening, friends and neighbors!
Earlier today, I was catching up with my friend Merrill before heading out on a run. It was much of what you would expect- the latest drama, what we’ve been keeping ourselves busy with, trouble at work- the usual.
Then Merrill made the horrible mistake of asking, “So, what have you been up to?”
After a brief rundown of life at work (mmm… chaos) plus all the projects I’m working on for the blog (blog posts, interviews, upcoming books, and the like), she remarked that I am “stretched so thin that I can see your gluten matrix.”
I admit liking to keep busy– and the often-fraught relationship between my self-worth and productivity– but I take my opportunities to relax extremely seriously. With the recent changes to my work schedule (taking on a night shift rather than an early morning one,) I now have mornings free- so my “20 Minute Vacations” occasionally slip through my grasp in favor of a more solid morning routine.
All the same, I am always on the prowl for ways to relax that, ideally, don’t cost too much money. With so many chefs and cooks trying to embrace cleaner living, I thought I might come up with a few that don’t involve booze or substances.
Good morning, friends and neighbors! Today’s topic is one that I’ve been thinking about for a while because not only does it come up in creative life and professional life… it’s also an excuse to flex a bit of my dusty BA in Psychology.
With the increasing diagnoses of anxiety and depression among the American population, “imposter syndrome” is a term that gets used to express frustration and self-criticism of one’s accomplishments. Slightly less well-known (but increasingly used in recent years) is “the Dunning-Kruger Effect,” which is oversimplified in order to be used as a criticism of others.
The truth is they are two sides of the same coin- we experience both in our lives, and the impact of them change how we handle our work, our creative projects, our relationships, and ourselves.
So if you came looking for Freddy Kruger, you’ll have wait about a month. Sorry- just a bunch of fascinating psychology today.
The Black Hat Baker 