Am I a Muralist or Unemployed?
Hello! Happy Sunday and holiday week!
Week Recap
This week was decent. I spent most of it at the pool, picking up all the holiday hours that needed to be filled. No murals this week, but I started painting my own mural in my apartment to stay busy.
Things That Went Well
I had a lot of swim personal training clients this week and worked a lot at the gym. I’m really enjoying the diverse set of clients I have at the moment—from a 1-year-old experiencing the water for the first time to adults who have never swum in their life, to athletes competing in triathlons. I particularly enjoy working with adults in fitness and swimming because I am confident in my abilities and what I’m teaching. Seeing small improvements from lesson to lesson is so rewarding, especially in adults who rarely receive praise outside their professional lives. It's fulfilling to listen to someone, help them improve, and celebrate their progress, no matter how small.
Room for Improvement
I didn’t have a mural project this week, and I didn’t work hard to change that. Last week, I visited a few shops to ask around, but this week, I didn’t do much in that regard. It was a holiday week, but there’s still work that could have been done. These weeks, when I don’t have a project and don’t make efforts to change that, make me feel dangerously close to being unemployed. I confidently say that I am a muralist, but so far, my success has been mediocre, and this month has been very slow. It feels like if it doesn’t work out, I won’t have much to show for the months spent. However, I know that I’m still building and that it's a process. I have to believe it will work out, put in the work to back it up, and understand that it’s all I can do. Sometimes, the eye rolls and comments from people (including a client who hired me) telling me it’s not a real career path get into my head. The key improvement area is putting in the work to back up my dreams.
Personal Life
I’ve been trying to get better sleep this week, and I accomplished that goal. I got in some good workouts: running 5 miles on Monday, lifting on Tuesday, swimming on Wednesday, and a long walk on Friday. It could be a little better, but it could also be worse. I had a really nice date on Wednesday night with someone I’ve been seeing for a couple of months, which was good 😊. I also got to see my best friend who recently moved to California this weekend at her lake house. I spent the 4th working the front desk at the gym, but we made up for it on Saturday with a day on the lake riding jet skis, tubing, grilling, and watching fireworks on the lake. It was a perfect day, definitely one for the memories.
Things I Learned This Week
I listened to the podcast “Modern Wisdom,” episode #802 with Arthur Brooks titled “How to Stop Feeling Lost and Find Your True Purpose.” The podcast discussed scientifically proven ways to improve overall day-to-day happiness and life in general. I really liked a lot of what was discussed and ended up buying the book by Arthur C. Brooks and Oprah Winfrey, “Build the Life You Want: The Art and Science to Getting Happier.” I read the book cover to cover in one day, while working on the 4th of July, in fact.
This book had a lot of good lessons about how to improve day-to-day life and life overall. One thing that resonated with me is the PANAS test, which measures your “Positive and Negative Affect Schedule.” When I took the test, I learned that while I am above average in happiness, I am also above average in negative emotions. This means I am often worked up about something. This is pretty accurate; as an artist, I feel deeply and experience a lot of joy, but also high emotions of fear, distress, and nervousness. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it helps me understand that maybe I can feel something more intensely than someone else, and they’re not wrong for not being as emotional about it as I am.
I also felt validated because the book describes various career paths and how they differ. I love working a variety of different jobs, learning so much, and meeting so many interesting people, even if I’m not necessarily building one specific career. I used to think this was bad, but it’s just a different kind of career path that is perfectly valid. It was good to read that. These are the specifics I took from the book, but overall, I would definitely say it’s worth the read, and there is much more content than what I discussed.
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Thanks for following along on my journey. Here’s to more murals, more lessons, and finding balance along the way!