Music is life!
Have you ever made an appointment to meet with someone only to dread every moment until the event the day of? Ever get really excited at the idea of something but then talk yourself out of it? Do you have an awareness of tasks to do yet are paralyzed to do anything about it? Convinced yourself that “I must be lazy”?
My name is David and I have ADHD
As a creative person, I have all of the above PLUS creative tasks and responsibilities. Keeping up on songwriting is one element. I have a website to maintain and update, networking with artists and developing successful social media presence. THIS IS NOT A RANT OR BITCH SESSION. It is not meant to be complaints or excuses. I simply want to document my beginning-present-future discoveries while I navigate this, and hope to inspire others to reach out for help to become managers of their minds rather than captive employees.
Even as I write this, I am pushing through what feels like thick syrup. I know I need to write this blog post, I’m even late this week, but the idea of typing away puts my brain in a fog. So many things are distracting me that it’s like looking through a dust storm.
I remember when I moved to Washington. I had just graduated from culinary school, I had a promising new opportunity working at the e W hotel. I was young and I had just made two huge leaps in my life. First of which was moving to San Francisco on my own. Second was moving to my musical mecca, Seattle, on my own.
The hotel had offered to pay me during my internship and I thought I was going to be executive chef in no time. As soon as I walked in, I was in trouble. lol Somehow, most of what I learned wasn’t useful and I couldn’t remember the other. I did start to pick up things quickly and soon I had no problem running the prep team. Prepping ingredients can be planned and calculated from past experience making an my brain happy. Planning based on results from the past is what I do. The problem I run into is planning based on the fly or with data/results I have to provide and anxiety surrounding that “feedback loop from hell”.*
I get frustrated and anxious for getting frustrated and anxious. And then I get frustrated and anxious about that!!
This all basically happens in a 5 nanosecond loop over and over. Sometimes all day.
Back at the hotel restaurant, I had decided to move to the grill line to put some of my cooking skills to the test. I was no stranger to running a hot line in a restaurant, even before School. AGAIN, this time caught me off guard. In the past I had a system in front of me to keep track of orders and run the kitchen. The hotel had a separate station for that. I had no way of organizing the orders in such a way that I could keep track. I got lost quick and often.
A few nights ago while dealing with this same kind of “lost” feeling about my life and career in music, I was reminded of the system I was forced to create that led to success in that kitchen.
Next time:
I share that system, and how i’ve been trying to do just 5 min of something, to get started.