Tag improvement

Resuming the work

Wuffles Leave a comment

Good morning!

It’s been a while and I’ve been neglecting this. You’d think I’d be stronger since I open up my blog every single time I open up my web browser (which is a lot). The reason I started this blog is to perform research and learn more about productivity habits and lifestyles to build a better life for myself. My life wasn’t going the way I wanted it to and I knew I had to make a change. I started going through the work, putting together this project, and things have been on a steady, if not rapid, increase ever since. I’d say this year has been the best for my art than it has ever been. Since starting the work, I’ve moved way further in my career, got my own place and have been leading a life I enjoy much more.

Regarding here, I do feel like it’s important to pick this back up and resume writing. Four months is too long not to write and keep this going. I do see people still liking and following this blog so I know it’s still providing value out there. I also do enjoy writing and just because it’s been a long while, I shouldn’t feel weird about starting up again if it’s something positive for me and others. There are some new things I’ve been learning and plenty more left to learn.

I already know the next post which involves friends and keeping each other accountable. I’ll be keeping this going again soon. I’m going to be duplicating a lot of this work on substack at

https://productivewuff.substack.com/p/coming-soon

Glad I could check in with you fuzzbutts. Keep an eye out as I get the ball rolling again!

Dream BIGGER

Wuffles Leave a comment

Hello fuzzbutts!

Tonight I want to talk about your dreams. Are you living with a mentality where if you just make it through the day, you’ll have survived? If you just manage to pay one of your bills on time, that’ll be a good day? Maybe you’re lonely but you figure if nobody hates you, that’s good enough.

Bad! No! I want to reach through this screen and bat you lightly with a rolled up magazine. Your dreams are too small! Your goals are set too low! You need to think bigger.

Your life is yours. If you want to live the kind of life where anyone hears about you and goes “That’s kinda depressing,” then alright. However, if you’re reading this blog then clearly that’s not the case. I want you to be the champion of your life’s story. So here’s what you need to do.

Look at your goals and ask yourself WHY. Why is this goal important to you? What are you really trying to accomplish with this goal? If the point of your fitness goal is to become healthier, why not go for something bigger like participating in races, becoming the most fit of your friends and family? If your artistic goal is to become an artist, why not try to build a huge following to show your art off to? If you have a goal around finances, why not work toward a dream of financial independence or becoming a world traveler?

Even if you don’t reach your perfect dreams, you’ll be aiming much higher than you are right now and performing much better. Keep planning, increasing your goals, and seeing where you can go. As you notice these little improvements, I hope they give you the boost you need to keep moving and aiming higher. I would love to hear about your dreams and what you want out of life.

Good luck, fuzzbutts!

You’re okay the way you are… or are you?

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Hello fuzzbutts!

Happy to be here to bring you another post! Hope you’re all doing great. I’ve been having a good time but I’ve been thinking about something a lot of furries tend to do that pretty much self-sabotages us.

Something in life isn’t going the way we want. It might be something about the job or our bodies or something in our own behavior. We recognize there’s an issue and we get down on ourselves about it. Sometimes we share this with a friend. Our friend, well-meaning, responds with “You’re fine just the way you are.” You don’t actually feel any better about it, but you decide to push the problem away for now. Later, you’ll think about it again, seek validation that you’re still okay the way you are, and then avoid doing anything to help yourself.

However, if the problem is something that would improve the quality of your life like you want to get more fit, stand up for yourself more, be more patient with your friends, etc, then it’s a problem worth addressing. Blow up at somebody over something little? Overweight and think you need to get healthier? Feeling useless or like you’re a drag on your friends? Then you’re NOT OKAY THE WAY YOU ARE! You have some self-development to work on. Don’t let yourself settle for staying the same. You are the lead character of your own story and it’s a FACT that the best stories involve character development. I enjoy reading and nothing is more annoying than a main character who doesn’t evolve and grow as the story plays out. Same for movies. So many of the best stories involve a flawed main character who works to overcome their weakness and become the hero or heroine the observer can respect. That’s supposed to be YOU.

I want you to be the best you can be. I want to see you evolve and grow as people and fuzzbutts alike. You can’t do that if you stare at your own flaws and then say “Well I guess I’m fine the way I am.” Nobody is perfect and nobody will be perfect. On the flip-side, everyone can grow and do better.

Fall in love with your self-development. You know the things you’re doing wrong already. If you can’t think of it right now, stop for 2 minutes to think about it. You’ll come up with a pretty big list of things you could start to work on in very little time!

I love you and I want you to get on this journey to become the best you can be. Good luck, fuzzbutts!

Dealing with the Post-Convention Depression

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Hi fuzzbutts!

You’ve had your fun at the convention. Met friends you haven’t seen in ages and made new friends! You had a care-free fun time the entire convention and then you’re on the plane or in the car to head back to real life. The high of the con starts dipping down and you get home again with a desperate need to do laundry and put everything away. However, by now your mood has dropped into the deafening void and the various chores to accomplish look impossible and you lost pretty much all your motivation.

I know I went through this. I was willing to let my fursuit air out after a long weekend of use and just took way too long to get around to actually washing it. Dirty laundry sat in the washing machine way too long and I just flopped on the bed or at my computer and found it tough to get anything done. So I did a bit of inner exploration, realized I was depressed after the convention, and then decided to figure out how I can address this since I know it affects many convention goers.

One of the first things I realized was a sense of loneliness since most my friends had moved away. While I usually enjoy alone time, even I experience the lows that come with missing friends. So the first thing I did was start reaching out to those friends. I made new friends at the convention too and we shared our contact info and social media and I started talking to them too. They were all pretty darn chatty too so it was very helpful to keep in contact with them to combat the PCD.

Another thing I realized is my mood was down because I was just exhausted. At the con, you’re riding high and you’re having so much fun that it’s hard to pay attention to what your body is telling you. Starving yourself because you don’t want to eat without your friends but they’re taking too long. Then, when you do eat, you’re eating quick food or junk food. Sleeping late because there’s so much going on. Drinking and having fun like a crazy person. Then we’re surprised that so many people leave a convention with con crud (the almost immediate cold/illness you get as you’re leaving a con or immediately after a con). Being physically tired/weaker will lower your mood and contribute to the post-con depression.

So if you’re set on not taking care of yourself at the convention and want to party hard, the best way to recover after the convention is to just rest and start eating better immediately. You’ve put yourself through a lot and need to take the appropriate rest and eat something that will put your body back to normal, if not even healthier food than normal. Your body will recover and then you’ll just feel better there too.

So the gist of dealing with post-con depression is to put yourself out there and reach out to friends in a way that’s enjoyable. Don’t go telling them you’re so miserable and sad. Just be social and chatty. Also, eat something to help your body and take the appropriate rest. You’ll feel better way faster and your mood will improve to drive away the post-con blues. Then you can get back to being productive!

Good luck fuzzbutts!

Deliberate Practice!

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Hello Fuzzbutts!

Today we’re going over the concept of deliberate practice. It’s a very general term that is intended to apply to anything you want to learn. It’s not just doing repetitive actions like memorization or drawing circles constantly, but it is focused on establishing and performing specific tasks to improve your performance. You find your weaknesses and look for ways to fix them. You look for specific ways to improve and follow those techniques.

Since I like talking about my own goals of drawing, I’ll start with that. I could spend hours upon hours drawing circles  and a few lines to represent heads. Unless my weakness is being able to draw a circle, this actually isn’t going to help me out. However, if I’m not happy with the way a muzzle or the eyes turn out, that’s something I could practice more. Not only just me practicing the eyes I draw, but looking at references and images that I admire and trying to imitate that process. I practice the eyes until I’m very happy with the way they are. I also practice variety since there’s so many types of eyes out there. It has a clear intention for me- draw better by drawing prettier eyes. If I eventually feel ok about eyes but now find I don’t like the way I draw hips, then I apply the same exercises I established and proceed from there to improve my art.

If you want to improve math skills or something more school-related, you can still apply deliberate practice. Study the problems and the solutions to them in the book. Then practice a few problems on your own and check the solutions. If you made a mistake, review where it happened. Try again and see if it works correctly this time. Unfortunately, in many math textbooks I’ve encountered, many practice problems have only some of the solutions and zero explanation of how the solution was even reached. In that case, a classmate or tutor might be able to shed light on where things went wrong in your thinking.

A good read on the principles of deliberate practice along with a ton of great examples can be found at James Clear’s Website and I recommend you look into it even just to get some ideas with regards to things you could apply the idea of deliberate practice to.

 

Good luck Fuzzbutts!

Wednesday Tailtip: Checking in on Becoming Your Fursona

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Good morning fuzzbutts!

So today I wanted us to check in on our personal journeys. A while ago during a health post I made, I said that rather than focus on just exercise, think of it as becoming more like your fursona (since the majority of our original characters have ideal body types). Well how’s it going? Exercising, still? Eating a bit better? Any progress so far?

Well I am. I took my running to the next level on a beautiful little hiking trail by where I work. I listen to motivational videos to push myself harder so I can get into the physical shape I need. As time has gone on, I even started improving my eating habits and diets. So that’s awesome. Progress is being made!

As I’m physically approaching my fursona’s type, now it’s time to think about the next thing. Do I have the good habits of my fursona? Does my fursona play video games all day? Does my fursona spread themselves really thin with a huge variety of projects or is he just really good at a couple of things. Do they focus on acquiring stuff or experiences? Well my fursona’s interests are things I also have an interest in. So why not focus on the interests since I find those fascinating already? It’s funny to feel like you should live vicariously through a character you created but sometimes that’s the perspective that will motivate you to improve yourself. I want to emphasize GOOD habits. If your fursona is dark and brutal, then focus on the positive aspects. Are they confident, strong, disciplined,or even free spirited and fun? Develop those aspects in your life.

Good luck out there, fuzzbutts!

Good enough just isn’t, sorry!

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Good morning fuzzbutts!

Sorry for the delay this week. Have you ever acid-washed a pool? I have.

Earlier this week I got into a discussion with somebody who wanted to announce to everyone, including you, that you are good enough and don’t have to worry about changing. For those of you who read my blog, you know I consider that heresy for anyone looking to do more and better in their lives.

“Good enough” in my opinion, is a level of dissatisfaction that somebody considers less painful/more comfortable than sticking to your goal. It’s trying to go from 240lbs to 170lbs but stopping at 200 because you really want that burger and you hate going to the gym. 200 lbs is “good enough.” It’s trying to draw artwork at a level like Strype and then stopping at the sketch phase because shading is hard or you don’t want to learn to color or refine your raw sketch. Your raw sketch is “good enough.” It’s settling for a job because a promotion or your dream job requires you to go to school or get some extra training. Because of the extra unpaid work involved in advancing your career, your current job is “good enough.”

Everyone wants to consider themselves extraordinary in some way. I mean look at your fursona! You love being unique! So become extraordinary! Good enough is just settling for less. Don’t become “good enough.”

I’m not saying to be dissatisfied with your life all the time. Celebrate the advancements and small victories you achieve. Just don’t settle at a level that isn’t your actual goal. Keep working hard and push yourself to levels that you only dream about.

Good luck, Fuzzbutts!