Welcome to JJ’s Words! It’s my public journal for me to share my experiences, document my journey, and my thoughts on literally anything, any advice, things I consume, things going on in my life, and anything else that I may find interesting. It’s mostly unplanned, unedited writing to get whatever thoughts out from the week(however short or long, and hopefully, there’s something that you may find interesting, helpful, or valuable. Honestly, it’s mostly a place for me to freely ramble, process things, and clear my mind, even if no one cares to read it.
It’s been a while again. Another month without writing anything, which is annoying and frustrating that I can’t get into this habit. I haven’t been able to manage my time well, nor help myself procrastinate on a lot of the things that I needed to do.
But it’s also this time of the year when the NBA season has started, and it’s time to lock in. This is my yearly accountability post. I usually do the same thing on my basketball site, where I like to set out goals for myself and put it out to the world as a way to keep myself accountable.
I mentioned in the last entry that the NBA was going to start in over a month and that will bring changes. Well, those changes are now going to, hopefully, happen.
This is also a similar post to what I did last year when I set out a challenge for myself that for the next 174 days(roughly the length of an NBA regular season), I was going to fully lock into content. That ended up both a fail and a success in a different way.
For this year, though, locking in means entirely different. Because I have changed my overall goal and direction, where I’m not looking to make NBA content a full-time thing, it means the approach will be different.
And on that point, I think it’s useful to regularly check in with yourself if the things that you’re aiming for either actually work or if it’s something that you still want to do. For me, it was a bit of both. The plan kind of failed, and that was also tied to me, I guess, keep having doubts about whether I wanted to do content in the way I had done.
It’s still weird in my head going away from something that I spent hundreds of hours on and had a whole routine and schedule revolve around that. Now that the NBA season has started, I’m not feeling as stressed, pressured, or obligated to revolve my life around that and to produce as much content as possible.
It may feel weird having that change, but I have had this break from content for almost half a year now, and it has really done a lot for my headspace. That’s why I recommend checking in with yourself about what direction your life is heading towards and asking yourself if what you’re doing is still something you want to do.
But right now, I’m in a very different spot in almost every possible way. I’m living in London, working full-time at a bar. There isn’t enough time in the world to be covering the NBA like that, even if I wanted to.
That’s why the plan for these next 172 days is to still do what I’ve been looking to do, but actually take all of this seriously. I realized that I waste a lot of time and to make anything of this work, it really does require a lot of discipline and hard work, even if it’s scaled down compared to what it was.
It is still going hard on my basketball site, Simply Ballin. The whole previous strategy is scrapped, and there’s a completely new approach going about it, but that will still take a lot of time. I sometimes forget how much time it actually takes to watch, rewatch, and analyse all the games before even considering content. That’s the part that needs to happen, period. Every kind of prep that I would’ve done for content is a must. That can’t and won’t be neglected for the next handful of months. That alone is going to take up a lot of the time
This will need some things being prioritised differently because an NBA schedule is gruesome. That’s the one thing I hate and it’s the damn schedule. That’s why outside of work, getting the games stuff is likely to be at the top of my priorities, above anything else.
I don’t want to fall into the same trap of creating content but as long as I have all of the prep done, that will always give me the option.
But because of this change and because I’m also in a different head space compared to the last few years doing content, this time, things can really change once the season the is over. Clearly, the past approaches didn’t work the way I thought they would, so this change could be the difference maker this year.
It’s always reassuring to think that your life is only around half a year of solid work from being changed completely for the better. 172 days is enough to change your life if you put your mind to it. Whatever hole you’re in or uncertainty, it can just take that much time to flip that around.
Outside of the basketball content, which is still important to me, the one other vague goal in those 172 days is to experience as much new stuff as possible.
The whole point of taking a step back from basketball is to give myself space and the guilt-free freedom to explore other things in life. Get myself more experiences that I haven’t done. Try new places to work at. Try more dating and more social things. Do other things for fun and just take up more hobbies. Do basketball but in a different way that involves more playing.
I realised that I was very tunnel focused, which can and has been a good thing for me, but as mentioned, sometimes that just ends up as something you don’t want to do anymore.
But none of that can happen unless I still just give myself these next few months of actually locking into everything that I need to do, which is what this accountability post is for. I’m hoping that after 172 days, I can look back on this post and see that things have gone my way.
This is another thing that I recommend doing. If you do have any goals or plans. Share it. Share it online or with just friends or whatever. Putting out in the open kind of sets things in stone for me. It’s a nice way to motivate yourself and see the progress you’re making.
So, the NBA season has already started. I am in the best head space in my life. I have a lot of the things that were causing me stress the last five years gone. This is now the perfect time to actually change stuff. I’ve had three years of being tunnel focused on content, which has given me a lot of experience in what works or doesn’t.
Oh, another point. Any knowledge that you get will really come down just from experience. Any uncertainty about anything just comes from doing. I have experimented so much with my content prep, how I watch games, how I take notes, what kind of ideas work, how to do it, and everything else related with that. I have had so many flops and fails. I have countless of strategy posts that I know how to better use my time.
If you’re struggling with anything about how to start. Just start. Do it. Change. Do more. Change again. And repeat. More times you do this, more answers you’ll have.
Hopefully, in April, I’ll be reading this with my life being in a completely different place again.
Other little updates in life.
I am soon creeping up for my third month living in London and working in a bar, which is weird thinking about. Time really flies. I keep saying that and it’s like each time, the time has gone faster.
The bar stuff. That’s all pretty standard. There’s not much to talk about anymore. The novelty and the experience of rough starts has gone away. I’ve had my first proper opening a week or so ago. It all feels very normal now.
There are a few things that I’ve been noticing and realising.
Work gossip. I admit, I have taken part in it too, but man, people gossip a lot. I don’t know if I expected it to be to this extent.
Another thing is having some of the better co-workers leave. That is annoying. This only happened once and I hate it already. Like at this kind of work, a co-worker can really make or break your shift in different ways. So far, I think I had solid luck with having reasonable co-workers. There are clearly some that I’d prefer more than others but for the most part, it’s all been good. But when ones that make shifts better for whatever reasons end up leaving, it’s just a damn shame.
One other thing that has come up is how vulnerability and openness can change a relationship. This reminded me of a post that I read a while back called How to have friends past age 30 by Noah Smith.
He mentioned there are two things that define a really close friendship: understanding and interdependence. And on the point of understanding, he said that gets built up over time but it can’t reach a deep level without confessions.
To foster close friendships, you need to tell them some truths that you wouldn’t normally share with everyone and they typically might be your vulnerabilities, desires, insecurities, or things that you’d to trust someone with.
That is all spot on. I realised that a lot this year, particularly with one very close friendship — one that’s probably now the closest friend I ever had in my life. And all of that changed once we started to dip our toes in opening up. Little by little. Some tidbits here and there. Throw out a puzzle piece of yourself once in a while. And over time, that went further than just dipping your toes and suddenly, it’s a close friendship where now I’d trust them with pretty much everything that is going on in my life.
This was brought up to me because it kind of felt the same with someone from work. At first, they’re obviously just co-workers, or just a work friend — there is a difference to me if you’re just friends with someone in a setting that you share like work, school, sports club, or other hobbies but aren’t friends outside of it. That’s how it started but then just randomly things begun to be shared and that’s when I feel like you can feel things shift; once you start sharing stuff.
But that has to happen. There’s no going past a barrier of like a casual friend without sharing some intimate details about yourself.
If you feel like you don’t have many close friendships in life, start sharing more personal stuff with them.
Being open and sharing personal stuff is never an issue with me. I will, without hesitation, be an open book. And I think lately, that has been a big reason why I have felt like I had developed some genuine good friendships.
This reminded me of Simon Sinek also mentioning that one of the best things you can do to someone is let them sit with you in the mud. By that he meant if you’re having issues with anything, you would be robbing someone the opportunity to help you if you don’t tell them. You telling someone your problems isn’t you becoming a burden to them.
Finally, let’s get to some, quick book stuff.
The last time I talked about books, I finished The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell and was in the middle of Crying in H Mart.
Since then, I finished Fix the System, Not the Women, by Laura Bates, which you can get my notes and thoughts here. It was another book from Bates that I read and it was one of the reasons why I got it in the first place. It was another book that focused on feminism and women’s right and issues looking at different areas in life and how they’re systematically affected.
The next book that I finished was To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee and you can find my notes and thoughts here.
My current book is The Flatshare by Beth Leary. So far a nice story about two strangers sharing a flat together but for the first few months of doing so, they never have seen each other. They share the same bed but never slept together. One works nights as a nurse. One is in publishing during the day. When one works, the other one sleeps. They communicate through post-it notes. And have drama in every part of their lives.
It’s been fun reading that.
And that’s it for this big ramble again. As always, this is basically my public journal, so I look to share anything that has been happening in my life and hopefully, there’s something useful to anyone.
But it’s now time to lock in and take things seriously. It’s prioritising the right things and simply getting shit done. The NBA season is a long grind and that alone will require a lot of time and effort. Everything starts here. Being on top of that is a must for everything else to run smoothly. That’s why, this space might get neglected here and there until basketball stuff is sorted.
If you got to the end, I hope you have enjoyed JJ’s Words and have a great day!
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