Questify Your Life Sierra Episode Sixteen: So Many Quest So Little Time

We meet our hero sitting at a coffee shop, reflecting on the past six weeks or so.

So many wonderful quests quickly completed with limited time to process or celebrate.

So, that’s what she is doing now.

The first week of June 2026 started with multiple advisory council meetings, two galas, and multiple events with friends. Wonderful experiences that made her start questioning, what quests does she want to be prioritizing.

And she began noticing that her personal creations, such as her Substack, became unanticipatedly underprioritized. Body-doubling on Zoom started to feel like a chore.

It was ongoingly hard to be present, when her HP & mana felt like they were quickly being drained. But, not because the work or opportunities were undesired. Rather, quite the opposite, the quests that became open to our hero are numerous and wonderful.

Hard to say no to things when almost everything feels like a “hell, yeah.”

Our hero thought she had the social capacity for all of that, but by the time the week ended she was on a plane to Colorado. And she was exhausted before the week even began.

Yet, she pulled through. Mostly because the opportunity to teach the leadership team of the entire state of Colorado’s Public Defenders was a quest she wanted to give everything she could to. Plus, seeing some family, staying in a resort town, and going to an after party with new friends was great for the plot and very fulfilling.

“I’ll take some time to recover when I get back home”, she told herself on the plane ride home.

The next day she gave everything to cleaning up her homebase, answering her piled up scrolls (emails), and catching up a bit on slept.

The following day she connected with Bridgette Hamstead (Side Quest Idea: Check out Bridgette’s Substack!) about executive coaching for neurodivergent individuals and got invited to the Neurodiversity Coalition of America’s Board Retreat in New Orleans scheduled for the end of June. Yet again, two opportunities that made her go “hell, yes.”

Following that meeting she drove to her hometown to help her dad with a garage sale.

She knows that garage sales are exhausting. Yet, this one took even more out of her as she supported her dad, her brother, and herself as they went through items from her mom. And while it had been more than two years since her mother’s passing, the flood of memories, plus navigating passive aggressive family communication from extended family members, left our hero longingly grasping for her energy.

Still, it was worth doing to spend time with family. Something she knows not to take for granted.

After she helped close the garage sale on that Saturday, she headed home to go to a fun punk rock puppet show with friends.

And that’s when forced recovery came into play. Or as she likes to label it — Gremlin’s turn. Physically and mentally exhausted, with not enough self-care, she had to choose. Either, go to the show with her friends or give her ticket away and do very little throughout the night.

At least she likes to think she had a choice, but at that level of exhaustion, her body made the choice for her as her chronic pain started to spike. A consequence of doing too much, without time to recover. So she used her skills and stayed in.

The next day, Sunday, she spent many hours playing video games with her husband, who had spent the previous week preparing to finally be sent to the Middle East for work. He was supposed to be over there already with the 9 month timer started, but the uncertainty of the world, caused him to be away for several additional months. The distance is hard, but our hero knows that she would not be able to prioritize all of her quests the way she does, if it wasn’t for her partner.

After they closed the game, she gently cleaned the house to prepare for the next day.

She started the next work week with normal day of work (sitting in front of her computer, trying to get things done), plus running a session of Dungeons & Dragons in the evening.

The following day, on a Tuesday, her grandparents came to help her with some house tasks and to take her to a doctor appointment to get an injection for one of her medical conditions. After her grandma brought her back home she quickly packed for her flight the next day, and then slept for many hours to cope with the injection and the general exhaustion.

The following day was her performance day. She curled her hair and put on her speaking outfit. Overall, her presentation went well, if you ignore the two emergency sirens that went off in the middle of the presentation that caused confusion about whether the room would need to evacuate. It didn’t.

As she walked out of the room where she presented, she noticed a SHRM volunteer handing out wristbands for a special event. She took one and joined the line, and to her pleasant surprise the line was to watch Jame Marsden speak (He did very well).

That evening, she had a choice she need to make. Either go to Universal Studios, for a SHRM after-hours event, or opt in for a game night instead. She decided that Blood On The Clocktower would be the better choice for her capacity, and she was right. Not only did she have a great time, she also made new connections with other adventurers that excited her.

She skipped the final day keynote — Oprah (maybe you’ve heard of her) — because she didn’t want to deal with the crowds. Instead she took the beginning of the day slowly and that afternoon she met up with a friend and advocate who lives in Florida. Those two worked together to figure out a what the final leg of her advisory council quests would be, with a goal of being done with her many advisory council quests by the end of January 2027.

She returned home around 2am on the 3rd Saturday of the month. That days she ran some errands and went for a hike with a friend.

That Sunday, Father’s day, followed with a barbecue at her dad’s place to celebrate him and the family.

The next several days (Monday - Thursday) were packed with scrolls (emails) and meetings.

But on Friday she jumped (walked) on a plane to go to New Orleans for the weekend with Bridgette Hamstead and Charisma Starr to spend time planning the first annual NeuroJustice Summit 2026, a virtual event on October 9, 10, & 11 (tickets are available here). So our hero has another quest added to her questlog, to fly to New Orleans again for the live-streamed event in October. She’s just happy to get to spend so many time around so many other professionals in the neurodiversity space.

That week flew by. They went to a burlesque show, amazing restaurants, the event space for the summer, a cute brunch spot, and a craft market. But the best part was getting to know Bridgette and Charisma more.

She got home late on Sunday and on Monday her work week began again. Yet, this time, most of her mornings (her most productive time) was spent playing video games with her husband. Something, she is incredibility grateful to have the flexibility to do. She also got to run another session of Dungeons and Dragons for her friends (it went well, though they are bringing along way too many NPCs and our hero needs to practice doing more character voices).

Her speaking event of the week was for the South East Minnesota, Adult Mental Health Initiative where she talked about mental health recovery and advisory councils. It went well and she will be forever grateful to those who highlight her story to advocate for broader system changes.

She also hired a new social media virtual assistant, (who is fabulous) and started the process of figuring out how to best utilize her as a sidekick.

The Fourth of July was fun, since she got to spend times with friends and was home by the time the fireworks started (too loud and smokey).

Last week she got to speak to two law firms, both about Neurodiversity in the legal field. She had the honored of presenting solo about the topic to MacArthur Justice and was on a panel for Dorsey & Whitney’s disability related ERG, with other members of the Minnesota Disability Bar Association.

On Wednesday, she took a mini solo road trip to visit a friend, another Adventurer, to spend time body-doubling, hanging out, and to meet her friend’s new baby.

And she work on a variety of small, yet worthy, quest objectives throughout the week as she works on reprioritizing what quests she wants to do in the future.

That brings us to today, Sunday.

Our Adventurer woke up extra early to play video games with her husband (it’s his first ever play through of Baldur’s Gate 3). Then she got ready for the swelteringly hot day (she really needs to prioritize getting better summer gear).

The day moves on as she drove to Bumbling Fools Mead (new location unlocked) to take an RPG Improv class with Amy Vorpahl (a professional Dungeons & Dragon’s player with a career that our hero is very very impressed by). Our hero learned a lot, and more importantly she had fun.

Which brings us to now. In the coffee shop. Finishing her Substack article and accepting her opportunity to give a TEDx talk in August, as she waits for a silly clown class. A class she is taking with some friends in anticipation of going to clown camp in August.

The world is serious, but it is not expected for us Adventurers to always be.

Going through these past 6 weeks of quests was incredibly helpful in alleviating my guilt of being exhausted and feeling “behind” on my creative and business prioritizes. It’s made me realize how important it is for me to spend the next few weeks reviewing my quest log and prioritizing my quests, because if I don’t then I will get distracted by all of the other opportunities that are popping up in my life. Something I am so grateful for.

On the whole, I am well. And it feels so odd to be doing well right now.

Yes, because I was doing some many amazing quests last month, I will take a while to recover and bring my pain and sensory sensitives back under control. Yet, I got to go to three states, connect with countless amazing people, make a difference in people’s lives, play video games with my spouse, and spend time with my family and friends.

Yes, the love of my life is half the world away from me with an 8 hour time difference. But, now that I know where he is and how long he will be there, it will be easier to get into a routine. Plus, playing video games with him is very very fulfilling and is restorative to me when I am exhausted.

Yes, my financial situation is not as stable as I’d like it because I haven’t been prioritizing grinding away at my business as much as I feel like I should be. But, I have enough in the bank account for this quarter, I get health insurance from my husband, and I have time flexibility to deal with my disabilities.

Yes, my home-care, lawn-care, and errands, have piled up immensely. But, I have a safe and stable home and allies I can call on if it gets to a problematic level.

Yes, the Dragons are visibility attacking, and generational infrastructure is being torn down every day. Yet, I do want I can with the advisory councils, public education, nonprofit newsletter creation, pro bono work, and more. I am trying to do something about it, and if I always feel like I need to be fighting Dragons, then I miss out of recovery, connection, play, creation, fun, and joy. If I am always focused on what is broken, I won’t be able to build what I want to build to make my work sustainable.

Things are going well, and I’m so grateful for every ally and opportunity that has allowed me to live my life this way.

Thank you all,

With gratitude,

Sierra