Cognitive dissonance

 a state of mental discomfort that occurs when someone holds two conflicting beliefs, values, or attitudes. It can also occur when a person's beliefs and actions don't align. 

I believe this is my problem the last few months. My beliefs/values/attitudes are that I want to spend time working on my business and growing that. But my actions are that I have to go to work and teach every day. They are not aligning and I'm almost positive that is causing me some cognitive dissonance. That kind of sucks but at least now I can start working on fixing it. 

I've said before that I need to set time aside for my business and school and working out and relaxing and all the other stuff I want to get done. I just need to align that all in my head and make it work. I absolutely cannot go through the next 5 months like I did the last two. I will be a mess. I need to figure out a program and stick to it. I'm thinking that I need to a) not look at Facebook during the day. Doing that sends me down rabbit holes of all kinds of business thoughts. And it distracts me from what I'm doing at school. So I think school time will be reserved for school work and no Facebook at all. b) Set aside some designated time for my social media for my business. I can literally schedule posts far, far in advance. So maybe the first weekend of the month is devoted to scheduling posts for that month. Then I can set aside a time each night, maybe right after dinner, where I can respond to comments or messages. If I do that and really become consistent at it, the social media stuff will become easy. c) Save the weekends for creating things, updating the websites, email campaigns, etc. If I have a plan, I can get all these things done. I can't just go off willy-nilly saying oh, let me make this, let me make this, let me make this.....NO! I need to have a plan. I also need to start focusing more on creating my own stuff. I want to create my own designs. 

I'm going to plan this out next week as we approach the first of the year. I want a solid plan in place. I want to know what I'm doing and when I need to do it. I want email campaigns to go out regularly. I want to become a social media queen. Yup, I want all these things. 

At the same time, I want to be able to focus on school when I'm at school. I want to be up to date on my grading. I want to get my planning done at school and not have to bring it home. I want to know what I'm doing and when I'm doing it. Hmmmmmm.....sounds familiar. I like to have a plan. And I like to have it laid out. 

Okay, because I've been such a hot mess lately, I have to go make a Christmas gift for some friends we are seeing later.