Lacking Perserverance

As I said in my last post I've been feeling lately that I have often presented a public face that is at odds with my reality.  The more I have been thinking about the more I realise that this in many ways isn't a new thing.

I suspect that I often find mysaelf doing things simply to fill time when I've got no real idea what I really want to be doing with myself.  Some of my time fillers are 'worthy' such as running, learning to play the guitar, others are simply indulgent such as playing computer games.  The list of things that I have done for a while is enormous, as is the list of things that I sometimes say I would like to do but never get round to.

Sometimes I worry that I create the reality of not knowing what I want to do simply by being down on myself about doing things for a while and then giving them up.  It seems to me that other peole have a much clearer idea of what they want to do with themselves but maybe that is just a matter of the perspective from which I am looking at them and myself. 

I guess I need to get to know myself better and work out what I want to do enought to actually make it happen.  Is it sad that I don't know myself at the age of 39 or is that 'normal'?

Thoughts prompted by Shoeless - Taking Responsibility

One of the things I do is run.  As a runner I use a website called Fetch.  Mainly I use it to log my training runs, but I also read the odd blog or forum there too.  One blogger I particularly like goes by the name 'shoeless' and she recently posted something that chimed in with me.  I hope she doesn't mind me quoting her here -

"Now, as the dust settles, it's time to face the fact that I have lots of crap to sort out in my head. It comes, though, with the strangely comforting knowledge that the only one who's standing in my way is me."

Now I've read basically the same message many times before.  I've even nodded my head and agreed and made all sorts of resolutions about sorting out the crap in my head and improving my life.  Frankly though I've never got very far with it.  I suppose that goes to show how good I am at standing my own way.  Nice to know I'm good at something!


At the moment there are two issues that I am doing battle with.  One is my weight, the other is getting a job.  Although actually the more I think about it both those battles are part of the same war.  At stake is the fundamental question "Do I do what I say I'm going to do?"


I suppose that has always been the question although it has manifested itself in different ways over the years.  Deep inside myself I don't feel that I am the same person that I am perceived to be or that I am projecting.


Superficially I am confident and sociable, I believe that most people I know would say I am confident and outgoing.  However I am pathetically lacking in confidence, I feel socially very isolated.  I am in extremely infrequent contact with 'friends' I used to work with and 'friends' I grew up with.  Those 'friends' I do see more often are the people that I morris dance with, or play football with.  I see them when I morris dance or play football.  I don't see them between times and sometimes they feel more like acquantances than friends.  In fact I feel that I've always had lots of acquaintances and not so many friends.


For 15 years I have been a teacher.  It's interesting that we say I am a teacher (insert job title here) rather than I teach.  I have always tried to project an image of being a good teacher, but I have always had self doubt in that image.  Even so I have projected the image well enought to become a Leading Maths Teacher, a Deputy Headteacher and a candidate for Headteacher interviews.  For the last year and a half I have been an ex-teacher, or an unemployed teacher, or a supply teacher. 


I am often tempted to blame my failure to become a Headteacher on 'politics' within the schools and Local Authority I have worked in.  Perhaps though I need to accept that I wasn't always as effective as I should have been as a Teacher or a Deputy Headteacher.  In that case I should be sorting out some of the crap in my head that stops me being as effective as I could be professionally.  Of course I don't have a full time job to be effective in at the moment but there are plenty of things that I should be doing. 


And I'm writing this blog post instead!


But in my defence this blog is about me examining my life and my problems, and starting to sort them out.  My last post in January was about reflecting on the things I have done and things I want to do.  Perhaps my next post should be to set myself some targets for the things that I need to do. and then I can start taking repsonisbility for making sure that I actually do the right things.