Celebrating the Small Wins

I’ve not kept this blog updated as regularly as I like, to be honest.

I could probably kvetch and moan about being too busy (and too tired on Sunday night) to write, but that’s just post-hoc rationalising. The real truth of the matter is that it’s been really difficult for me to think of a good topic to write about that isn’t about me.

I’ve some ideas about things to write – and I have a crap ton of drafts to prove it – I just lack the follow-through necessary to complete an entire post.

However, I do think it’s worth celebrating the small wins I’ve made over the two (or so) years I’ve been writing here; the fact that my output has been quite steady makes me happy. There’s always room for improvement though.

I’ve also been celebrating other small wins of a more recent nature.

My gym routine has been pretty regular now, and although I do grumble to myself at waking up at (the godforsaken time of) 7:30am, I usually end up energized by my workout for work after. (Endorphins!) I’ve also gotten the hang of the program I’m on. I’m pretty happy with my deadlifts, and I definitely can push harder on the weight there.

On that note: today’s bouldering was pretty spectacular! There’s a problem at the bouldering gym I usually go to that has a gnarly dyno from an almost-sit start. It’s a bit overhang-y too, so there’s the added fun of your center of gravity moving away from the wall.

I usually climb pretty statically: I prefer moves that don’t involve me using my momentum. I try to flow into each position slowly, and I don’t have a lot of strength to do those massive leaps, or at least not yet.

That said, I did send that dyno problem today, and it was massively satisfying.

I tried it several times before, and every attempt was fraught with failure. I couldn’t quite latch on the hold. I guess this time was different: I trusted myself enough that I’d be able to grab on to the hold, and I did. I fully committed to the move, which was quite suprising; once I latched on to that sucker, I knew I had sent it.

Small wins: there was a different problem I couldn’t send last time around, but they’d already reset the walls – now, I could never send it. But on the other hand, this dyno problem was an amazing boost.

Then, this week we had a small team event, go-karting. Some of my teammates were quite adept at it, apparently; I’m pretty competitive, so I kept comparing my times with theirs. However, I was still pretty stoked to be able to do pretty well: my times were still in the middle of the pack, and not too terrible. And I was quite happy when one of my teammates was able to improve by 100% from the first heat to the last – their times dropped by half, as they gained more confidence about driving fast on the karts. All in all, it was fun.

There were small wins too at work. I was able to get data on one of the features I shipped recently, which was nice: I got to see it actually working as designed. As a bonus, I stumbled onto a particular case that showed one of the other features I shipped last week, even if I wasn’t actively looking for it.

Small improvemeents, small wins now – but they’re the start of bigger things, always. Exciting times ahead.

Previously: Themes

Lizard's Asylum

Opinions and musings of JM Ibañez, a software engineer from the Philippines, as he tries not to go insane from everything.