Yesterday on the way from work in the morning I was listening to a radio program that was talking about positive obsession. It was a very interesting to hear how some folks look at that particular subject. Of course what struck a chord most with me was how the mentioned how often folks get burned out with their p-obsessions because they go all in. Something I am all to familiar with for a good number of my wargaming aspects.
I don't buy small armies and slowly build. I look for the average sized force, be it 35 point WarmaHordes, 1500 point Warhammer, 1000 points Firestorm Armada, ect, and I build a force for that size. Of course once I get the force I might come to find out I don't like some of my choices and swap them out for something else, which of course means I wasted at least some money. You can see just recently I did the same thing with my new Retribution force, I made a 35 point Rahn list, and managed to change it up again before I even got to field the force in full since I came up with different tactics I wanted to use. I need to start learning to start small and build, learning what I want before I fully invest.
The other aspect that haunts me for going all in is painting. I tend to try and paint as many minis as I can at once, which of course is no good either since then I start to punish myself for something I should enjoy doing. I mentioned a few posts back that my last real paint jobs I did was my Anima Tactics minis, and I was actually very happy with them. The biggest difference I see between Anima Tactics, Warmachine, or WarmaHordes is the number of minis involved in painting. Anima Tactics I had only five minis I think that I had to paint up for a full functional force. I can deal with painting up five minis, but when you get to 30-70+ it does start to wear thin. Obviously if I can handle 1-5 minis at a time, then I should only paint 1-5 minis at a time. So instead of thinking I need to paint a unit, or an army, or set a particular amount needed like I did in my last challenge, I need to just pick three or so minis and only focus on those for a week. No promises it'll help of course, but it is certainly something.
The last bit of the whole positive obsession program talked avoiding burn out by limiting your time, and about not making excuses when you started to fall out of your 'obsession'. Make it a habit to dedicate at least fifteen minutes to an hour a day to the hobby/habit/goal, but rarely more then that. I decided to try this out starting yesterday. I got home from work and made myself sit down with my Retribution force and actually finish mounting those that were capable of being based. Within an hour, everything is on a base, and at that point I quit. Tomorrow I will go home and then start adding the sand details to the bases for an hour. Slowly knock it out piece by piece.
Honestly, it sounds all great on paper, but I really need to buckle down to get it done either way. We'll see if I can stick to this new personal regime.
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