Day 25/100, Streak 3

#RememberGina

BriefIt drills. Indeterminate time. 17 minutes of 260-280 wpm Q&A. I think I should be writing this speed every single day. Two practice RPR Q&As. Going to look at the aftermath now.

Can I just say how mad I am that I ever listened to anyone else's opinion on what "counts" as writing at a speed? Literally. I was still in school when I heard/saw a bunch of people say that if you're not writing perfect realtime, then you're not really writing at that speed. I felt like they were right because the merciless course is always the best course, right? The only way to get better is surely to punish myself and hyperfocus on every mistake while I'm still in the process of perfecting myself.

Well. It wasn't a helpful outlook at all. It didn't even qualify as advice offered to me because they were quite a bit behind where I was when I tuned in to these discussions. They weren't trying to help. No one asked them. whatever. Just random opinions. They shouldn't have mattered to me. Yeah, perfect realtime is ideal, but also, that isn't the point of speed tests in this context. And their logically conveniently invalidated the vast majority of anyone's progress in the steno space.

Yet I think about them all the time. I think of them when I practice and test--especially when I test. Like, I think of them almost every single test. Ugh. None of them knew what they were talking about, of course, and not a single one is working today. Get out of my head!

It is so difficult to concentrate on writing when these thoughts come in. It makes the test feel like an absolutely pointless exercise because, according to their logic, even if I do pass the test, I won't have actually passed anything because non-realtime tests are editable. How demoralizing.

Like I said, they don't know fuck all, they never got to working, their opinions on what "counts" shouldn't matter. Easier said than executed.