Posts Tagged ‘goals’
Gold star motivation
I think I have been complaining a lot lately. Probably not so much on here because I never seem to make time to write any more but most certainly on facebook and in general to Ben and the people around me. The thing that has been bugging me the most lately is my lack, or apparent lack, of time to do the things I want to do.
I figured out three days ago that I will not have my credit cards paid off until June 1st this year. Sure it is better than I had expected but it still seems a long way away. And that is only as long as no unexpected bills show up and as long as I don’t go crazy buying new clothes or something similar. I am really on a strict budget. I have secured a lot of work in the coming weeks working for Cirque de Soleil but that seems to have added to my time limit frustration.
I have a fairly detailed timetable set out which, if followed, should cover me for most things. It is the following it that is becoming difficult. I have now adopted a very childish way of getting me to stick to my timetable more strictly (I figure I act like a child sometimes so this may just work). Every time I stick to my timetable and get all my work done I get a little star sticker to put on my calendar. At the end of each week if I have seven stars I can have a gift. The gift can be anything I want like an afternoon of watching “Sex and the City”, chocolate cake and ice-cream, a picnic in the park. I just have to decide at the start of each which what I want the gift to be. I got a silver star today and the gift I choose was to go on a bike ride and picnic with Ben next week, especially now that it is autumn.
I really hope I stick to this.
I’m losing weight.
For as long as I can remember, I have been (within 700g of) 78kg. It’s really frustrating. For me.
A couple of months back we tried not eating any grains for an entire month. We both lost weight. We both had more energy and we both think that it was easier to not fly off the handle during that month. I found out about it via Tim Ferriss’ blog and was very happy that we tried it out. Only problem was; we just sort of tried it out; we didn’t measure anything and tried to stick to the plan, but weren’t too phased when we didn’t. Well, Emma did spend a bit of time feeling guilty, but that’s her favourite past-time.
So I have been very interested in Tim’s new book The 4 Hour Body. Great read, I highly recommend it for people who want to see things differently.
So, I’m doing a new experiment:
The Slow Carb Diet
- Avoid “white” carbohydrates (Wheat, Sugar, Potato, Corn, Quinoa)
- Celebrate Festivus once every week (consume as much, of whatever, as you want) [We party on Saturdays]
It’s not easy to follow, and I have paraphrased it down to the fundamentals because Tim makes some great suggestions as rules that are really reiterations of the first rule.
I did this for two weeks, went from 77.9kgs –> 73.9kgs and watched the fluctuations when I deviated from the plan. My body fat is now 6.9%. This part works!
So now, I’m going from Geek to Freak.
Target: 90kgs of raw Ben.
Same basic diet, but lots more protein. I went to the gym today, it was pretty entertaining. I am sure I looked mighty thin in the mirrors-of-self-love lining the long wall. Another fortnight and we’ll see who’s sneering at who, Conan.
So here we are, end of the year and it’s time to check back on the stated objectives and their results. I picked up this idea via The Art of Non-Conformity, although it’s a common enough theme at this time of year.
The high-lights
- Got married!
- WAAPA
- Nine, the musical
- Survived school and The Gum-nuts
Other successes
- Shopping for clothes (in the second hand/recycling boutiques of the world)
- Housing arrangements (We have two, still)
- Conversations on the increase (arguments are on the decline)
- Emma paid off huge chunks of her loan (in fact, it’s all gone now because I was sick of listening to her whinge about how impossible everythingnwas going to be while the loan loomed large above her)
Stuff we hope to learn something from
- Getting hot makes things difficult for us.
- Family is great.
- Just cause you didn’t get the job doesn’t mean your life is over.
Unmentionable things like
- The fact that I still haven’t got around to building the amazing web app I intended to make this time last year.
- Emma is getting shorter, or more precisely, continues to wear flat shoes more often than I would like.
Thinking otherwise is just going to frustrate and confuse us.
For instance, Emma wants to (literally) sing and dance in front of an audience; I do not. How, then, are we “competing with each other to win”? We are not. We can’t, but the pervasive mind set of the masses is pushing, pushing, pushing us to some kind of elusive end goal that can be attained through competition (a race) with the rest of the competitors.
Madness.
Instead of saying, “I want to be happy” try, “I am happy”. End the competition and give yourself the prize, after all, you are the only actual judge that matters.
How long will you take to realise that?
Every now and then I like to think that I am really organized and try to make some sort of plan for my life, or at least the next little bit of my life. It looks like a really good idea on paper and I think I am super awesome for having figured out the secret to happy living but when I try to apply it to real life situations suddenly everything goes askew. I get so caught up in the first thing that goes wrong that I end up throwing the plan out the window completely and can’t move past the sense of failure.
Well that time has come again!
Post wedding I have decided to try and figure out some sort of plan again. I have made a budget of all my income and out-goings and was surprised to find I should actually have a fair bit of money left over at the end of each pay, whereas before I was desperately living from pay-check to pay-check. I have also made a list of things I would like to have achieved or at least be on the way to achieving by the end of the year, personal goals such as auditioning for a new show, finish writing one of my own shows, and paying off my astronomical personal loan.
There will be a lot of work involved, I’m not denying that. Some of my goals will take a little longer than others and some I know I will struggle to achieve but I am going to try something different this time around. I am not going to give up at the first sign of failure, I am going to look for the positive side of things. I am going to put everything I can into these goals. From the simple ones of riding to school everyday, to the difficult ones of putting on a full scale production, I am not going to give up at the first sign of difficulty. If I don’t believe in myself then how can I expect anyone else to. If this is what I want to do then I have to do it, no one else is going to do it for me.
As cliché as it sounds, I am going to think positively and believe in myself.
The results may not be that noticeable at first but even today I feel better for having got out of bed, stopped complaining about how much I hate school and got on with something productive.
Image by IvanClow (flickr)
