Sunday, November 18, 2012

Week 1: Motivation


The Plan

Here’s my first project, I’m going to start with the most logical step that can hopefully be applied to all of my later efforts…self motivation.

            I was inspired for today’s post by a blurb on the John Tesh radio show, “Intelligence for your Life”. This tip was specific to working out, and stated that you will be more likely to stay consistent with your exercise routine if you tell yourself “I don’t skip workouts”.

            I haven’t been able to find the link to the exact story, but they quoted some research study or another. However, for me, it reminded me of something that my high school tennis coach told us about positive thinking on the court. He said that if you want to get better results in your game, the way you phrase your mental pep talk in the middle of the game can make all the difference. If you’ve missed a few serves in a row, don’t let yourself think “Quit missing those.”, or “Don’t miss this one.” Instead, say the same thing, but from a positive perspective such as, “I’m going to make this serve.”, and “This one is landing right in the corner.”

            Whether there is any proof behind this or not, I think this sounds like a good way to improve your mood and outlook on life no matter what the outcome of your struggle or challenge is.

            So I set myself a goal for this week. I’m going to give myself three personal mantras that I will use at least once every day to try and improve my chances at being successful in three separate areas.

            Here they are:
                        Exercise - “I don’t skip workouts”
                        Diet - “Make a healthy substitution”
                        Mental/emotional - “Positivity”

The Results

            Hooray! One week down, the time sure does fly when you’re becoming a better person.

            In case you couldn’t tell, this week was a definite success. I achieved all of my goals, and I now have the first layer on which to build a new me.

            So let’s break it down a bit. First we’ll look at fitness/exercise. I found this to be the one I was most dreading (who out there is honestly that surprised?), it’s daunting trying to start up a new workout routine.

            Knowing this, I did my best to not over do things right off the bat, and also to set myself reasonable goals. That meant no hour long cycling classes, 50 lap swim sessions, or “300” ready lifting routines. I just kept to my mantra of “I don’t skip workouts”.

            The first two or three days that simply meant doing a small (10-15 min) set of various activities at a moderate difficulty. These typically consisted of jumping jacks to warm myself up and get the blood pumping, push-ups, squats or lunges, planks, crunches, or leg lifts for the abs, and of course stretching both before and after every workout.

            Keep in mind; I’m in absolutely NOTHING approaching good shape, and to add to it, I spent over a week off my feet in the hospital for a burst appendix only a month ago. These little workouts aren’t going to cut it moving forward, but they are definitely preferable to my typical first workout attempt of: 10-15 min of cardio, 20-30 min of lifting/strength, 5-10 min of cardio/cool down, topped off with a week of being too sore to even get to the gym again and falling off the wagon with just one workout under my belt.

            As far as the diet plan goes, this was my least successful bit, though it was still an improveM3nt, so I’m chalking it up as a win. The major thing that I improved in this area had more to do with budget than health, my arch nemesis, packing meals for work. I only found myself eating out once this week, and that was today as a reward for being good all week. My plan didn’t do the best as far as health was concerned, as I still had a pretty big, vegetable shaped, hole in my diet. I love veggies, but I just never think to cook up extra when I’m making them, and I never think to plan time to make a main dish AND a veggie when I’m whipping something up for work. However, this is still a step in the right direction, and I will gladly use this as the basis for continued growth.

            My attitude was the one thing that I wasn’t too worried about for this week’s challenge. I’ve always been a relatively positive and optimistic person. This proved true without me having to put too much conscious effort into it. The one exception was while I was driving to work, I found myself encountering multiple “less than aware of their surroundings” (to put it politely) drivers in a row. I got to a point where I just barely caught a red light that is notorious for being slow, and was building myself up into a mini hissy-fit, when I stopped for a second, took 5 deep breaths (in through the nose, out through the mouth) and tried to look at the situation from outside of myself. I realized that I was about to let these people ruin my entire mood just before I arrived at my job (front desk at a hotel, and VERY people centric) which would likely keep me in a foul mood all night. Those deep breaths along with some concentration on the music playing on the radio (my car is almost always tuned in to classical MN public radio) brought me back to a place of calm, and peace.

                        So, what do you think? Was it as big of a success as I think, or am I just being a cock-eyed optimist? If you like what I’ve done, try and think of some small ways that you can get the ball rolling on a change or two in your own life. Remember what we learned from the movie “What About Bob?”…baby steps.

Here’s a better me wishing you a better week!

Monday, November 12, 2012

Onward and upward

So here we are, my first ever blog post. Basically I’m going to use this to try and explain the purpose of the blog, and to introduce myself to you a bit.

            I have started this blog as a way to try and do a better job of working towards improving myself on a regular basis. Notice I said improve, that’s key. My plan isn’t to become the best, or to surpass anyone else in any area. Simply put, I want to make every day part of a long-term, conscious effort to make myself a better person.

For the sake of keeping things neat and tidy, I’ve separated my efforts into a few categories: Diet, Fitness, Mental/Emotional wellness, and Good Habits. Keep in mind, these are meant to be basis guidelines, some posts may not deal specifically with any of these, and some may overlap between multiple. This will just hopefully help me to mix things up regularly so that I don’t post for three weeks in a row about new exercises that I’m trying.

Speaking of weeks, my goal for the time being is to add a new post once a week. This is due to the fact that I will try to spend a decent amount of time researching each of my topics so as to provide myself, and you as the reader, the best chance for success (and to avoid pitfalls). You know, like reading the instructions all the way through before starting a recipe. A week would also give me the time to put a solid effort into something, instead of trying a new activity and deciding that it’s not going to work, yet still post regularly.

Also, I may post more often than once a week, and these posts may not be strictly related to any of the topics. If, for example, I find something that helped motivate me to stick with a task, I may throw it out there with a little blurb to help tide you (and myself) over until the main post.

If all goes as planned, this will be the beginning of an incredible journey to a new, improved version of me. Any forward movement is to be considered a success. Your job in this is to read, enjoy, comment (preferably encouragement or helpful suggestions), and to join in if something peaks your interest!