2 posts tagged “strengths”

In a fit of true livejournalism, I recently went on at some length about some of the faults I see in myself that I want to actively combat. In order to really give this a shot, I need defined goals so that I can develop a plan on how to meet those goals, how to effect the change for which I'm looking. Of course, so of the improvements I want to make do not lend themselves to concrete goals, necessarily, so for those maybe I just need to look at developing some daily or weekly habits.

I definitely know that my goal as far as my physical health goes is to drop my weight at least another 40 pounds but also gain muscle in the process. So I'll be losing more than another 40 pounds of fat, which is going to take a while. I've already lost somewhere in the neighborhood of 10-12 (only unsure because I switched scales and discovered my old scale was at the very least 11 pounds off, possibly more), and I'm starting my exercise on Monday after work. At least 30 minutes of hard treadmill time (in addition to the ramp-up and ramp-down time, so probably more like 45 minutes), an hour if I have time for it. Then the weights. I won't have my lifting routine worked out until I get my bench put together (tonight) and do a few different exercises and see what I can handle to start off. Weight Watchers is working for me, helping both in making better choices when eating and also with portion control. I fell off the wagon on Thursday, ordered some Papa John's, and as soon as I was done eating and for the next 24 hours or so I regretted it in a major way. When you get used to not eating shit every day, your body doesn't take kindly to being exposed to it again.

For my mental workouts, I plan on doing a crossword each day and will look into some other daily exercises. Reading helps quite a bit, and I'm doing well working in a good amount of reading each day. I'd like to read a minimum amount of both fiction and non-fiction daily, but I'm not sure what amount is feasible with my daily time constraints. If I spent less time dicking around on the internet, it would make things easier. Not that internet time is bad. I plan on blogging daily, or as close to daily as I can manage, but I waste a lot of time surfing the same four sites over and over again. I had considered before thinking up questions to ask myself and then doing the necessary research to answer those questions, maybe one a week. That's a good idea and I should use that as one of my mental exercises. I should also get back to regular reflections on taoism, to help me manage stress and keep perspective.

Creativity is easier to define in terms of concrete goals, and those goals can be reached through some fairly easy-to-accomplish habits. Music-wise, I should look at having a completed album by a certain date. Since I have a couple of different ideas I'm tossing about musically, I might have to choose one specifically to concentrate on, but I think that's selling myself short. If I'm dedicated, I should have an album's worth of material for two separate projects ready by, at the latest, my next birthday, November 6th, 2008. To get there, I need to have "band practice" with myself, twice a week, at least two hours each time. Maybe one practice will be for my dub/hip-hop stuff and one for my digital hardcore/gabber/electro clash stuff. I already have a nice headstart on some songs in the dub/hip-hop vein, but the other side is still just an idea at this point. Maybe I'll split each practice and work on both. Not sure yet. Writing-wise, my only goals are going to blog-oriented for now, with an eye to giving nanowrimo an honest shot in '08. Daily blogging along with regular (weekly?) reviews or explorations of music and books should start me down that path. I'll look at other concrete writing goals (getting published in some way? finishing a novel?) later after I've at least settled into my habits.

I'm not entirely sure how to approach working on my problems keeping up healthy relationships and building new ones. I've found that I spend so much time outside of social circumstances that my conversational skills have suffered a great deal. How do I approach this? Should I set aside a certain amount of time each week to hang out with friends, the way that I reserve Wednesdays for hanging out with Syd? It might feel forced, but if I'm going to change I have to make an effort and maybe that's the solution. I need to think on this more and decide what it is I really want here. It's difficult to make adjustments if I'm unsure of the eventual goal.

So, daily exercise, diet, daily reading and writing, crosswords, twice weekly band practice, weekly research and weekly criticism, weekly time with friends outside of my set Wednesday schedules. And of course, I still need to work and spend quality time with my wife. I might have some difficulty working out the time for all of this, but it's not impossible. I can just think of it as school, and I know I could go to school and hold down a job. Speaking of time, it's getting late and I need to put the soup on the stove.

current music: The Pharcyde "labcabincalifornia" || current mood: Determined

Someone once told me that with the rate at which our cells die and replenish, by the seven year mark the body no longer has a single cell that existed seven years before. While I've since learned that there's no scientific basis for that, I still find the idea of a metaphorical living reincarnation of sorts a terribly romantic notion. One can look back seven years and see, particuarly in our younger years, just how much changes in that time. Very little in my life is the same today as it was seven years ago, but I feel I'm fast approaching the age, if I've not already reached it, when change slows dramatically. About a year ago, maybe a month before my twenty seventh birthday, I had many of these same thoughts and decided to change many of the aspects of my life that disappointed me. I started a paper journal to log my thoughts, my sucesses and failures in my attempts to change for the better. For whatever reason, though, at the time I just wasn't commited. It was days, maybe a couple of weeks, before my experiment (for lack of a better word) petered out. Looking back on the notes I made at the time, there are some goals I had made for myself that were pushed aside so quickly, I don't even remember conceiving them in the first place. My plan to force my metaphorical rebirth fizzled and before I knew it, the year was past. Six days ago I turned 28, ending the fourth (totally arbitrary) seven year cycle in my existence. I imagine that in seven years, when I look back to my 28th birthday, there's a strong possibility that very little about my life will be different. While on the one hand I'm very much a creature of habit and am usually very passive when it comes to life, on the other, the thought of some of the ruts I've dug for myself getting deeper is worrisome. As a friend of mine told me, the only difference between a rut and a grave is the depth. So I'm making a plan for change.

I'm really bad about setting goals for myself and not following through; I always have been. While I've had the capacity to excel at many things, I've never bothered to put in the effort required. I don't know why, despite how many times I've looked inward, searching for the root of the problem. That said, I feel that I may finally break through that mental barrier. It started a couple of weeks back when I decided to get serious about losing some weight. I started back on Weight Watchers (just online - no meetings for me) and though temptation frequently rears its ugly head -- free candy at work, Halloween, the thought of a Steak N Shake dark chocolate shake -- I've so far resisted, not in the "I'm tortured!" way, but with a firm resolve that both surprises and pleases me. I feel motivated, a feeling that has eluded me for so long, and I'm finding success. I'm going to use the momentum I've built and dive into other modes of self-improvement.

So other than my weight (well my health, really), in what ways do I want to change? I'm not entirely sure that they can be defined as easily as changing a physical attribute. I know that I want whip my mind back into shape. Though never particuarly clever, I used to be intelligent. I still am, I'd like to think, but like my body, my mind has grown flabby with disuse. I often find myself unable to express my thoughts in an articulate or effective manner. It takes me a lot longer these days to warm up my motor and really take part in a discussion in any meaningful way. Being not even thirty, this worries me more than anything. I need to work on sharpening my wit, to exercise my memory muscles, and to tune up the machinery so that I can retrieve the information I need more quickly and put it together more effectively. I'm not entirely sure how to do that, though. I guess my first step should be research. I know there are exercises to get me started that I should look into.

What else? My creative output needs a boost. I haven't made music in months, and I haven't written creatively in longer. I signed up for Nanowrimo, but I did so without even an idea. That was a non-starter, but maybe by next year I'll have developed my creative habits enough to give it an honest go. The main thing I need to do is set aside time on a regular basis to both make music and to write, to make a schedule and stick to it. Writers of all stripes agree that this is key to success. Whereas improving my mental acumen is a bit of an amorphous task, this one should be fairly straightforward.

One aspect of my life that has atrophied possibly more than any other, though, is my social life. While I maintain good relations with many people, I make little effort to develop and nuture deeper friendships. There are several people in my life that I've known longer than I've known my wife, people that I respect and whose company I enjoy a great deal, and yet I barely keep in contact with them, interacting more over the internet than anywhere else. That's not healthy. I need to spend more time socializing, being a part of a community again - going out and doing instead of sitting at home. Job and home life may make this difficult, but that's no excuse. I think playing music again, having a superficial reason to get out and about, will help me get out of this rut.

I have a lot of work ahead of me, but I feel ready to take it on. Maybe there is something to this seven year thing. As I've put another chapter in my life to bed, I'm ready to get started on a new one. I should look to my Strengths again. I honestly believe that keeping them in mind will help me maximize the effects of my efforts. I've got more thinking to do, more concrete goals to set in place and plans to develop to reach them. I feel good, though. I feel optimistic.