Okay, last week went great! My goal was to exercise for 5 minutes Monday - Friday and I did it! There were a couple days that I didn't want to do it, but I just told myself, "It's only for 5 MINUTES, JUST DO IT!!" And then I did it.
I've been pondering what goal to do next this whole past week and have had a hard time deciding. I've changed my mind every other day about what is the most important thing to work on. It's hard because my list of "self improvements" is just sooo long (:
But I ultimately decided I would work on getting my sleep schedule in order. The ultimate goal is to get up at 5 am and go to bed between 9 & 10 pm every night, every day of the week. It's such a hard one because I love having quiet time to veg at night, but my days go so much better when I am up early (especially with getting homeschooling done) and I feel like I get so much more accomplished. I also really need to work on always getting a full 8 hours every night. I probably wouldn't be so desperate for that quiet time at night if I weren't so grumpy and tired during the day.
So my baby steps towards this goal, are to make sure every night this week I am in bed by midnight and up at 8 am. That seems easy enough. Then I will slowly work the goal up 15 minutes at a time each week.
Since this will be week four and I now have 4 things that I'm working on, I'm going to make the baby steps to my other goals even smaller, so that it doesn't feel like too much. I'll...
1) keep listening to my audio thing at night
2) I've been drinking 3 cups of water a day. I'm now just going to fill my water bottle to the top which is just under 4 cups of water.
3) Exercise 6 minutes a day. Originally I was going to add more than a minute, but decided to keep it small because the sleeping goal is going to be a hard one for me. I have such a hard time making myself go to bed at night.
While I work on this new goal I'm going to read an article every day around lunch time about the benefits of getting a good nights sleep. Just trying to motivate myself and remember why it's important. My reward each morning for getting up at 8 is going to be a nice glass of pulpy orange juice in a special fancy glass that I someone just gave to me (: Also I'm going to find some motivation quotes about getting up early and make it my alarm clock on my phone, so that I wake up to good reasons why I should get out of bed.
One thing the Zen Habits guy talks about on his blog is having simple rewards for accomplishing your goals, and triggers (a trigger is the thing you do right before your goal that reminds you to do it.)
For instance, my trigger for drinking my water each day was that I would get it out of the fridge and start drinking it with my breakfast. The reward for drinking all my water was that I could then have my can of soda (: Now the trigger for drinking my water is to get it when I exercise.
My trigger for exercise is to do it first thing when I get out of bed in the morning (after the bathroom and prayers of course). My reward for exercising is I am not allowed to check fb until I exercise first.
So now my schedule will go like this : Up at 8. Change and enjoy PULPY OJ (: Exercise 6 minutes and get water out to start drinking. In bed at midnight (and listen to audio book).
That's it. Are you still doing baby steps Mel? Or have you decided a different course of action? I Would love to hear what you are up to.
PS - Tonight I got totally ticked off at Ian, because he was complaining that it takes me 10 minutes to say what could be said in one sentence. He tells me that I wander off topic, take too long to get to my point, and do too much unnecessary explaining. Yeah, I was so mad, I haven't talked to him for a couple hours now.
I was only going to get on tonight and write 3 sentences covering what goals I did last week and what goals I plan to do next week. Instead I wrote out another novel. I'm beginning to think I have a problem. Maybe I should give the guy a break for having to listen to my rambling all the time and start talking to him again...
Sunday, February 10, 2013
Sunday, February 3, 2013
The Tortoise and the Hare
So this past week my kids brought me a handful of books to read at bed time, and in the stack was the well known fable, "The Tortoise and the Hare." As I was reading it I thought, man this really applies to what I'm trying to do right now. To be honest, I've always known the morale of the story, but I've never caught on to how I could apply it to my life. I was excited that it actually meant something to me this time around when I was reading it.
Here is a little excerpt from the story -
'One day the tortoise was going slowly down the road when the hare zoomed along beside him. When the hare saw the tortoise, he stopped and ran circles around him, laughing as hard as he could.
"Oh, brother, are you ever slow," whooped the hare. "I could get from here to China and back before you'd moved six feet!"
"I
"I'm not so slow," said the tortoise. For you see, he knew the hare, and he also knew that the hare could never stick to anything for more than a minute or two.'
First I thought about how I am so the rabbit in this fable. I never stick to anything for very long. I make huge grand efforts that usually only last a day or two before I'm exhausted or I give up. If I'm really lucky my grand efforts may last a week or two or maybe even a month or two, but lately it seems I can't get past the first couple of days.
Here's the last part of the fable -
'Off dashed the hare, leaving the tortoise in a cloud of dust. But the hare had not gone too far when he felt a little tired. (Maybe because he was exhausted from trying to do too much at one time?)
"I'll take a nap for a few minute,' he said to himself. "That tortoise will take hours to get to the lake." And he fell asleep. (Sometimes we go too fast because little efforts feel like it'll take too long to accomplish our goal, when we want "it" done NOW!)
Meanwhile, the tortoise plodded along slowly but surely. Soon, he passed the hare sleeping by the side of the road. And the tortoise kept right on going. (the tortoise didn't tire out, because he was taking "baby steps")
As the sun began to sink lower in the sky, the hare woke up. He rubbed his eyes, and then he remembered the race. Off he ran as fast as he could go. But he had slept far too long. When he got to the lake, the tortoise was sitting there waiting for him. (Frankly, I think it's impressive the Hare made it to the finish line at all, because I probably would have given up by then. My grand efforts don't always get me as far as they did him)
"What took you so long?" asked the tortoise, chuckling. The hare was out of breath, and couldn't answer. So, as you can see, slow and steady is the way to win the race.'
At one point this week, I had one of those moments when I looked in the mirror, got a little depressed and thought, man I need to do something drastic and get my act together. Then I remembered the fable and thought, "slow and steady wins the race." Somehow over the past 6ish years I started letting bad habits take over, it seemed like it was over night, but maybe it wasn't. Who knows. Bad habits are so much easier to live by than enforcing good habits.
I also had a point this week when I thought, what if the baby steps theory doesn't work? Or what if I develop a bunch of good habits and then after a year or two lose them all again, and once more, I'll have to start all over? I'm hoping that won't happen, because I'm at a point right now that I really hate, so hopefully I'll remember what I don't want to go back to. But "baby steps" and "slow and steady" is what's got to work this time right? I'm pretty sure my grand efforts aren't getting me where I need to be, so it's time to be patient and do a little at a time.
So two weeks ago I made the goal to listen to my hypnosis thing every night at bed time. I've actually stuck to it for two weeks now, and it's been easy because I haven't been focusing on twenty other things along with it. Last week I added the goal of drinking two cups of water a day, and I don't let myself drink any soda until it's done. Soda is my "reward" if you will, for drinking my water. Wonder what my reward will be when I eventually give up drinking soda? Hmmm...
Next week I'm going to 1) Keep listening to my hypnosis every night 2) drink 3 cups of water every day, instead of two and 3) I'm going to exercise for five minutes Monday - Friday, first thing when I wake up.
I plan on just picking out 5 different exercises I can do with either my weights, ball, or body weight (ie. lunges) and do each exercise for one minute. The old me would think this is ridiculous and not even worth the effort, but it will be 25 more minutes of exercise than I did last week, and the point is I'm starting out slow and steady so that I can develop the habit. If I don't feel like doing it one day all I have to tell myself is, "it's only 5 minutes, how hard is that?" Also hopefully by the time I work up to my goal of 45-60 minutes, five days a week, it won't be so painful for my body.
These past two weeks I have felt a huge sense of accomplishment that I have stuck to something for two whole weeks. Sure they were super easy goals, but still, I did it! And hopefully by adding on just a little at a time it will always be easy and never hard or tiring.
C.S. Lewis said, " What saves a man, is to take a step; then another step." That is my favorite quote these past couple of weeks. I keep repeating it to myself when I wonder if these little efforts will work. Notice he didn't say, what saves a man is to take one GIANT leap.
Here is a little excerpt from the story -
'One day the tortoise was going slowly down the road when the hare zoomed along beside him. When the hare saw the tortoise, he stopped and ran circles around him, laughing as hard as he could.
"Oh, brother, are you ever slow," whooped the hare. "I could get from here to China and back before you'd moved six feet!"
"I
"I'm not so slow," said the tortoise. For you see, he knew the hare, and he also knew that the hare could never stick to anything for more than a minute or two.'
First I thought about how I am so the rabbit in this fable. I never stick to anything for very long. I make huge grand efforts that usually only last a day or two before I'm exhausted or I give up. If I'm really lucky my grand efforts may last a week or two or maybe even a month or two, but lately it seems I can't get past the first couple of days.
Here's the last part of the fable -
'Off dashed the hare, leaving the tortoise in a cloud of dust. But the hare had not gone too far when he felt a little tired. (Maybe because he was exhausted from trying to do too much at one time?)
"I'll take a nap for a few minute,' he said to himself. "That tortoise will take hours to get to the lake." And he fell asleep. (Sometimes we go too fast because little efforts feel like it'll take too long to accomplish our goal, when we want "it" done NOW!)
Meanwhile, the tortoise plodded along slowly but surely. Soon, he passed the hare sleeping by the side of the road. And the tortoise kept right on going. (the tortoise didn't tire out, because he was taking "baby steps")
As the sun began to sink lower in the sky, the hare woke up. He rubbed his eyes, and then he remembered the race. Off he ran as fast as he could go. But he had slept far too long. When he got to the lake, the tortoise was sitting there waiting for him. (Frankly, I think it's impressive the Hare made it to the finish line at all, because I probably would have given up by then. My grand efforts don't always get me as far as they did him)
"What took you so long?" asked the tortoise, chuckling. The hare was out of breath, and couldn't answer. So, as you can see, slow and steady is the way to win the race.'
At one point this week, I had one of those moments when I looked in the mirror, got a little depressed and thought, man I need to do something drastic and get my act together. Then I remembered the fable and thought, "slow and steady wins the race." Somehow over the past 6ish years I started letting bad habits take over, it seemed like it was over night, but maybe it wasn't. Who knows. Bad habits are so much easier to live by than enforcing good habits.
I also had a point this week when I thought, what if the baby steps theory doesn't work? Or what if I develop a bunch of good habits and then after a year or two lose them all again, and once more, I'll have to start all over? I'm hoping that won't happen, because I'm at a point right now that I really hate, so hopefully I'll remember what I don't want to go back to. But "baby steps" and "slow and steady" is what's got to work this time right? I'm pretty sure my grand efforts aren't getting me where I need to be, so it's time to be patient and do a little at a time.
So two weeks ago I made the goal to listen to my hypnosis thing every night at bed time. I've actually stuck to it for two weeks now, and it's been easy because I haven't been focusing on twenty other things along with it. Last week I added the goal of drinking two cups of water a day, and I don't let myself drink any soda until it's done. Soda is my "reward" if you will, for drinking my water. Wonder what my reward will be when I eventually give up drinking soda? Hmmm...
Next week I'm going to 1) Keep listening to my hypnosis every night 2) drink 3 cups of water every day, instead of two and 3) I'm going to exercise for five minutes Monday - Friday, first thing when I wake up.
I plan on just picking out 5 different exercises I can do with either my weights, ball, or body weight (ie. lunges) and do each exercise for one minute. The old me would think this is ridiculous and not even worth the effort, but it will be 25 more minutes of exercise than I did last week, and the point is I'm starting out slow and steady so that I can develop the habit. If I don't feel like doing it one day all I have to tell myself is, "it's only 5 minutes, how hard is that?" Also hopefully by the time I work up to my goal of 45-60 minutes, five days a week, it won't be so painful for my body.
These past two weeks I have felt a huge sense of accomplishment that I have stuck to something for two whole weeks. Sure they were super easy goals, but still, I did it! And hopefully by adding on just a little at a time it will always be easy and never hard or tiring.
C.S. Lewis said, " What saves a man, is to take a step; then another step." That is my favorite quote these past couple of weeks. I keep repeating it to myself when I wonder if these little efforts will work. Notice he didn't say, what saves a man is to take one GIANT leap.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)