New Goal -- Losing Weight on Weight Watchers.

Keeping goals is difficult when your head feels like tapioca, worrying about everything and having your brain scatter to 48 different things.   When I sit down to write, I often think of everything else I have to do.    Earlier this week, Karen said that she wanted me to join Weight Watchers online so we could both lose weight.   In the past, I would have said, "I'll do it on my own, I don't need to do that."    But for some reason, I said the exact opposite.   

So now we're both doing Weight Watchers, with me tracking it online.   It's amazing how quickly my brain got into the mindset of doing it, and honestly, looking forward to doing something for myself and reducing the weight. 

So far I can't even eat all of the points that are assigned to me.   59 points for my fat body is still too many.   Even with just a few days in, I feel like I'm healthier.   I don't feel as sluggish, even with limited sleep, and I think I can even see a bit of reduction in my gut, although I'm probably imagining that.  

Of course, I'm going to cry a bit if I get on the scale and it's more than last Tuesday.  

My goal right now is 5% of my weight.   Not huge, but once I reach that, I'm going to head for 20%, and hopefully down to my personal desire of 33% of my weight lost and maybe beyond.   

Success? Not yet.

I'm almost 20 days into this and really not making much traction here.  Still have very little discipline as I spend hours staring at Twitter and minimal time writing.   It appears as though the Free Writing suggested in How to Be A Writer by Barbara Baig is helpful though.   Just letting go of the critical thinking and putting things on a page is helpful.     I have to admit that for 15 or more years now I've felt like I had to create something and put pressure on myself to create a work of genius without even getting started.   I blocked myself.   

Watching Maddie create I realize how much I miss that joy and spirit of simply creating something you like and enjoy.    If writing becomes a job, why do it?    The fun is in the creation, not the drudgery of worrying about it. 

Discipline -- Something I lack.

The biggest thing I lack in my life is discipline.   When I was in school, discipline was easy.   Do the assignment by the time it is due for the grade.   School was my life, and so were my grades.   There were no families, work, bills, and sadly no girls to keep me preoccupied.  Okay, there were girls that kept me preoccupied, but not because they ever talked to me.    So my head was filled with a singular presence.   Now when I sit down to do pretty much anything, my brain has a bit of ADHD.  Writing something for “fun”, then I think I should be writing something to make money because I never have enough of it.   Sitting to do something at work and not understanding a bit of it?  Then my head becomes a bit of fog that can only be solved by reading a story on CNN, which then leads to a few other distractions.   

Yesterday I tried my best to focus on one thing.  Using One Note on my computer, I’ve started making a list of things I need to tackle.   It’s helped me focus on what I need to be doing and I actually am seeing some disciplined practice.   I worked on my distractions and spent most of the day tied to my desk getting some work done.   I came home yesterday and cleaned the cat’s litter boxes, which is a relatively time consuming chore with three cats and three boxes.   I stuck with it until it was done.  I did all three.   Minor triumphs, but I managed to put those multitasking demons out of my head for awhile while I just did that.   

Even today, as I sat down to do an exercise out of How To Be A Writer, I turned off the TV, sat in a quiet room, and didn’t open any other windows on my computer to keep from being instantly distracted from a relatively easy exercise of freewriting.   

The wired world has killed my brain.    Focusing on one thing at a time is the only way I can shock it back to life, I think.  

A Week In and the Tugboat is Not Helping

My intent was to update this everyday.   Of course, this highlights my main problem, a complete lack of discipline about anything.   I've got a complete flippin ADHD thing going on when it comes to this.    My thought process is so jumbled that an attempt to sit down to do one thing will turn into me reading five articles, 300 tweets, watching the news, tweeting about that, looking up five books that I'll never read, watching a silly video, and then wondering why I never get anything done.  

Some progress has been made at work, where I'm having a bit better focus than I have been having, perhaps because I'm coping with my health issues better.   I also managed to write a page yesterday, and that felt good.  Still, I'm really in need of turning my stated desires here into obsessions.   Thinking about EVERYTHING makes you ineffective at EVERYTHING. 

Making Money

One of the things I really need to do is get rid of the clutter.   Tonight I'm going to take some pics for stuff to sell at work.  

Ash Wednesday -- Giving up for Lent

Yesterday was not the best of days.  I was exhausted from not getting much sleep the night before and the emotional drain of having a meeting later in the day.   I realized that much of my career has been spent with high anxiety about how things would go.   As someone for whom planning is a real mental chore,  and who breaks out in hives when bullshitting, it's a real struggle to get through a meeting, and I think my anxiety the entire day was part of that.  

The meeting went okay though, so I guess what I did do was worth it.  I came home and felt incredibly tired, so I went to bed at 9, reading a bit and then sleeping.   7 hours of sleep on a weeknight is unheard of for me.

Overall, not a great day in terms of progress toward goals, but I think sleep may be the most important thing I can start doing for myself.  

GOALS! - Exercise - Refuse to Compromise Your Dreams

This exercise is on page 56 of my copy of GOALS!.   Imagine your work life was perfect five years from now.  Answer these questions. 

1.  What would your work situation look like?
Work would be a place where all ideas are encouraged and great ideas are pursued.   There is mutual respect for one another. 

2. What would I be doing?
I'd be in a career where I could generate or help generate new ideas and be on the forefront of innovation, either via training or as part of a group that helps generate new ideas, designs, and thinking.

3.  Where would I be doing it?
Either in a design company, high tech firm, or in my own company, depending on how I felt once I got into the job.

4.  Whom would I be working with?  What level of responsibility would I have?
I'd be working with people who love thinking "what if?"  I'd be working with people who hate the status quo and love and embrace new ideas, no matter how silly.   I'd be working with people who aren't just doers, but thinkers. 

5.  what kinds of skills and abilities would I have?
The ability to come up with ideas and concepts that would change my world or someone elses.   The ability to encourage others to take these ideas and run with them.

6.  What kinds of goals would I be accomplishing? 
Promoting the power of ideas and new thinking.  Reshaping myself into a more energized and engaged worker.

7. What positioni or status would I have? 
My position or status would be that I'm respected and looked up to for my ideas and training I can provide to the people around me. 

Day 2 -- About my birthday

So yesterday was my 40th birthday.  I've been reading "Goals" by Brian Tracy and one of his main conceits in the beginning of the book is to "change your thinking, change your life".   As a natural skeptic, I have to say that my whole body rejects this notion, but Tracy really sells it.   And if I think about the successes in my own life, they came when I was positive about the outcomes.   Weight loss, writing for About.com, getting into a management training program all came during highly focused and relatively happy times in my life. 

Right now, the difficulty is that I'm adrift. For several years now I've felt down on myself and my own abilities to change the world.  Not sure why, but I think five years of trying to get out of a job that I didn't care for (following three years of another job that almost broke me) left me feeling out of control of my own life.   It's tough to do something 8 hours a day when you don't give a damn and feel like nobody else there gives a damn.   

And even yesterday was tough.   I know it's sad, but I was hoping that there would be some special recognition of me turning 40 at work.   Something silly at my cubicle, or some sort of joke or special recognition, but there wasn't.    And so I felt sad about that.    Then I went to the 4th Street Live Borders and saw all of the shelves laid bare by their going out of business sale, and the store seeming to contract in on itself as stuff was moved closer and closer to the entrance and I just felt incredibly sad.   I'd just moved down close to the store and it was closing.   I love browsing bookstores and now that opportunity would be gone.  

Plus, I couldn't shake a general malaise about everything.   This attempt to change seems like a "eat the elephant" moment and I don't even have a kitchen knife.   

In the news:  Charlie Sheen fired, oil hits a new high.  

40th Birthday - Time For A Change

Today I turn 40.   As with 30, 21, 20, 18, 16, and 1, I don’t know that I feel substantially different than the day that came before it physically, although my body seems to have started falling apart about a month ago. 
The past couple of weeks I’ve been thinking about how to turn my life around.  For the past several years I feel like I’ve been coasting on the bare minimum.   My career was in a rut, my health is in a rut, and my brain is in a rut.  I spend far too much time staring at a computer taking in information without processing it.   I feel distracted to the point of disturbance.
So I got the idea of trying to set some goals.   As someone whose strengths (according to the Gallup Strengthfinder) include Adaptability (definition here), I am not supposed to be into long term planning.   If you ask my wife, she’ll definitely agree with this.
So here, in no order, and certain to change, are the vague goals (that will be refined as I go) for making 40 the year of turnaround.

1. Read Goals!: How to Get Everything You Want-Faster Than You Ever Thought Possible
2. Lose weight (10% of my body weight by year’s end)
3. Write everyday
4. Write a novel
5. Find a career that suits me and work toward that career
6. Reduce my tendency toward bad habits (being a slob, not completing tasks, not going to bed on time, etc)
7. Improving our finances
8. Maintaining this blog on a daily basis to talk about where I am.   
9. Farting less.   Seriously, I’ve been farting a lot.    
10. Reducing my stress level
11. Increasing my positive thinking while reducing my negative thoughts about myself and others
12. And perhaps most importantly, being a better husband and dad, perhaps simply by being a happier me.
13. Not worrying about signs of bad luck.   Like having a 13th goal.

So there it is.    We’ll see where this leads