Off the Wagon

I've sort of fallen off the wagon with updating this blog. However, I haven't shortened my sight on my goals. I have continued to read, though not as often as my month of reading. My goal for the month after that was to start working seriously on my side project that I hope to eventually morph into a full time business. I'm one of the people who doesn't like to count their eggs before they're hatched, so I won't be going into full detail about exactly what that entails. I will say however, that it is a combination of the four domains of knowledge I'll be leaving college with, which are Software Engineering, Psychology, Business, and Fitness.

My goal for this month is to stop living like a slob. I tend to clean in spurts which a few and far between. Which means most of the time I'm living in a mess. So this month and hopefully everyday hereafter I will make a conscious decision to immediately clean up a mess as soon as I notice it. By doing this I hope to reduce the need for a full blown cleaning session since the large scale messes I typically clean will be reduced.

Fortune Cookie

I ordered Chinese food this weekend and got two fortune cookies. The first goes like this. "Your fate is in no one else but you, no other hands but yours." I found this profound, not because it was something new, but because it acts as CONFIRMATION to something I already believe. I've heard it said that it takes ten compliments to overcome one negative comment. I believe the same goes for ideas, in that it is easy to start to doubt an idea and it is always encouraging to hear from another source that the idea is not wrong.

The other fortune cookie I received reads, "If you understand what you're doing, you're not learning anything." Often times I find myself looking for something familiar and easy rather than something that is challenging. By doing so, I'm LIMITING myself from new experiences and interesting topics. That is partially the reason for my first months challenge. I want to build a habit that encourages me to learn new things and expand my horizons. It is EASY to become complacent. Just the other day my room mate was telling me how this new class of his was hard. He hadn't taken the class in sequence before it and so most of the material was new for him. I told him that he was luckier than all his other class mates, because he had the opportunity to learn everything his classmates did in the previous class and this one while only taking the one class. Always remember, every CHALLENGE is an OPPORTUNITY to learn.

Also, as a side note, if you didn't see my tweet. I'm reading Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk instead of What Do You Want To Do With Your Life by Hans Glint.

Five Seconds

I recently was watching part of the pilot episode of Lost and heard something I had taken for granted before. I really have to give the writers credit for this inspiring little story that's about to follow.

When I was in residency, my first solo procedure was a spinal surgery on a sixteen year-old kid. Girl. At the end of it -- thirteen hours later - I was closing her up... and I... I accidentally ripped her dural sack -- you know what that is?

It's at the base of the spine, where all the nerves come together. Membrane as thin as tissue. So it ripped open -- the nerves just spilled out like angel hair pasta -- her spinal fluid flowing out and I just... froze. 'Cause I knew. If I didn't get those nerves back in that sack and sew it up... those thirteen hours were for nothing, that girl would be paralyzed.

I had about a minute. And all the assistants were just watching me, I could feel their eyes. And the terror was so... crazy, so real... and I knew I had to deal with it. So I just made a choice. I'd let the fear in. Let it take over. Let it do its thing. But only for five seconds. That's all I was gonna give it. So I started to count to five. I could feel it inside -- like when you drink a milkshake on a hot day. One, two, three, four, five. And it was gone. I got back to work. Sewed her up. She was fine.

I think everyone has something like that. A moment where you establish your relationship with fear. And either you learn to deal with it... or you don't.
-- Lost - Pilot Transcript

When did you decide your relationship with fear would be? Or did you not deal with it? Our choices define us, but it is important to remember that we can always make a different choice. Are you going to let fear dictate your life or are you going to dictate to fear its role in your life?

Guard Your Mind

Negativity is like a disease with a high susceptibility rate. People who surround themselves with it will inherently be affected by it, just as a person who is in the company of the ill will themselves become ill. A very strong minded person could potentially withstand negative thought for a time, but even the strongest cannot resist forever. Negativity is also very common and generally comes from those we are most close with. It is for this reason, that everyone must make themselves aware of their environment and if there need be a change, they should make it hastily.

I will close with a quote from Napoleon Hill:

Without doubt, the most common weakness of all human beings is the habit of leaving their minds open to the negative influence of other people. This weakness is all the more damaging, because most people do not recognize that they are cursed by it, and many who acknowledge it, neglect or refuse to correct the evil until it becomes an uncontrolled part of their daily habits.

State of Mind

As I've begun to better myself, I've found one fact to be consistently believed by those that offer advice. That is, that all actions are controlled by your state of mind. It is the ONLY thing that limits any person from achieving success. Think HARD about that last sentence. It is the ONLY thing keeping anyone from success. I emphasize the "only" to point out the fact that many people, including myself, often limit themselves because of forces that are out of their control. However, these external forces DO NOT limit anyones possibilities. It is simply your state of mind that is creating the limit.

As an example consider two people. The first absolutely hates math because he isn't good at it. He avoids it at every chance he gets, because he would rather not deal with it. The second absolutely hates math because he isn't good at it. He attempts it at every chance he gets, because he would rather be better at it. Which person do you think would do better on a math test? They both have the same adversity, but they both take a separate approach to the problem. The first has chosen the most basic and simple of human instinct, flight. The second has chosen the harder route, which is to fight his obstacle. A person who CONSISTENTLY PERSEVERES will always know more success than a person who does not.

This was inspired by this quote:

If you demand riches, determine what form, and how much will be required to satisfy you. You know the road that leads to riches. You have been given a road map which, if followed, will keep you on that road. If you neglect to make the start, or stop before you arrive, no one will be to blame, but YOU. This responsibility is yours. No alibi will save you from accepting the responsibility if you now fail or refuse to demand riches of Life, because the acceptance calls for but one thing -- incidentally, the only thing you can control -- and that is a STATE OF MIND. A state of mind is something that one assumes. It cannot be purchased, it must be created.
- Napoleon Hill

Wrench in the Works

I had a little hiccup over the past few days with my goal. On Thursday I only read half of chapter 7 since it was a pretty long chapter; about 40 pages. On Friday I just didn't read at all. I didn't like that very much and set out to fix it. So Saturday I caught up my reading up to Friday (Chapters 7 - 8). Then this morning I knocked out Saturday and Sunday's reading so that I am now back on track.

This circumstance has brought up an important point though. I've decided to refine my goal. Instead of plainly reading a chapter a day, I'll instead read a chapter a day up until 30 pages. At that point I will either split the chapter in half or break it up in some logical manner based on the chapters natural divisions. Really the only reason I specified chapters is because that is how many books are naturally divided. However, my real goal is really only to read a manageable amount each day. I hope this new system will work out better.

Twitterific

I don't think me reporting that I accomplished my goal for the day is particularly post worthy. So, instead of creating posts for it, I'll be posting my progress on twitter. You can check out my tweets here. That's all for now!

Update: Entries related to this post will have the prefix FFG Progress.

Chapter a Day

It is the beginning of the month and it's time for me to set a goal for this month. I had a lot of possibilities and I had to prioritize them to even come close to a decision. In the end, the habit I decided to build for this month is to read a chapter a day. I decided on this over some other things simply because I believe this habit will help me build up the ability to acquire new habits.

I was so excited about starting that I've already started reading Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. The book only has 15 chapters, so mid-month when I finish this book I'll be moving on to What Do You Want To Do With Your Life? by Hans Glint. I think both of these books will awaken me to many ideas that I haven't considered and reawaken me to some that I may have forgotten. I can't wait till the end of the month so I can write about my success!

Dominate Your Thoughts

This particular paragraph I read today really struck a chord with me. It reminds me of the steps I had to go through to make my transformation from a primarily negative person, to a much happier and fulfilled positive person. I have to say it's also somewhat an ego boost to be able to say that I figured this out on my own.

It is a well know fact that one comes, finally, to BELIEVE whatever one repeats to one's self, whether the statement be true or false. If a man repeats a lie over and over, he will eventually accept the lie as truth. Moreover, he will BELIEVE it to be the truth. Every man is what he is, because of the DOMINATING THOUGHTS which he permits to occupy his mind. Thoughts which a man deliberately places in his own mind, and encourages with sympathy, and with which he mixes any one or more of the emotions, constitute the motivating forces, which direct and control his every movement, act, and deed! -- Napoleon Hill - Think and Grow Rich

Closing an Old Chapter to Start a New One

It is almost the end of the month and I have decided that I am going to use this blog to document the changes I make in my life to improve myself. At the beginning of each month I will pick something about myself that I want to change and at the end of each month I will report how the month went and how well I stuck to my goal. So, what better way to start than to describe all of the other things I have already changed successfully.

One of the very first things I have ever done in regards to improving myself was to start lifting weights. The very first week that I was at college I decided that I was going to make a change to live a much healthier lifestyle. When I first started I knew nothing, but I didn't really care because I was making a change. I would go fairly frequently and do whatever I thought might be a good exercise to help me gain muscle. It wasn't until I started going with my friend Zach that I started getting serious about it. Zach added structure to the chaotic approach I had for achieving my goal by giving me a consistent schedule and a well planned routine. Even after our paths split ways I used the things he taught me. Over time I have learned a lot more and working out is now a consistent part of my life. I really couldn't imagine my life without it.

Probably the most important thing I ever changed was my attitude. There was a point in my life when I thrived on negativity. I thought the world was against me. Luckily, my woeful world was all self inflicted. It was simply the way that I was perceiving things that needed to change. Once I realized that I controlled these negative thoughts my attitude began to change. I stopped thinking that the world was against me and realized it was me against me. I had to get myself on my own side and nurture that mindset.

During my first couple years in college I developed the bad habit of staying up late and sleeping in. The major problem with this lifestyle is that the rest of the world doesn't accommodate your schedule. Also, I, like many others, don't get anything done late at night. That time is reserved for fruitless endeavors done solely for the purpose of putting off sleep. Partially due to recently starting a co-op with early hours and partially because of a desire for a schedule that was conducive to allowing me to reach my goals; I began setting sleeping hours that were more consistent. Various sources that I have read suggest that the best sleeping situation is one where you wake up at the same time everyday. That includes weekends, which are typically prime time for sleeping in. But, if you really think about it, the weekend is the best time to get stuff done, so why knock out half of the day regaining sleep from a fruitless night? My approach has been to always wake up at 7AM regardless of how tired I am and generally I go to sleep at 11PM, but that isn't quite as consistent. This schedule has done wonders for me though and I usually feel very well rested. I've become so used to it that I actually tend to wake up before my 7AM alarm clock and my body naturally tells me its tired around 11PM.

Along with starting to live a healthier lifestyle, I've also started the metabolic diet. Now, I want to make a point that this is lifestyle change, not a one month diet so I can trim a few pounds. So many people think of diets as something you do to reach a goal and then you stop. Anyways, the reason I chose this diet is because it promises three important things. It provides more energy for me to workout, helps me build muscle, and it encourages fat loss. Most people make their food meal to meal. I couldn't do that. That would take too much of my time to cook every meal. So one resolution I made to achieve this goal was to cook all of my food on the weekends for the entire week. This works very well for me because I can buy food in large quantities which ends up being cheaper. Also, since I typically grill my food, it takes about the same time to cook one burger as it would to cook 10 which is much more efficient. Probably one of the hardest things about the diet is the food that I am limited to eating during week days. I like food and it is certainly tempting to see foods I can't eat during the week days and not eat it. That coupled with the fact that most people forget I'm on a diet and offer me things almost makes it unbearable. That's why I've had do build an automatic response mechanism so that I don't even think about these tempting things; I just say no immediately.

As I've been going through college I've been trying to be more active and not just sit in front of the computer all the time. My first move towards this was by taking up weight training, but that wasn't where it stopped. Each successive year I've taken up a new activity. The first was snowboarding and I jumped head first into it. Before I ever went, me and a friend of mine bought snowboards. We used the money we spent on our equipment as motivation to go snowboarding as much as we could. It was hard work at first, but now I'm good enough to have fun and I love going down the terrain course even if I spend most of my time flat on my back. The next thing I took up was pool. Pool has always been an interest of mine, but I never really had a good opportunity to play it until I got to college. After playing for a while I actually started to get pretty good. I've also taken a billiards class which taught me a lot I didn't know that I've incorporated into my game. The last thing, so far, is racquetball. This is the activity I end up doing the most. The trouble I ran into with racquetball is that the school doesn't let people check out racquetball equipment. To overcome this I bought a pair of rackets, that way I didn't have to depend on my friends to also have a racket to play.

Driving has always been something I never really enjoyed. I guess for that reason, I've always been a speeder and had plenty instances of road rage. It wasn't even really my shortcomings that inspired my change, but these rising gas prices. The first change I made was to start using cruise control any chance I could. My problem was that I didn't have any rules about when I would use cruise control. This meant that any time a car was following me a little close I'd decide to speed up and set my cruise control at the higher speed until they started creeping up on me again. This was self defeating, because I was letting others dictate how I was going to drive. I had to make a rule for what to set my cruise control to that I would not change. Luckily, someone already came up with that rule for me which they call a speed limit. Now I don't have to worry about someone creeping up behind me, because I think to myself that I'm just obeying the law and by doing so anyone behind me is also doing the same. Now I have the benefits that I won't get pulled over, I'm saving gas, and I'm a more peaceful driver because I'm not concerned about other drivers. The only drawback to this is that it takes slightly longer to get places, but that time isn't really that much of a difference and is easily offset by good planning on when to leave.

Despite all my hard work, I'm far from perfect and I know I'll never reach that point. However, I won't let that deter me. I may never be perfect, but I can be as close as humanly possible. The way I'm going to do that is the same way I've done it for each of these small steps I've described here. I'm going to use this blog to make myself accountable for every word I write. Rather than hide my concerns I'm going to be open about them. I won't be able to write them off as a secret failure anymore. I think this will be a great tool for me to better myself.