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.
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