A Man Reborn

Had a fun weekend!  Stayed in on Friday night and started work on my Halloween props – it’s been a while since I’ve worked with paper mache and I forgot how fun it could be.  It’s very satisfying to build up an armature in a creative way and watch something take shape out of nothing.

On Saturday I went to the CNE and had a really good time full of good company, rides, games and lots of guilty pleasures in the food department.  Can you say deep-fried? Tried the deep-fried mac-n-cheese, mars bar, corn dog and of course, the butter!  Mmm, deep-fried goodness.  I know this is in stark contrast to some of my goals, but hey – you gotta live.  I’m all for balance over absolutes and I know I’ll make progress towards my goals over the month – long term!

Sunday I took a trip to the ROM with a couple of friends.  I haven’t been there since they had the Two Towers exhibit for Lord of the Rings so it was nice to wander around and gawk at history.  I developed a fascination with patterns in the artwork from different cultures and time periods and took a lot of pictures for future additions to the sleeve on my left arm.  I’d been thinking I would keep that arm all black ink, but I might throw some colour in there … lots of sketching to be done!  I was going to come back into the city later on that night, but I ended up doing some reading and passing out (sorry guys!).

Monday I did some website work and visited my family.  My little bro cooked up a sweet meal like always and we discussed our plans to conquer the Turducken.

Also decided on a few more habits to change / try in the next 3 weeks – I like this approach… going to keep changing little things a few at a time -

1. Ride my bike to work twice a week.

So many benefits to this one: saves wear on my car, saves gas, pollutes less, gets me off my ass and improves my leg muscle stamina for the upcoming snowboarding season.  Plus I’ve got the Ride to Conquer Cancer next year so it’s time to start logging some serious distance on the bike.

2. Do yoga twice a week for 30 minutes.

I am actually quite flexible for a bigger dude from years of martial arts, but I could definitely use more flexibility.  I also enjoy the calming aspect of it.

3. Plan my meals.

Easier to shop, easier to stick to a plan and easier to monitor.  Plus there’s less of a chance of wasting any food… something I hate to do but it happens when I don’t plan and go crazy in the produce section.

So I was thinking about the whole 21 days thing and how well it worked out for me.  Of the habits I changed, the most interesting one was the 21 day no complaining experiment.  I loved this change and the results it brought me and I’m going to stick with it for life.

Now, I’m definitely not much of a complainer – I see it as pointless wheel spinning and a waste of energy.  I was reading old articles on The Four Hour Workweek blog and came across this:

Real Mind Control: The 21-Day No-Complaint Experiment

Using a physical reminder (bracelet, elastic, etc.) – don’t complain about anything for 21 days without coming up with a solution.  Anyway – I’ve written about it here before – so I won’t get into the details.  So I got a blue elastic, slapped it on my wrist and went on my merry no complaining way.

I put extra effort into being aware of my thoughts and my reactions and when my instinct was to react negatively to something I forced myself to stop and think it through.  I probably picked the worst possible time to try this – as it was right in the heart of all the craziness at work – but at the same time, that probably made it the best time.  With that said – there were a LOT of opportunities to complain – I was in a high-stress situation and was working pretty intense hours.  At the same time I was making sure I was on top of my best man duties for my buddies wedding.

The thing I found amazing about the entire experience was that when I look back at it, I can’t really remember feeling stressed or feeling any negativity about it.  It was hard work and long hours and the hardest I’ve worked on something in a while – but my no complaining mindset kept me focused on all the good things that could potentially come out of the project.  I really think that the mindset spread into the rest of my life because even with the crazy hours, I had a super fun month filled with a lot of good times and a lot of good things happened to me – an almost eerie amount of things actually.

What I really like about it is that it’s not just blind optimism.  You don’t just have this attitude that everything is going to be awesome and then expect it to happen.  The habit requires you to think about a situation you felt negatively about enough to complain and then forces you to come up with steps to resolve it.  So rather than just building negative emotion, you channel that energy into actually resolving the problem.  Logically, it’s the best way to approach negativity I think – is there ever any benefit to just venting over taking action?

Anyway – I’m going to pick a few things that I want to change each month – will set aside 21 days of the month to do the change and the rest of the month to think about how it went / what I’m going to do next.  There’s always going to be some habit of mine I can improve or change for the better, so I’m sure I’ll never run out of things to try.  I’ll be thinking about what I want to change this month – I have a feeling getting more sleep will be one of them!

Twenty days ago I made a list of a few behaviour changes that I wanted to try and I’ve focused on those changes since then.  It’s gone very well and the changes have become habits.  I’m doing one of the changes with my friend Candy – the 21 day no complaint experiment.  Now that 21 days are almost up, she asked how we would up the ante and keep it going forward.  Truthfully, I’m not sure – so I’m going to do some reading and see if I can find any previous feedback from past experimenters to see where they have gone from here.

I’m also starting to think about the next set of habits I want to change.  Like I’ve said before, 21 days isn’t very long, but it’s long enough to make your mind believe you’ve been doing something forever.  It doesn’t even have to be an absolute belief – just enough that it would take more energy and effort on your part to go against the habit as opposed to going with it.

On Monday morning I talked to my boss – he did the presentation of the video I had worked on over the weekend to our main client.  They absolutely loved it!  It had the exact effect on them that we were trying to achieve.  As a result, we are getting business from them that was previously slated to go to another company and we’ll be working on some training videos for them.  More to learn for me and more creative work which I always welcome – and now that I have a better understanding of the process, the hours won’t be nearly as long.

Last night I met some friends for a Paul Verhoeven double bill: Robocop / Starship Troopers.  Saw them both at the Bloor Cinema – we almost always sit in the balcony towards the back because it’s deserted and we enjoy heckling the film and having conversations with ridiculous tangents in the middle of it.  Got my action flick fix and hung out with good people, including one I hadn’t seen in over a year – so good times!

So, first off – I went to Muay Thai class for the first time in a long while.  Today was nice and humid and the warm up nearly killed me (sprints!), but hey – this is my punishment for having neglected my cardio for so long.  I will suck it up and deal, because I know it will get better shortly.

It’s kind of strange to see what knowledge / technique I retained from when I used to go often.  Keeping my hands high at all times is no problem for me even when my shoulders burn with fiery pain.  Getting tagged more than enough times because my hands were low will do that.  But, it was good to come back and it felt great to do a really intense workout.

Moving on… I’ve always had issues with motivation.  Sometimes it seems like my motivation comes and goes like the wind.  I am going to spend some time trying to figure out exactly what triggers these motivation state changes for me so I can use them to my advantage instead of the other way around.  What I do know is that when I am in a good state, there is little to nothing that can stop me.  So I’m going to ride this wave and make some changes.  Gonna pick up some new habits and reclaim some others that I’ve let slip.  My immediate focus is to be super-strict on these for the rest of the month – I started yesterday, so that’s 21 days – in my own experience 3 solid weeks is enough time to make a lasting change.

So, here goes:

1. Stop complaining without doing anything to remedy the situation

This came from an article on Tim Ferriss’s blog.  I’m a big fan of his book, The Four Hour Workweek and I’ve implemented some of his basic ideas with positive effects.  I’m also working on an even bigger change, but that’s a whole other post for later.  Anyway, the idea is to not describe a person or event negatively without indicating some steps to fix the problem that prompted the reaction in the first place.  To remind me, I’ve got a blue rubber band on my left wrist.  If I slip up, it goes to the other wrist.  I’m big on the idea that thoughts become actions, so this makes sense to me.

Source: http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2007/09/18/real-mind-control-the-21-day-no-complaint-experiment/

2. Cut back my meat consumption by 25%

For a number of reasons I am going to cut back on the amount of meat I consume.  I’m going to start by cutting it down by 25%.  I’m not going to do any set plan ala Meatless Mondays – just going to make sure that at least 25% of my weekly meals don’t contain meat.  Which leads right into my next change.

3. Keep a food journal

In the past my best results at getting in shape have been when I kept a detailed food journal.  I’ve got an iPhone coming in the mail soon which will make this a cinch.

4. Follow a morning ritual

Another belief I’m big on is that your mental state controls your outcome.  Starting the day off in a negative state  can quickly spiral into a bad day overall.  The morning ritual is designed to put me in a positive state of mind where I’m ready to take on the day properly.

1. Wake up – don’t snooze, don’t toss – when the alarm goes I’ll pop out of bed like a bat out of hell and open my blackout curtains to get  some sunshine in the room.
2. Drink a big glass of water – morning = dehydration.
3. Move and get the blood flowing – anything really, just 5-15 minutes of quick exercise.
4. Listen to a motivating song.
5. Read my goal list and feel and envision how I will feel when I achieve them.
6. Think about things in my life I am grateful for.
7. Clean myself up – groom, dress, etc. – self explanatory – but with a little more attention to detail.
8. Cook breakfast and prepare my lunch.

5. Intense exercise at least 4 times a week

Another habit that I’ve fallen out of with a negative result on my body and my mind.  Intense exercise does amazing things for me.  I think clearer, feel better and just plain feel great.  I’m writing this hours after a hard Muay Thai class today and I’m completely awake, full of energy and super focused.  The next 3 weeks are also going to be ridiculously busy at work.  One of my problems has been that I allow myself to make work an excuse to not workout.  This is just bullshit – there’s always time and the net result is that I have more energy and am more focused so if I am super busy it’s to my benefit to fit in a workout.

21 days (20 now, as I started yesterday technically) to go.  It might look like a lot, but each is a small change when broken down.  I know myself and I know that right now I’m in a hyper-motivated state so it’s a good time to tackle these.  When I make these into established habits then it will be easier to keep my momentum going when this state of motivation wears off – and it will.