23 December 2016

It always takes a little time


to wind down. Today is just like a regular Friday; dog park, Costco, errands; so nothing new there. But now we have nothing to do for days. It will really start to set in on Sunday when we don't have to get ready for Monday. Yeah, love teaching.

I did get up this morning and weigh and measure myself. So now I have the initial stats to work with.

I'm on the fence about Crossfit. I was just going to write this long diatribe about how I'm on the fence about Crossfit, how I don't go as much as I should, how maybe I should quit and focus on something else, blah, blah blah..... That attitude was the past. The new me is going to go to Crossfit 3x a week. I do think I'm going to cut down my membership to 3x a week. I'm going to focus on walking, walking, walking, and running when I get there. But I still need to do weights a couple of days a week. Maybe I'll just leave it because I would like to go to Core & Stretch class also. Okay, for right now, no change in Crossfit, I will work on changing my attitude and habits first. I did have an idea of going to Crossfit today, but we were busy this morning, I missed the noon class, and we are having an energy audit this afternoon so I might not make the 4 pm. I will keep the 4 pm open as a possibility, though.

Okay, I really want to nail down my roadmap for getting back to running, so I'm going to work on that today. Also, I'm going to do some TV watching and lounging on the couch :) I might even look at my dissertation or schoolwork today, who knows.....

22 December 2016

Made it!!!!


To winter break that is. I am so relieved. This was the longest week ever. EVER. The good news is, our grades are due by noon tomorrow and I have mine all done already. That has never happened before. I like leaving school with nothing to do :)

So now it is time to focus on me for a while. One of the thing the Passion Planner has is, what they call, roadmap. They look like this:


The idea is to list out some things you really want to do in 3 months, 1 year, 3 years, and in your lifetime. You then take one of those and break it own into concrete steps to be taken with date deadlines and everything. I've used it in the past, but not to its full extent. I'm actually playing around with it now before I put it into my new book. Oh, my new book is so pretty:


It looks so much better than this picture though. The pink is so bright and just feels amazing. Okay, enough about that. Before I go writing in it, I am playing around with the roadmap. Things like this do not come naturally to me and sometimes I need to play around with it a bit before I figure it out. My immediate goal is to lose some weight and start running again. I've chosen that as the initial focus of my roadmap. After I get that figured out, I will do one for my dissertation also.

I'm starting to gain some excitement about this renewed motivation. It is not as strong as it has been in the past, but I'm hoping that mean I won't burn out so fast. I have a tendency to start out too fast and too hard and end up burning out really quickly. I'm hoping that, with what I've learned about myself, I can go at a reasonable pace and keep it up for the long haul. I'm excited about making plans and having goals for the new year. I haven't done that in a few years, at least not seriously, and I'm really looking forward to being successful. I really want to focus on my health. I'm looking forward to getting back in shape and being active again. I am thinking of buying a virtual race to get me moving now, there is one around the Grand Canyon. There is also a virtual race to do 2,017 miles in 2017. I love that idea. Of course, that works out to 5.5 miles a day, which is a lot for someone who does zero now, but I really want to do it. I think it would be something that would get me moving and motivated. It will also give me a reason to move every day.

I also have to keep in my that I am an introvert. My motivation comes from within not from without. My energy and strength come from within. So I can surround myself with all kinds of things and toys and virtual all kinds of things and it won't make any difference if the internal is not there. I also, finally fully, understand that sometimes I have to fake it until I make it. Sometimes I have to push myself hard to force myself to do it until it becomes a part of me. I don't think I've ever really, completely understood that before. But it is true. I am an introvert. All my strength comes from within me and I have to keep that in mind. That also explains why setting up rewards doesn't really work for me either. I've always thought it is because I can buy whatever I want, and that is true to some extent. But I think the real thing is the internal motivation not the external. That information should come in handy for this endeavor.

Okay, that is enough for today. I want to get back into the habit of blogging more frequently too. This really helps me process my thoughts and keeps me on track. But tonight it is the first day of break and I'm going to relax. :)

19 December 2016

Starting now


So I am really trying to get started now on my new year goals. I had planned to get up and do yoga this morning. Then I had trouble falling asleep last night and ended up oversleeping this morning. Ugh!!! Then I couldn't go to Crossfit because the Sears person was coming to give us a quote on new carpet. $5,000 = not now. By then I was tired and hungry and did not get on the treadmill. Okay, this will be a process, so I'll just keep trying. On top of everything, it is the last week of the semester. I just have to get through 3 more days and final exams. I'll do it, I will do it. The point is to keep moving forward. Progress not perfection. I'm not perfect. Far from it. So I can just keep trying my best. Tomorrow is a new day.

18 December 2016

Passion Planner and the new year

I've been using a Passion Planner for 2 years now. One of the things I really, really like about the Passion Planner is that it helps you to consider your long term plans and then break them down into manageable monthly and weekly goals. I like that. A. Lot. I've evolved in the ways I use my planner over the time I've been using it. I've used it where I've tried to schedule everything in advance:


I would sit down every Sunday night and plan out my week. I would block out my work schedule (yellow). Then fill in my planned workouts (pink) and schedule some dissertation time (blue). As other things came up I would write them in. This worked out okay, but I found that scheduling anything but the most basic events for a full week was difficult at best. Things come up. Schedules change. Work runs late, etc. So then I decided to not schedule everything, but allow the week to be more fluid and just track what happened. This is what that looks like: 


Instead of filling the whole week in on Sunday, I would fill in each day after it happened. I would fill in any appointments or events I had, but the rest of the day would just fill in as it went. That worked okay, but I found that I wasn't planning things so nothing really got done. 

Hmmmm....what to do, what to do....

Then I saw a friend of my post their resolutions for 2017. And I stopped. The past couple of years I have not set any goals or plans for the year like I used to. Yes, last year I had big plans and managed to orchestrate a trans-pacific move, but that was something so big it could not be ignored. Plus it literally consumed every waking moment that I had for the entire 6 months of the move. I'm talking about the little things. The personal goals. The workout/activity goals. Those things that get lost in the day to day shuffle of life. Plus my dissertation. I need to get that finished. And I love to make plans and face new starts and new beginnings. I love it. It is a chance to change the direction of my life or things in my life. I need to do this. Plus, my passion planner is built for things like this. Absolutely built for them. 

Now I'm faced with a dilemma. I currently have an academic planner because that is how my life runs, from July to July.  So do I get a January - December one for my personal life and a July to July for my school. Considering I already have 2, one for home and one for work, So I just ordered the one I wanted in pink, for the calendar year of 2017. I'm going to use it to track my plans and goals for the year. 

So what are my plans and goals for the year of 2017?  Good question. That will take a little thought, but I know for sure I want to:
  • get back to being very active
  • establish a practice of meditation
  • establish a regular practice of yoga
  • run again
  • do races
  • lose weight
  • finish my dissertation
  • save money
  • be happy
This may seem like a lot of things, but the first 6 things are actually all related, so it is really only 4 things. I can totally do this, I just need to have a plan and stick to it. 

Okay, I need to get pumped and excited about the new year to make this thing work. I also need to flesh out my plans and goals so that I can develop a solid game plan with clear goals and dates and everything. 

Conversation with Hubby

 So yesterday morning I presented my idea of working out at home to the Hubby. Once I presented it to him, he said he was in. I told him I h...