Like a Bigfoot

Motivation, Mindset, Positivity, Endurance, Adventure, Perseverance, and Possibility

Category: Goal Setting (page 3 of 3)

The Battle for Self Discipline

March 8, 2016 / / 0 Comments

I don’t feel like writing this morning.

It would be nice to still be snoozing in my bed, wrapped up under the warm covers, whisked away in dreamland.

But I’m awake….and I’m sitting here in front of the computer.

All because I have SELF DISCIPLINE.

I made it a goal to wake up every weekday morning and write.  There’s nothing (outside of something catastrophic) that will break my self discipline.

Self discipline is a skill that must be developed.  It’s not easy to develop, not something that can be “hacked”, or something that there is a magic pill for.  It is a skill that must be generated BY YOU.

You create self discipline by refusing to take the path of least resistance, the easy way out.  

I said I was going to wake up and write, so I woke up and wrote.

If you say you are going to go to the gym- go to the gym.  If you say you are going to run 5 miles- don’t cut out after 4.  If you say you are going to skip dessert- don’t order the cheesecake.  If you say you are going to step outside your comfort zone- stop doing the same shit day in and day out.

YOU have to nurture your self discipline.  Each time you successfully accomplish your goals, it becomes easier.  Whereas, each time you give in to the path of least resistance, your self discipline takes a hit.

It may be difficult at first but, over time, it gets easier and easier until its internal.  It goes from something that is a challenge to something that is just part of your philosophy.

As for me, I’m glad I sat down at the computer and got these ideas out.  Glad I momentarily conquered the resistance and nurtured my self discipline!

Thanks for reading!

Today is “Do Something You Hate” Tuesdays, so find something that will challenge you, that you don’t really enjoy, and get it done!  This act is the best way to start building your discipline.

Monday

March 7, 2016 / / 0 Comments

Happy Monday!

A new week always looks like a blank slate.  You get the opportunity to fill it with whatever you want.  The week can be a success or the week can be a failure.  At the end of the day it is all up to YOUR decisions.

No one will MAKE your success but YOU.

So have fun, smile, exercise, get outside, laugh, and enjoy this crazy place!

On Sunday take some time to reflect on how lucky you are to be able to live your life.

Willpower vs. Convenience

March 4, 2016 / / 0 Comments

Willpower vs. Convenience

Currently, I’m reading an interesting book called The Happiness Advantage by Shawn Achor.  It is essentially about what makes someone a happy person opposed to being an unhappy person (and is backed up by scientific research).

One of the sections is about our friendly nemesis willpower; how most people’s willpower can power them towards good habits, but throughout the day will get worn down and worn down until people give in.

For example, you eat healthy food for breakfast, lunch, and dinner and you feel GREAT!  But then around 8 or 9 your cravings kick in.  You are so exhausted from the day and your willpower is running on fumes, so you chow down on some girl scout cookies.  One wouldn’t be too bad, but you go back for another…and another…and now you HAVE to finish the whole sleeve because a half empty girl scout cookie sleeve is bad Feng Shui!

Your willpower ran out and you gave in to convenience.

This is when the concept of “Path of Least Resistance” comes into play.  If the girl scout cookies are convenient (nearby, already purchased, easily accessible) then most likely you WILL give in to convenience. On the other hand, if it is inconveniet to get a girl scout cookie in your mouth (they are not at your house, you have to do 100 push-ups every time you eat one, you have your wife hide them) then most likely you WON’T give into convenience.

Instead of having girl scout cookies easily accessible, maybe you have prepared a healthy snack (a smoothie, mixed fruit bowl, or my favorite…frozen blueberries).  Make these the new path of least resistance.  Make these nutritious items the ones that are convenient.

So Achor’s simple idea was this:

MAKE GOOD HABITS CONVENIENT AND BAD HABITS INCONVENIENT

Try this for a few days and see if it works.

Happy Friday!  Good luck in your journey towards your goals!

Routines

March 3, 2016 / / 0 Comments

Routines can be good.  You can develop good routines, you can do those routines day in and day out and you will see a major benefit to your life.

But, every so often, it’s good to rock yourself out of your routine too.

You could go on a trip, try a new activity, wake up earlier, sleep in, meet someone new, eat something new.

Do something that shakes up your routine.

To me there’s no worse saying than “same shit, different day.”  When that line is belched out I have a physical reaction.  This person hates their routine.  But they have accepted it as the norm.  They are unwilling to change something that is making them miserable.  Have they just given up?  Do they not see the world for what it is: an opportunity to explore.

Routines are whatever you make them: good, bad, meh.  But be willing to break your routine every so often.  This allows you to experiment with it.  Maybe you discover that you need to drop a part of it, or maybe you need to add something to it?

Explore life!  This word is insanely beautiful and full of wonderful opportunities to experience this beauty.   Do not fall into the trap of “same shit, different day.”

Thanks for reading!

Happy Thursday!

Goal Setting

February 29, 2016 / / 0 Comments

Show up.  Be consistent.  Be persistent.  Get shit done.

I keep talking about goal setting, hard work, the obstacle being the way, and the PROCESS of achievement.

But I feel as if, through my writing, I haven’t fully connected  to my own goals.  My bad.  I will get better I promise.  (Part of the beauty of being consistent- You slowly but surely get better!)

So here are my current goals:

  1. Write every single day (whether this is a paragraph or thousands of words).  The plan is to write, write, write.  And SHARE MY WRITING (the scary part….my resistance).
  2.  Gratitude Journal– Jot down three things I’m grateful as soon as I wake up.  AND extend this idea into family dinners.  Ask wife and daughter “What are we grateful for tonight?”
  3. At least 15 Minutes of Yoga nightly- When I’m in a good yoga routine I feel like Superman!  It calms me down, helps my muscles recover and creates even more strength.  I think every single person in the world should practice at least 15 minutes of daily yoga.  I did awesome at this for about a year but have recently fallen off the wagon.  Time to get back on!

These goals will challenge me.  They will take HARD WORK to accomplish.  There will be mornings when I don’t feel like writing (like right now) and there will be nights when I just want to skip yoga and go straight to bed (probably tonight).

Trust the process.  Understand that the more you do something, the more likely that something will become a habit.  You may not see improvement right away, but the act of DOING SOMETHING eventually transforms into the results you wanted to see in the first place.

Don’t have a goal?  Forming goals comes down to this simple statement:

  • What good habits do you want to form?  What bad habits do you want to break?

Figure out the answer to those questions and you got yourself the beginning of a goal.

Then, you have to figure out how to make the goal specific:

  • Instead of “lose weight” say “lose 10 pounds in the next two months.”
  • Instead of “write more” say “write every single morning at 5:30 am.”
  • Instead of “learn guitar” say “learn how to play ___________ song in the next two weeks.”

You get the point.  The more clarity you can apply the easier it will be.

And lastly, WRITE THE GOAL DOWN.  Post it around your house.  Literally see the goal every single day.

My friend writes his goals on his bathroom mirror in dry erase marker.  He sees his goal every morning when he brushes his teeth.  It’s a clear reminder of what he is meant to accomplish.

That’s all for today folks.  See I didn’t want to write initially and ended up writing a good little post!  Just the act of sitting down and being consistent ended with me accomplishing my daily goal. Yay!

Thanks for reading!  Go get ’em!

You are Malleable

February 28, 2016 / / 0 Comments

You create this version of yourself.

If you don’t like the “version” you have become or if there are aspects that you think need improvement, then there is good news: You are malleable.

You can change the version of yourself.

Create some better habits, strive towards a new and better you.  You know what’s right or wrong for you; you know whats healthy and what’s unhealthy.

But you have to do it.  No one is going to do it for you.

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No Pain Free Way to Achieve Your Goals

February 26, 2016 / / 0 Comments

There is no pain-free way to achieve your goals.

So stop looking for one.  You aren’t going to find it.  Don’t let pain be an excuse.  Let pain be a motivating factor.

My goal is to write every single day.  This could be a paragraph or this could be 2000 words.  I want to develop a routine that promotes writing and to send my writing out to the world.

The last part is particularly difficult for me.

It is painful to hit publish every time I write a blog.

Sharing my thoughts has always been a road block.

The resistance starts.  “You’re not special.  Why would anyone care what you have to say?”

LIMITING BELIEFS: Beliefs that are holding you back.  The resistance to your goals.

Accomplishing goals is a painful process because it is uncomfortable to break free from limiting beliefs.

“You won’t ever be skinny so why even try?”  “You aren’t smart enough to get a master’s degree.”  “You aren’t musically talented enough to play guitar.”  “You’re not good at small talk so you shouldn’t go to the party.”

You have become so used to these beliefs that changing them can seem excruciating.

Luckily, these are ONLY beliefs.  These are not reality.  You can choose to believe them or you can choose to defeat them.  You get to choose what you believe.

Set a routine.  Be consistent towards accomplishing your goal.  Fight the resistance when it rears its ugly head.

Eventually those limiting beliefs start to fade.

And it gets easier and easier to hit…publish.

Thanks for reading.  Happy Friday!  I wish everyone the best of luck and remember to enjoy the journey of accomplishing your goals not just the goal itself.

Thursday Gratitude

February 25, 2016 / / 0 Comments

On Tuesday I posted about my New Years Resolution to write in a gratitude journal every morning.

Today I thought I would share what I wrote:

  1. This morning I’m grateful for the upcoming summer and all the adventures I am planning.  It will be a last hurrah in Virginia and I am planning to make the most of it.  I’m going to spend a lot of time exploring the Appalachian Mountains with family and friends.

Below is a link to a documentary on the Appalachian Trail- The Long Start to the Journey.  The full movie does a pretty good job showing what a thru-hike would be like (and is WAY better than A Walk in The Woods- the movie not the book)

2.  I’m grateful for all the rain we’ve been getting because it has allowed me to practice running in the mud.

3.  I’m grateful that the sun is staying out longer at night and that the temperature is getting warmer. This means more walks and more playgrounds with my daughter (she’s two now and two year olds NEED the time to get out of the house!)

And there you have it!  Five minutes later and paid respect to the fact that life isn’t so bad.  It’s that easy!

Thanks for reading and have a wonderful day!

The Cycle of Failure

February 24, 2016 / / 0 Comments

Change your mind about failure.

Failure is a good thing.  It means you are trying something.  It means you are in the arena fighting rather than spectating.

Failure is the only way to grow something.  Its a cycle; a process.  Try something, fail at it, determine why it failed, try again.

You WILL fail at anything worth learning.  In fact it’s the way; the path to learning something new.

I always tell my students that “Failure is just a First Attempt In Learning.”  That’s all it is.  It’s not bad or something you should feel shame about.  It’s simply a tool to help you accomplish whatever it is that you want to accomplish.

Failure is uncomfortable only because we’ve been raised in an environment that does not promote it.

But you know what else is uncomfortable?  Growth.  Any growth.  Growth is a shaky, awkward, painful process.  Growth is difficult.  Growth takes repeating the failure cycle over and over and over again.  Growth is the opposite of “hacking”, it knows no shortcuts.  It is hard work.  

This is why so many people shy away from growth as they age.  They get comfortable in their habits.  They repeatedly take the EASY PATH.  They stop growing because they stop failing.  They stop failing because they stopped creating opportunities to fail.  They stop creating opportunities to fail because they become complacent.

Do NOT get hung up on the path of complacency; this path of stagnation.  It is a path that will ultimately lead to an unfulfilled life.

Take risks, try something new, purposefully fail.  Accept that personal growth is going to be difficult.  Accept that failures will happen; that obstacles are expected and embraced (another reminder hanging in the front of my classroom- from The Obstacle is the Way by Ryan Holiday)

Accept that the cycle of failure is the path towards personal growth.

Thanks so much for taking the time to read this.  This blog is an attempt at something new for me.  An attempt to overcome certain fears I have about sharing my ideas publicly.  I appreciate each and every one of you!

When to Reevaluate Goals

February 18, 2016 / / 0 Comments

What are your goals?

This is a question to think about often.  It is beneficial to make a list of your goals.  What are you trying to accomplish in the days, weeks, or months to come?

Some goals will be major and other goals will be so teeny tiny you ask yourself “should I even list these?”

List them.

Write down all of your goals regardless to size.

Look at them.

Ask yourself “are these leading to my ultimate goal, HAPPINESS.”

If they aren’t leading to happiness, you need to reevaluate.  If they are, keep striving.

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