Progress Journal

[Spry]

Publicly journaling has always been helpful for me because of the accountability factor, so here we go. 

A little background: I'm 29 and over the last 7 or 8 years I've made a concerted effort to improve various aspects of my life. The areas in which I've put the most focus have turned out really well. I have an amazing friend group, a great dating life, I'm healthy and in great shape and I'm much more self-aware than I was. 

Other areas are more works in progress. I've been meditating for several years and I've noticed some major benefits, but there's still a lot of progress to be made. I'm also at a crossroads with career stuff and currently unemployed. My financial situation is still comfortable, but moving forward with my career is still top priority right now. And of course, I still have character work to do, namely overcoming subtle fears and insecurities, and being less focused on my own needs and more focused on helping other people.

I'll start out by organizing this journal around my top priorities, from highest to lowest, and tracking my intentions and actions toward progressing in each of them.

1. Career 

The number one goal for now is finding a job. After that's done, this may become a second or third priority, but I plan to continue making a serious effort towards doing meaningful, important, helpful work that I love. 

2. Meditation

I've kept a practice of 20-90 minutes a day pretty consistently for quite some time now. Other than maintaining that, I intend to bring more enthusiasm and a stronger intention to the practice. I don't want to force it and try too hard, but I don't want to simply go through the motions. Strong intention + acceptance and patience.

3. Giving/Helping

I want to bring more attention to how I can help other people and make their lives better. In some ways this comes easily to me, like giving advice or teaching someone about something I know a lot about, but in other ways it doesn't come easily at all. I tend to avoid things like volunteering to clean or take care of extra tedious work, or spending money on people (like buying someone's lunch), or being a good listener if I'm not really that interested. I'd like to make a serious effort to look for opportunities to do these things, and take them.

4. Health/Exercise

I'm pretty good about this, which is why it's such a low priority. Still, I'd like to continue exercising 5 or 6 times a week, avoid some of my lazier eating habits.

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My number one goal with this journal, other than working towards the goals I've set, is to be honest and humble. It's been tempting in the past, especially when I really start to succeed at something, to emphasize the successes rather than the whole process. I want to do my best to keep my ego out of this and honestly share my experience. Sometimes that may be triumphant and other times it may be embarrassing, but I think being completely authentic is going to be a big part of the solution for me.

So here we go

 

[Spry]

11/11

*this space will typically be used for setting intentions for the day, but since it's already almost midnight, I'll just recap the first day and start with my daily intentions tomorrow*

How it went

Career - Made list of all potential options with pros and cons + talked with uncle at length

Meditation - One 45 minute session and two 10 minute sessions. I felt calm and peaceful, but my mind wandered a lot.

Giving/Helping - Helped a few friends out by explaining stuff I know a lot about

Health/Exercise - An hour of rock climbing + healthy eating + sauna

Actionable Changes

-Listen more, inquire more, advise less

-Set clearer intentions for tomorrow

[Spry]

11/12

Motivation: to be happier and less conflicted about how to spend my time. More unification of mind and purpose.

Goals:

-Meditate for an hour with strong intention to make progress

-Read 10 pages of job book

-Look for opportunities to give/help, and act on them. Look for chances to make other people happy.

-Recover from strenuous week of exercise.

Obstacles: becoming unfocused and/or conflicted and not wanting to follow through. Having something unexpected come up and not having time.

Expectations: meditation will be difficult if my mind doesn't let go, but that's okay. Reading will be easy, but I'll have an aversion to doing it that I'll have to overcome. As far as giving/helping, I'll just have to remember to make it a focus.

Resolve: I'll do my very best to complete my goals for today

What I'm doing next: Meditating for an hour

How it went

Career - Check. Read the first chapter of a job-search book. As usual, getting over the hurdle of getting started seems to be the hardest part. So far it seems like the best use of my time will be focusing on getting internal referrals. 

Meditation - Check, one hour.

Giving/Helping - Offered to pay for lunch; didn't have many other tangible opportunities come up.

Health/Exercise - Great recovery day. Spent the afternoon and early evening with a girl I like a lot.

Actionable Changes

-Look for more opportunities to help/contribute, even in small ways

-Let go of trying to intellectualize the meditation process

Until tomorrow

Edited November 13, 2017 by Spry

[Spry]

11/13

Motivation: Calm, happiness and unification of mind. 

Goals:

Career - Read another chapter of job book.

Meditation - 1 hour 

Giving/Helping - Look for opportunities to listen, and help with little things.

Health/Exercise - Rock climbing + sauna

Obstacles: I didn't do this first thing, so I'm a bit more distracted and already feeling ambivalent about doing some of these things. I'll most likely need to sit down and recommit later in the day to make sure I get the meditation and reading in.

Expectations: Sitting down to meditate will be hard, reading may be easier now that I've started. I think if I meditate for half an hour in the sauna and get another half hour session in later, it'll be a lot easier. I'm going to try to do that.

Resolve: I'll do my best do accomplish my goals today.

What I'm doing next: Going climbing + meditating in the sauna

How it went

Career - Didn't read. I guess I partly got distracted and partly just chose not to. 

Meditation - Half an hour. Same as above, I just kinda chose not to.

Giving/Helping - Did a good job listening even when I wasn't interested and not always having to say something.

Health/Exercise - Sauna + Rock Climbing + Avoided unhealthy foods

Actionable Changes

-Find that sweet spot between frustration and happy-go-lucky apathy.

Until tomorrow 

Edited November 14, 2017 by Spry

[Spry]

I think I may be overdoing this. 

First, I don't think this complicated method is helping as much as I hoped. Setting intentions in this way doesn't seem to get my mind more focused on what I need to do, or make me more likely to do it.

Second, I really need to commit to doing this stuff first thing in the morning. As the day goes on, I build momentum in whatever mood/state I'm in and if I'm just chilled out for the first half of the day, it's really hard to turn it around.

Third, I really have a lot of cognitive dissonance and ambivalence because I'm overthinking things and doubting the efficacy of any given process. Because I know that you can't just go through the motions with things, and nothing you "do" will automatically change you, I begin to get this resistance to doing anything. I need to have a little more faith. Just do the work and I'll reap the rewards.

New goals:

Meditate first thing in the morning, no exceptions.

Do most important task related to work right after, no exceptions. 

Then I can relax a little and do the fun stuff. 

[guillaumeS]

@Spry I set too many goals for each day in the past. It was hardcore. I did not feel myself enjoying the present time but always thinking to be 100% productive. Now I do things in a different way: 

• I do set goals every week. It helps me define what is important on every Sunday. This list is very important so I write no more than 2 or 3 goals with a time measure, like "Create this website for 5 hours" and "Write a texte for a YouTube video for 5 hours". But those goals - I do achieve them.
• I do also write some checklists for the next day. However it's not a big deal if I don't achieve it on that day. It's more a list of "do it if you have time/no other priority/keep it in mind"

I hope it helps you