Starting With the Man in the Mirror - Jamie's Journal

[ThinkingToadstool]

The realization has been dawning on me lately, how much I've waited for life to bring me things, people, success, and the things that I want. I've been waiting for the life that I want, to be the person that I want, to make more money, but really just passing by opportunities, precious days and years that I could have been making that happen. Turning 30 last year has made me take a good hard look at myself and realize all these things didn't "just happen" in my 20's like somehow I thought they would. When we were young we grew an inch taller and a year older without any effort. But growth as an adult takes daily conscious choices, and they don't "just happen". 

Today I sketched out all the different areas of life that I want to improve in:

1. Fitness
2. Friends
3. Hobbies
4. Work/Career
5. Education
6. Spiritual
7. Organization/Minimalism

It feels overwhelming to look at all seven of them together. Part of me wants to just pick one or two to work on and forget the others, but I think part of life is a balancing act. Some people do just focus on career, but then let their social and creative sides suffer. I don't want to do that. I really want to be a well balanced person. As daunting as it feels right now, I think the best option is simply to learn to balance caring for all these areas of my life. 

I've felt frustrated because I've put on 60 pounds over the past 6 years when I moved to a new city, and I haven't really made a group of friends since coming here. My hobbies are undefined and long-neglected so I have nothing to passionately talk about in social conversations. I still haven't finished my degree and I procrastinate at work. I believe in God but I feel like I have a lot of unanswered questions that I'm just not taking the time to wrestle through. I feel burdened by having a lot of stuff, and not always making time for housecleaning and adult stuff like budgeting and paying bills. 

This move to a new city has been really good on many accounts, but also hard. I've been wanting to blame the hard things, like how a job change and awkwardly forced friendships made me start emotionally eating, and zapped me of energy for my hobbies and finishing my degree. That my weird, ultra-conservative past really messed me up in knowing how to have any kind of faith for myself. That I just don't have time to work and do all the adult things I need to do. But I've been realizing that the only thing standing in between me and the life I really want to have is... me. As the Michael Jackson song says, "I'm starting with the man in the mirror, I'm asking him to change his ways."

This is why I'm here. While I don't want to overwhelm myself with "to-do's" in all these 7 areas, I've found forums a helpful place to converse, gain feedback, and give encouragement in ways that keep me more mindful of my goals. I hope to journal my experience here and learn from others. 

Edited June 19, 2018 by ThinkingToadstool

[ThinkingToadstool]

I haven't spent too much time the past two days thinking about my goals. Mostly because I'm getting ready to go on vacation, and I had a really crazy night where I didn't sleep so my brain is so foggy and sleepy. But this is what tends to happen: I get all psyched out about change, but it's almost like I don't know what to do on a regular basis to get them done. And that's the other thing, at the end of a workday, I have from basically 5:30pm to 10pm to work on these different areas of my life. I don't know where the time goes, but I feels like there's never enough time. 

However, this is why I'm journaling here - I want to create a time and place where I can call myself back to thinking about how I'm progressing in these areas.

I was able to sketch out goals for all the areas of life I"m seeking improvement, and what I can be doing on a daily/weekly basis to make progress in them

1. Fitness
   • GOAL: Comfortably wear the clothes I still have in my Skinny Box (60 pounds ago)
   • HABITS: Every other day power walk for 25 minutes, and plank for 30-60 seconds
2. Friends
   • GOAL: Make high-value friendships
   • HABITS: Go to "ABC" groups of people my age, start a bi-weekly mixer, talk to people wherever I go
3. Hobbies
   • GOAL: Have a creative outlet
   • HABITS: Take time for composing music/writing essays on the weekends
4. Work/Career
   • GOAL: Work well, 20-25 hours a week
   • HABITS: Face my fears behind procrastination on projects
5. Education
   • GOAL: Finish degree
   • HABITS: Study for 1-2 hours a day, even on weekends
6. Spiritual
   • GOAL: Come to terms with God and my past
   • HABITS: Make time for thinking about/processing these things
7. Organization/Minimalism
   • GOAL: Stay on top of personal tasks (budgeting, laundry, cleaning, etc)
   • HABITS: Do one cleaning/organizing, one admin every evening

Reading through these, I realize some of the habits are too generic to be easily executed. I will keep working on them. I don't really like the word "habits", as it's more of the way in which I can accomplish the goal, but I can't think of any other word right now. 

It's nice to have a sketch of the kinds of things I can do to accomplish my goals. I'll have to learn how to balance my time, and what can be done how often, so that the evenings and weekends still feel restful, but they are also productive. 

I've already noticed how much time I can spend on social media, and how that sucks up my time and brain power for actually doing things that help me toward my goals. I've pretty much stopped watching TV. Plus it's summer and there's nothing more that make me feel like a loser than it being a beautiful day outside and I'm inside watching TV. 

[ThinkingToadstool]

Update on Work/Career: I feel like today was a pretty good day of quality work hours, considering the hours I worked. I tend to let myself get distracted during work, and do other things not work related, and so then I don't always get projects done in a timely manner, or as soon as I could have. I'm getting ready to go on vacation so I had some pressing things to wrap up. It always helps me when I can closely feel how things will "fall apart" if I don't act. I will have a few more things to wrap up tomorrow, so I'm hoping to get some quality work in there as well. 

I will be on vacation for a while so a lot of these areas that I'm seeking growth in, will not be part of my daily life. However, I'm planning to make time to read and do some nonfiction writing and spend deliberate time working on my spiritual questions. Also, I want to continue with my fitness goals such as planking, and some morning/daily yoga. So for the next few weeks, my daily goals will be: 

1. Spiritual - meditation, seeking to come to terms with my questions
2. Fitness - challenge myself in planking, and flexibility yoga
3. Hobbies - write an essay

[searchingserenity]

1 hour ago, ThinkingToadstool said:

Update on Work/Career: I feel like today was a pretty good day of quality work hours, considering the hours I worked. I tend to let myself get distracted during work, and do other things not work related, and so then I don't always get projects done in a timely manner, or as soon as I could have. I'm getting ready to go on vacation so I had some pressing things to wrap up. It always helps me when I can closely feel how things will "fall apart" if I don't act. I will have a few more things to wrap up tomorrow, so I'm hoping to get some quality work in there as well. 

I will be on vacation for a while so a lot of these areas that I'm seeking growth in, will not be part of my daily life. However, I'm planning to make time to read and do some nonfiction writing and spend deliberate time working on my spiritual questions. Also, I want to continue with my fitness goals such as planking, and some morning/daily yoga. So for the next few weeks, my daily goals will be: 

1. Spiritual - meditation, seeking to come to terms with my questions
2. Fitness - challenge myself in planking, and flexibility yoga
3. Hobbies - write an essay

Well, all the best!

I've found though sometimes that asking the questions and leaving them be can bring the answers faster than thinking and trying to understand it all through self-searching. Though it won't apply to all situations. Look forward to seeing your progress!