Writing is my artistic expression. My keyboard is my brush. Words are my medium. My blog is my canvas. And committing to writing daily makes me feel like an artist.
I’m listening to music, slouched on a couch, in the living room I’ve barely left after running an errand with my daughter early this morning. I’ve dabbled in social media, eaten too much chocolate, and had to change couches to reach the phone charger. My only other task was changing a part in my coffeemaker that went faster than expected.
I’m now done with social media and will probably ignore the dense informational book I’ve been listening to and will download something fictional instead. I think I’ll take a day off exercise and just sit in the hot tub instead, if I can muster the effort to go upstairs and change. I’m doing my daily write. I’ll meditate. Maybe I’ll watch Matrix Reloaded, even though I’m not on my exercise bike. I’ll talk my wife into ordering in dinner.
It’s Saturday after the first full week back to school. I exercised the first 8 days of the new year. I struggled getting enough sleep. Some days you just need to give yourself permission to flake out.
I’ve been reevaluating my healthy living goals over this holiday break. I’ve realized that I don’t need to track a few things that I was tracking on my healthy living chart.
The yellow sticker was originally for 20 minutes minimum reading (listening to books, not podcasts), and/or writing, which I didn’t do much of until the middle of 2019, when I started writing here daily. I don’t think I’ve missed a day of writing since, and I listed to 33 books this year. So, mission accomplished… and such a regular part of my day now that I really don’t need a sticker to track this behaviour.
Also, I started tracking intermittent fasting in 2019, and continued this year. I needed at least a 14 hour gap to earn a sticker. My original goal was 5 days a week with breaks on Friday and Saturday nights when I might have snacks or drinks after dinner. I think this is really healthy but I’ve been pushing myself on my morning workouts and actually struggling to keep weight on, after years of having too much weight on me. I am now my university weight and fitter than I’ve been in about 25 years. But I struggled once we hit September to go 14 hours on most days, and while I’d get close, tracking it seems moot, because I often felt self care was not the objective of holding off on getting some food in me and feeling strong.
My other stickers are exercise and meditation. I usually worked out 5 days a week, and I know that many weeks this year, when I missed 2 workouts early on, the lack of stickers that week really motivated me to exercise daily and keep going. So this sticker reward and tracking is really working for me.
For meditation, I have been doing 10 min. guided daily, and almost have a perfect record. There are some days when I would take too long writing and do a rushed workout and forget to meditate later, having skipped my morning routine. On this break, where I’m not getting up between 5 and 5:30am, I’ve remembered to meditate after 11pm on 3 different days. I think next year I’m going to try to meditate twice daily, once guided in the morning and once silently later in the day (at least 4 days a week). Then I’ll give myself a sticker for each, so I can contrast the amount of times I meditated twice, while also tracking if I skip both on a given day.
So where am I right now with my 2021 healthy living motivation chart?
Red: Workouts (continued)
Blue: Meditation (1 or 2 stickers)
Yellow: A writing goal that I haven’t figured out yet?
Green: I don’t know yet?
Starting this chart 2 years ago has been significant in me being able to create a healthy lifestyle that I’ve been able to monitor and maintain. It’s not a light choice to make, it’s a year of dedication with significant rewards to my personal health and mental well-being. So, over the next few days, I’ll have to solidify my last two targets… and there you have it, writing this has given me something new to track… archery. Now I just need to make my writing and archery goals specific and I’ll be all set for the new year!
I don’t know too many people that have truly found balance in their lives. Time always seems to be in short supply, and there has always been more to do. Sometimes we need to make trade-offs, we need to prioritize what we really want to do, and be willing to give up on other things we don’t value as much.
I’m now approaching 2 years of keeping track of my fitness, reading and writing, meditation, and intermittent fasting tracking. It was another great year of meeting my healthy living goals… but it didn’t come without trade offs.
I got into archery a few years ago, but I haven’t shot an arrow in a year and a half, other than one visit to a friend up north, and we shot recurve, rather than my compound bow. I am pulling my bow out in a couple days, and while I’m excited to shoot again, I don’t have set plans to keep shooting after the holidays, because I’m not sure I can fit regular archery time into my schedule.
I have barely written on my Pair-A-Dimes blog, and did not start podcasting regularly as I hoped I would. But I’ve written here on my Daily-Ink every day since July, 2019. I’m wondering if I can give up some weekend time to podcast, because I really enjoy the learning conversations that I have.
Over the coming days, I’m going to reevaluate my healthy living goals and do another year-end reflection. However, I find myself wanting to add new goals and not take any old goals away. I find myself wanting to do more rather than making trade offs: Keeping all my previous goals AND write more, AND podcast, AND do archery, AND…
The reality is that I can’t do it all. There needs to be trade offs, there needs to be sacrifices, or my goals will be nothing more than wishful thinking… And I’ve made too much progress in reaching my goals the past two years to undermine the next year with too much on my plate.
Since downloading Audible, I’ve listened to so many books that I never would have gotten to. I’ve fallen back in love with fiction. I’ve ‘read’ some classics I’ve always wanted to. And I’ve enjoyed listening rather than looking at words in a book after spending a fair bit of time in my day reading words on a screen.
I used the term ‘read’ rather than ‘listened to’ above because I consider listening to a book the same as reading it. I have consumed the book for my enjoyment. I don’t think the format matters that much… other than the fact that had I not listened, I never would have gotten to read it.
I can’t read a paper book on my treadmill or row machine, and don’t enjoy trying to read one on exercise bike. I can’t read a paper book while I drive. I can’t read a paper book while cooking dinner. Audio books have opened up windows of reading time I would never had had otherwise.
I also listen to podcasts, but books have become my favourite form of audio. The performances are getting better too. Books are coming out with multiple voices, rather than just one, and some books just sound so good in the author’s voice, with emphasis put where the author intended it to be placed.
I’ve read over 50 audio books in the last 2 years. In the two years before I started reading audiobooks, I probably read 8-10 books. Audiobooks have made me a lover of reading again.
I’m not behind where I should be or need to be. I don’t have someone I should be comparing myself to, other then me yesterday and me before that.
I don’t need to feel behind, feel I’m not where I should be, feel I’ll never be fit enough.
I’m fit, not just fit for 52.
I need to feel that I’m committed to getting better. I need to feel that incremental improvements are not just good enough, they are my goal. I need to feel good about where I am now, and where I’m going.
I don’t have a marathon to run, I’m not getting on a court, a playing field, and I’m definitely not entering a ring. I am taking care of a back that aches daily, and needs me to stay limber. I am working on my recovery from a knee injury. I am becoming stronger, fitter, and I’m working on my core to help me age gracefully. I am snacking less, eating more healthy, and taking vitamin supplements that my body needs.
It’s important to have goals. It’s important to care for my future self. But it’s important not to be too hard on my current self about all the ways I could and should be in a better place than I am now.
I don’t need my age, my current abilities and deficits, or somebody else’s progress compared to me to change how I feel about myself right now.
Putting unrealistic expectations on myself doesn’t make the journey enjoyable. I’m fit today. I plan to stay fit. But if I’m realistic I also need to recognize that the fittest me at 72 won’t be as fit as I am now at 52. So while taking care of myself and making small improvements is my current goal, maintainance and healthy living is the ultimate target.
Yes, age is just a construct, but aging is inevitable. The alternative really sucks. Think about it, we aren’t on a journey to any finish line, it’s the journey itself that matters.
I’ve been meditating daily since January 5th, 2019, but yesterday I broke the streak. I’m aware from my use of an app that there might have been a few times I missed my meditation, but I count a meditation after midnight as being on the day before, because it’s still part of my day, and I’ve done that a few times in the past year. Yesterday was an unusually low day for me, and I completely forgot to meditate.
I woke up tired and went to join a friend for breakfast rather than starting my day with my regular routine. After a wonderful breakfast I came home and did nothing other than talk to my dad, eat lunch with my family, and sleep until dinner. I changed to go work out, but never made it. I wrote my Daily-Ink just before dinner sitting on the couch, and after dinner I flaked out on the same couch.
It’s the first Saturday (or any day) in a while that I’ve done so little. I give myself permission to have a low energy day. But I also need to get back to my routines. Yesterday was the first time ever that I didn’t earn a single sticker on my healthy living motivation chart. But as I shared in my year-end reflection of my healthy living goals:
The best time to start a new streak is RIGHT NOW.
Yesterday, I missed my meditation. I skipped my workout for the second day in a row (for the first time this year). And although I did my writing, I didn’t do my reading (audiobook), and this was missed for the first time this year. I also missed my time restricted eating window with my breakfast meeting, but I don’t usually try to do this on weekends anyway.
Today, after hitting publish on this post, I’m headed to meditate and work out, while listening to an audiobook. I might get a second workout and meditation in today as well. I’m not going to overdo it, but I might start my new streak with a bit of an exclamation point.
Permitting myself to have a day like yesterday doesn’t mean I have a new low point to measure myself against. It doesn’t have to give me permission to fall to this kind of low again anytime soon. It was simply a low day, and the inspiration to start a new, long streak. And that streak begins right now!
My commute to work is 15 minutes, including going out of my way to drop my daughter to school. Other than my two years in China, since my wife and I moved to the city we work in 21 years ago, I haven’t commuted to work for longer than 15 minutes. I know this isn’t the norm. Many people must commute much longer than that.
Two days ago my sister came to town and I had to head to the airport and back during rush hour. Yesterday and today I travelled 40+ minutes to UBC to watch my daughter perform at Nationals for synchronized swimming. These trips are giving me a small taste of what many people face on a daily basis, although traffic today was light.
I know some people will always have to commute. A store clerk, a hotel concierge, a teacher, a factory worker, or a hospital doctor or nurse, all need to get to the building they work in.
Does a lawyer need to be in the office every day? An accountant? An architect? The list can go on… How many people commute to a building, travelling for over an hour-and-a-half a day, over 45 minutes each way, to get to a physical location that they don’t need to be at in order to get their job done?
What will the future hold for commuting when this every-day forced travel isn’t deemed necessary? What will happen when work weeks (potentially) move to 4 days a week? Will this reduce travel time, or will continued urbanization and densification of populations make traffic just as bad, even with the reduced number of trips individuals will need to take?
One last question is how automation of travel will change too? Will cars be able to travel more efficiently when they all communicate with each other, and can avoid accidents created by human error?
My guess is that in the coming years commuting days for many will be reduced, but commuting times on average will remain the same or worsen. The global shift towards large urban centres will necessitate that many people will need to live in the more affordable suburbs, where commuting time will be necessary. So maybe we should explore what that time looks like, rather than just trying to shorten it.
I know that I’ve moved away from listening to the radio to listening to podcasts and audio books during commutes and longer drives, I wonder what people will use this time for in the future? Will work start when you enter your self-driving car rather than when you arrive at work? What will the commuting experience look like?
I’ve been craving sugar recently. I keep finding myself drawn to sweet foods and candy. It starts off as a nibble, and once I’ve made the initial break in discipline, then it becomes easy to keep going.
It’s ok to treat yourself, but this seems different. It seems lazy, it seems as though I am not making a choice. The snacks are choosing me.
So now I’m going to have to change that, but I need to frame it properly in my mind. Cutting out all junk food seems like a punishment, a self-imposed restriction that I must endure. But I’m not sure how else to think about it?
Maybe I just need to buy myself some healthy comfort foods. Maybe I should start drinking berry shakes again in the morning, to get some natural sugars in me. This is an example of something delicious and still quite healthy.
I’m not opposed to having a bit of junk food every now and then, but I like having control over the decision. I also like that decision to be about me making good choices, rather than about me avoiding bad ones.
New goals don’t deliver new results. New lifestyles do.
And a lifestyle is not an outcome, it is a process. For this reason, all of your energy should go into building better habits, not chasing better results.~ James Clear, author of Atomic Habits.
Regular fitness, listening to audio books while Iwork out (and instead of the radio in my car), regular writing, time restricted eating, and daily meditation… these are lifestyle choices I made, I track daily, and I hold myself accountable to.
This year I made lifestyle choices that have made me feel so much better about myself.
Result: I have more of myself to offer to others, family and work. Sure, I still feel overwhelmed at times, and I still feel like I’ve got more on my plate than I can handle, but I also feel more resilient and up for the challenge.
Lifestyle is a process, not an outcome, and I’m working on that process daily. As I approach my one-year anniversary of tracking these things, I now need to reexamine my process. What am I now doing regardless of my tracking, that is now habit, and what do I need to track more closely to ensure I’m refining the process, and my habits, to make my lifestyle even richer and more rewarding?
