Tag Archives: meditation

Healthy Living Goals – 2025 Reflection

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It’s that time of year again where I go to my big tracking calendar and add up my totals for the year.

Once again I was very consistent with my workouts and meditation, and I’ve yet again maintained my daily writing for another year. I’ll break a few things down as I reflect on the year.

Workouts: After taking a look at my 2024 calendar, I realize that I haven’t missed 2 days in a row in over 2 years. This year I was a little less strict in my definition of a workout, sometimes only doing 15 minutes of cardio, and sometimes not doing both weights and cardio, but still committing to a workout 326/365 days in 2025.

In my 2024 post I said regarding one of two goals, “Gain 7-8 pounds of muscle… Now I fluctuate around 167-169 pounds and would like to bring that to 175 pounds.”

For the last couple weeks I’ve been bouncing around 173-175 but I hit 178 a couple months ago and I’ll get back there after the holiday break. So, I totally achieved this goal, and couldn’t be happier. For 2026 I hope to be in the 183-185 range. I think this is a huge challenge, my body seems to like the 174-176 range and I’ll have to work more on a consistent diet rather than just focusing on weights and training.

Meditation: This is something I need to improve. While statistically I did well with frequency of meditations, about 85-90% of these were done when walking on my treadmill. Although I listened to a guided meditation, I was almost always distracted and allowed my monkey brain to wander instead of truly meditating.

I’m actually not going to try to change this at all in the next 6 months, but once I retire I’ll attempt to meditate for longer, and be more dedicated to meditation. This will include a more formal setup and a setting other than on the treadmill. For now I’ll stick with the status quo.

Daily-Ink: I’ll continue to write every single day for 2026. This started in July 2019, and I have no plans to change this in the short term.

Creativity: This was a failed goal but I’m still happy to track it. I wanted this to increase, but it decreased. Essentially, the only thing I tracked this year was meetings with my uncle where we discuss our Book of Codes project and just as importantly, life, the universe, and everything. Again, I’ll have new goals after retirement, but for now I’m in maintenance mode and just want to keep going as-is.

So, my main goals this year are calorie tracking and building muscle mass. I only want to get to 185lbs, this isn’t a plan to keep gaining weight after that. I actually like the weight I’m at right now, but at 58 with a not-so-great back, I realize that I’m one injury away from having to take a few months off and potentially dropping 8-10 pounds. Hopefully such an incident is a couple decades away, but even if it’s only 5 years away I’m keenly aware that I will have a much harder time regaining weight in my older years. So if I can sit at 185lbs as my normal weight, I know that I likely won’t drop below 175… which again is a weight I’m quite happy to be at.

185lbs by the end of 2026 is my goal, and to get there I will focus on hypertrophy in the gym and a higher protein and calorie intake than I have normally consumed.

Fitness, meditation, and writing are things I no longer need to track to ensure that I’m on track. For this reason, I think I might be retiring my large calendar and stickers. I recently got a Garmin watch with Lifestyle Tracking and I’ll still record these daily, but it’s time to put an end to the calendar. It has served me well but having joined a gym, I no longer go to my basement every day and tracking this month has been less diligent since I could go a full week without adding stickers. That said, if you are starting a new goal, I can’t recommend this strategy enough.

2026 is going to be a great year of continued progress… Gradual at first, but picking up speed after my mid-year retirement.

Hold on to the good weather

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I had a summer ritual of sitting for 10 minutes in the morning sun over the summer. Shirt off, eyes closed, listening to a meditation. Today I went in the hot tub after my morning walk and then the sun came out from behind the clouds.

I paused and took full advantage. The sun won’t be up and warm enough in the morning much longer as we head into fall, so I’ve got to take every opportunity I’ve got. I’m going to eke out these sunny morning moments before the fall rains come.

I’m also going to keep finding joy in the little things, like holding on to the good weather while we’ve got it.

Nature bathing

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We have a small ravine behind our school. There is a well kept trail through this tiny piece of nature surrounded by a school, industrial buildings and residential complexes. Yesterday after work I went for a walk around the very short trail. After 12+ years in this building I’m realizing how rarely I visit this space. I have a little piece of nature nestled right against my school and I almost never take advantage of it.

There is power in nature bathing, in surrounding yourself in trees and getting away from the noise of the city. Getting away from the digital calendar, and email, meetings, and all those ‘other duties as assigned’.

Don’t believe me? Just turn up the volume and listen to this recording for 20 seconds.

Did you hear the birds or just the water? Listen again. Think about what 5 minutes of this could do for your day.

I’m going to find myself on this trail a little more frequently in the last few weeks of school.

Meditation Journey

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I’ve been struggling to meditate recently. This is a cycle I go though, and I know it’s because I’ve never really and truly gotten into a meditative state. I intellectually understand that this is a journey that I’m on, and it’s the act of returning my attention to my breath or my point of focus that is the path. I understand that I have to be accepting of the journey I’m on, and to be open to the process.

I get it.

But I also don’t.

I still have yet to reach a state where I am not just redirecting my attention. Sure I’m more forgiving of myself while in the process, and I am quicker to return my attention than I was 4 or 5 years ago… but it’s not so much a meditation exercise as it is an attention exercise.

Every meditation session is a chance for my monkey brain to ‘try to’ quiet down for just a few minutes. That’s a positive thing, it’s not that I’m feeling like I’m wasting my time. I just feel like I’m not moving towards a truly meditative state. Maybe this is it for me? This is as quiet as my brain can get. Or maybe I need a retreat where I push myself for longer than a 15 minute guided meditation?

It just gets a little frustrating because it feels more like I’m on a giant learning plateau rather than a learning journey. It feels like I am working ever so slowly on an attention exercise and I really and truly don’t even know what meditation is? In any event, I’ll keep at it.

The double dip

A few months back I started doing my meditation on my treadmill. It started because I was in a writing slump and my blog post writing was taking too long to write… Not leaving me enough time to do 20-30 minutes of cardio, meditate, and do a full weights workout on one body part before work. So I started to double dip and do my meditation on my treadmill. (Yes, I close my eyes, I hold the handrail and also wear the emergency stop clip… not that I’ve ever needed it.)

I actually find this a great combination. I do a walk with a weighted vest on incline, so holding the rail I’m very stable. I get a really good (Zone 2) workout, it’s not like I’m taking it easy. And I find that with my body busy, I’m better able to focus my mind on the guided meditation. And the bonus is that I’m getting two great things done.

Today I was struggling to write, very distracted, and decided to exercise first. I thought I’d double dip and write while on the exercise bike rather than treadmill, where writing would be awkward. 15 minutes into a 30 minute ride, I realized I wasn’t going to write anything while riding so I put on a 15 minute meditation to get me to the end of my cardio workout.

Five minutes later this post came to mind and I spent the next 10 minutes of my meditation and ride bringing my thoughts back to the meditation and away from writing this in my head. Essentially I made the meditation almost impossible to focus on.

This is the first time in a couple years that I’ve tried to meditate before writing, and I totally remember now why I do them in the order I do them. I can’t meditate knowing that I still have to write. I need the sense of accomplishment of my post to help clear my mind for meditation.

Essentially, I can only double dip in the right order, with a physical and a mental activity, but there is no triple dipping! Nor is there double dipping of two mental activities. I’m the poster boy of ‘there’s no such thing as multitasking’. For me meditation while I’ve got a blog post to write is an invitation to completely ignore meditation, or to inconveniently and ineffectively task swap so that I do neither task well.

Write first, then double dip exercise and meditation. That’s my lesson for the morning.

Holidays and routines

Exercise, writing, meditation, diet… even vitamins… my schedule and routines are completely out of whack, and I’m feeling the struggle. I don’t mind a few days off, but I’ve been off of a regular schedule for over a month now and it’s getting to me. My back is achy, I have less energy, and I’m not sleeping well.

I often talk about this, and I get comments like, ‘Don’t be so hard on yourself.’ But the reality is that it’s not about me beating myself up or not giving myself a break. Rather it’s that I get huge benefits out of maintaining my routines, and I am not as energetic and vital when I let things slip.

Furthermore, when I lose my routines on holidays, I spiral a bit and end up missing things that are well within my ability to schedule. For example, I’ve only meditated twice in the last week, but I’ve definitely had at least 10 if not 20 minutes each day that I could have used to meditate. Also, I’m writing this when I should already be sleeping.

So, once again I’m sharing my complaints, but neither for sympathy nor for comments about not being so hard on myself. Rather I’m sharing because outwardly discussing this, putting it ‘out there’ is a way I hold myself accountable. And so I’m just saying that I need to do better… and tomorrow I’ll make things better.

This is my way of manifesting the behaviours I want for myself. And I’ll feel better both physically and mentally.

Leave a little undone

Student leaders at my school planned a movie night and I ended up leaving school a little after 9pm last night. After I got home I decided to have a hot tub. With headphones on I slowly submerged myself, got comfortable, and put on some focus music on my meditation app. Why focus music? I was planning to do a meditation, but I was too tired and decided to reflect on the week rather than meditating, or listening to a podcast or to my book. I thought about a couple exchanges I had this week. One was feedback from a student. I love being in a school where students can give me candid feedback. In fact, we discussed radical candour and I have to say that the feedback he gave was very insightful. The other reflection is one I won’t share, because it would be too easy for the people involved to know that I was talking about them, and it’s not appropriate for me to share. 

That second reflection came shortly after I restarted my hot tub (after the 20 minute auto shut off). I thought I was going to sit for another round, but minutes later I felt too hot and that I was done. Yet, there I was pushing myself to stay in a bit longer. That’s when I realized that I was battling myself for no good reason. I was done, but I had just restarted the hot tub, and in my head it was my ‘duty’ to stay in it longer. This of course is a ridiculous thing to think, but I thought it. Then I reflected on how often we do this to ourselves.

We push to finish… almost everything.

  • Crappy movie? Watch it all anyway. Why? Maybe it will get better? Or ‘I’ve invested this much time, may as well see it through to the end’.
  • Eating a meal? I’m stuffed but there are still 4 more bites… May as well finish my plate. Or, ‘I don’t really want fries, but it was part of the meal deal, so may as well eat them’. 
  • An online survey. A game of solitaire when you know you aren’t going to win. A boring book. A career. A course you thought would be interested, but turns out to be boring and unfulfilling. 

There are a lot of quotes and adages about sticking with something, showing grit and fortitude, and not being a quitter… but there is a difference between quitting or giving up, and being smart about recognizing when something is no longer benefiting you. This is especially true for things where the only person expecting you to finish is you. Why force yourself to finish a book that you know you’ll end up being disappointed reading? Why stuff yourself with those last 4 bites? Sometimes we need to give ourselves permission to leave a little bit undone.

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As an aside, the Northern Lights were out last night like I’ve never seen them before. (See my Facebook post.)

Missing silence

There are two things that make me feel old. One is my back, it aches in the morning and reminds me that I’m not young. It cautions me not to do any physical activities without warming up. It feels older than I feel. The other thing that makes me feel old is my hearing. First of all, I don’t have the range I used to, for example, I can’t hear the tones my fireplace makes when it is turned on and off. I can stand right by it, with my ear almost against it and I hear nothing to the surprise of my wife and daughter who ask, “How can you not hear that?”

But this is something I’m actually ignorant to, other than when I’m told to lower the TV. Although subtitles are always on for me, so I often don’t realize how much I rely on them compared to not having them and struggling. What really makes me feel old with respect to my hearing is my tinnitus, a constant tone that I hear all the time. Most days I can ignore it for long parts of the day. It sort of disappears and the sounds of activity around me drown it out. But when it’s quiet, like right now when everyone is in bed and it’s just me up clicking away on a laptop, this is when it really bugs me.

I don’t get to experience silence anymore. I miss it.

I miss it now, in the morning quiet of the house. I miss it at night when I’m trying to fall asleep. I miss it after a snowfall and the snow muffles all other sounds. I miss it when I’m trying to meditate and it distracts me and becomes the focus of my attention.

We don’t often appreciate what we have until we miss it. I miss silence.

Creativity struggle

The one place in my life right now that I seem to be struggling is with being creative. I can find time for everything I need to do… except when I want to do something creative. This includes writing. It doesn’t seem to be about time, it seems to be more about focus.

I can put my head down and get to work. I can push myself on the treadmill or exercise bike. I’m struggling a bit to work out hard for strength exercises, but I still do them. I’m home a good amount of time now after a lot of late nights at work to start the school year, and I have been sticking to my routines that I’ve created.

But I can’t seem to focus on listening to books or podcasts. I can’t sit and start any creative tasks, and I find myself easily distracted any time I have down time. Normally blog post ideas come at me and I throw them into a note on my phone, or I see something interesting and my mind starts making connections to new ideas. Normally, but not right now. Now I’m in a bit of a creative slump. I’ll keep my routines that are working. I’ll try to get more sleep, since I tend to not get enough, and I won’t try to add anything new to my plate. I think I’ve got enough going on.

The one thing that seems to be working well right now is a new meditation app called Balance. So I’ll continue to meditate, exercise, and of course write something daily, all while being grateful for the things going well right now. I don’t know what to do differently to spark my creative juices, so I won’t stir things up, I’ll just be patient. It’s hard to come up with creative ways to be more creative when you aren’t feeling creative.

A quiet mind

While we don’t sit in silence very often (yesterday’s post and one from 2022), we also don’t sit with a quiet mind. Our ‘To Do’ list, obligations, and plans fill our mind with things in the future rather than the present.

The idea of stillness eludes us even when it’s quiet. The notion that we are fully present escapes us. A happy experience? Let’s take a photo to remember it. A pretty sky? Let’s take a video. A beautiful walk? Let’s plan our next meal. We seldom stay in the moment.

Maybe it’s just me and my monkey brain. My brain that tries to meditate and spends its time wandering. I want to wonder but I wander. I want to be quiet and still but I fidget internally as well as externally.

I want the gift, the present, of being present. I seek the now and not the future… Not the thoughts of what’s next, what I must still do, and what I should or should not say to someone not currently with me. Imagining future conversations, or worse, past conversations and how they could have been better.

A quiet mind is not an empty mind, it’s a mind focused and aware of the now. It is not in the past or the future, it is in the presence of the present. I will meditate after writing this. Meditation must come after writing or I’m even less present as I think of what I’m going to write. Even then, my mind will drift, I will accept it and understand that refocusing is part of the process, it actually is the process. But I long for the quiet, the stillness, the moments where I’m fully present.

Perhaps it’s that very longing that prevents me from getting there. The desire to be more present is a desire and want of something not in the the present and thus something I can not seek without being less present. It’s the paradox of letting go: the more you try to let go, the more you are holding on to something… the less still your mind is.