Tag Archives: motivation

Nothing normal about the new normal

I’ve been camping out at my oldest daughter’s place in Victoria while my wife and other daughter are home. I’ve loved the daily walks we have gone on, and we’ve been watching Prime Video together in the evenings, enjoying ‘Hunters’ – a fictional series about a group of Nazi hunters in the late 70’s. These two activities add up to about 3 hours of my day… The rest of it has been a blur. Recovering from a broken knee and a shoulder injury has left me feeling very limited about what I can do for exercise besides go for long walks, with a cane, which just makes me feel old.

I’ve taken some more time to write than I normally do. I’ve spent way too much time following the news and stats of the Coronavirus, and I’ve more than doubled my social media time on my phone. I’ve also been thinking a lot about work and have had a number of emails and calls related to “continuity of educational opportunities” that will continue, even with our schools closed to students. Like most people, I have more questions than answers.

What this all adds up to is a very unusual schedule, where I have no idea what normal feels like? Today I slept in. I usually write this before 6am, and right now it’s after 1pm. The only thing on my agenda after this is a walk on my own, listening to my audio book, and a walk with my daughter around sunset. I don’t have the motivation to do more, and yet I’m already getting restless and know that I have to give myself some projects to work on. I’ve got a neglected newsletter and podcast that I might bring back. I might do some writing beyond this daily-ink. I might nap.

No matter how I look at things right now, there is nothing normal about what my day will look like until March break ends. Even then I don’t think I will have any kind of normalcy to my life… but the ‘normal’ of the past few days has to change soon because I’ve never really done ‘nothing much’ well as a major pastime. The new normal after the March break is still filled with unknowns and will include a drastically different schedule than before this global pandemic changed all of our lives.

What have you been doing to spend time well during this social distancing experience?

daily-ink-weekend-ideas

Be the designer of your world and not merely a consumer of it

I love this quote by James Clear in his book Atomic Habits. While I’m not big on platitudes, I think this invites more thought and conversation:

“Be the designer of your world and not merely a consumer of it.” ~ James Clear

How many times in a day are we faced with a decision where we passively acquiesce and do what is expected or what is easy rather than taking control and making a choice? The potato chips are easy to grab; The second last attempt on the last set of a workout suddenly becomes the last attempt; The rude person at work says something inappropriate, but you let it slide; The student who knows the answer but doesn’t raise their hand; The 5 minute check of social media becomes 25 minutes of scrolling; the ‘Next Episode’ counts down on Netflix and you let it start.

How many moments are there in a day that can be chosen rather than consumed ‘as usual’? We are the designers of our lives… or at least we should be.

Slowly by slowly

In an email correspondence, my cousin, Lee, reminded me of a post I wrote in China, Slowly by Slowly. In the post, I quoted Rob Giebitz who “first heard this phrase from our Chinese production manager“. Rob went on to say:

“Those odd sounding phrases that often amuse the native English speaker, those Chinglish phrases, may offer a key to understanding our host culture. “Slowly by slowly” may carry some meaning absent from the more familiar “little by little” or “step by step” that a native English speaker would use. “Little” indicates size or quantity, “step” implies distance; “slowly” brings our attention to the element of time.”

As I mentioned Tuesday, I broke my patella. I got in to see an orthopaedic surgeon and he gave me good news. Luckily, the break was the ‘right way’ (vertically on the bone) and I can start putting weight on my leg right away. It’s still very swollen, sore, and stiff, but it could have been a lot worse.

So now comes a 4-6 week recovery. It will go slowly by slowly. This will be tough. I’ve been doing 5 or more cardio workouts a week since the start of the year, but now I can’t run or ride for a while. I’m also still doing Physio exercises to strengthen an injured shoulder that’s recovering well. So, I have to be careful with upper body workouts too.

What will my fitness regimen look like? I’m not sure? I was too achy this morning and still want to get into work today, so icing and elevating is my workout after an unsettled sleep. But I’ll be up early tomorrow, I’ll hobble down the stairs and figure it out. Sometimes we have to accept that slowly by slowly is the best approach, and save the sprints for another time.

Fear can paralyze

Imagine being legally blind, able only to see shadows in your peripheral vision. Now imagine needing to endure 10 rounds of fighting a new fresh black belt fighter, for consecutive 3 minutes rounds, to earn your black belt… Richard Turner did this. However I didn’t learn about Richard through his martial arts skills, but rather from his skills as a card mechanic… a close up card magician.

Here is where I first saw him, on Penn & Teller’s show ‘Fool Us’, where top notch magicians try to earn a performance spot in Penn & Teller’s live Vegas show. How do they earn this spot? They must do a trick that confounds Penn & Teller, and they are hard to fool!

Richard fooled them faster than anyone, and Teller was motioning to give him the trophy before he finished his trick.

I recently listened to Richard Turner — The Magical Phenom Who Will Blow Your Mind (#411) on the Tim Ferriss Podcast

Here is what Richard said at about the 1hr, 13min mark of the podcast (including opening commercials). I’m not adding anything beyond this quote, it’s brilliant and stands on its own!

“Fear can paralyze. We can be so worried about doing the wrong thing, that we do nothing.
There’s actually an English proverb that says, ‘A man who is afraid to make a mistake is unlikely to make anything… Fear of failure, when left unchecked, can actually lead to the failure we fear.” ~ Richard Turner

Breaking the streak… and starting a new one.

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!

Speed bumps are not road block

For over a week now, I’ve been dealing with a minor shoulder injury. I’m not sure how I got it, but I think shovelling snow and wide grip chin-ups were a bad combination, and I’ve pinched a nerve. Mentally it has been tough because I can’t help but think that this would have been an injury that would have lingered for 3 days if I were in my 20’s, but it has bugged me now for over a week. This “I’m no spring chicken anymore” attitude isn’t great, but I can’t help but think it when even trying to put my coat on makes me feel old.

However, in previous years, this injury would have brought my workouts to a standstill. I would have taken a break from my routine. Instead, I’m sticking to my Healthy Living Goals. In this 2019 year-end post, is a tip that I shared which I’m sticking to. This tip is to ‘reduce friction’, and a key point is:

Don’t exercise at your maximum every day. Some days I push really hard, and some days I go at 75%. A day when you are feeling low, give yourself an effort break, but don’t give yourself a break from actually doing exercise.

I haven’t been able to get on the treadmill because the bouncing causes my shoulder to ache, so I’m getting on the exercise bike. While I love mountain biking, I’ve never loved riding on a stationary bike, and so this isn’t my favourite thing to do. Still, today will be my 8th time on the bike in 9 days. I’m not winning any speed records, I am getting my heart rate up, and getting my minimum 20 minute cardio workout in.

I’ve also stopped weights and chin-ups, but I still stretch and work on my core. My workouts are a bit shorter, but they haven’t stopped.

The simple fact is that an injury like this used to become a major roadblock to my regular routine. It used to break the pattern and I’d stop working out. Instead, I’ve looked at this as a minor speed bump. Yes, it has slowed me down. No, I’m not improving my strength and conditioning. I am maintaining my healthy living routines and my streaks (another important tip from my year-end post).

I’m also trying to stay positive and stop myself from experiencing the “I’m getting old” self-pity party, but it’s easier for me to go through the positive physical motions than the mental ones… And on that note, it’s almost 5:30am, time to meditate and then get in that exercise bike. Remember, we are going to hit speed bumps on our healthy living journey, and while we need to listen to our body and slow down, we don’t need to stop.

Kids do well if they can

I love this video by Ross Greene:

Moving from ‘kids do well if they wanna’ to ‘kids do well if they can’ is a significant change in philosophy. I like that Ross admits that this philosophy is “a lot harder and… more productive”.

It’s easy to blame a kid who doesn’t want to do school work. It’s hard to figure out what’s getting in the way of their learning. But which of these models provides the most reward, for the student and the educator?

I know there are students who are really hard to figure out. I know there are students who refuse to accept help. I know there are educators willing to bend over backwards to support kids who still opt out. But if you believe they will do well if they can, then you are still in a better mindset to find a way to support a student than you would be believing they just don’t want to do the work.

Kids do well if they can.

Not-so-motivational quotes

I saw this ‘motivational quote’ on Twitter this morning,

STRIVE
for what you
BELIEVE IN
and you will
GET THERE
in no time

What a dumb load of crap! There are many things to strive for that, no matter how hard you strive, will take a long time to get to. Striving doesn’t make the target magically get closer. Striving needs to happen on those days when the target seems farther away, when things aren’t going in your favour, and when others believe you can’t do it. Believing you’ll get there ‘in no time’ is discouraging when things are going slowly despite your efforts.

Here is another one:

You have to learn the rules of the game. And then you have to play better than anyone else.

Wow, I had no idea it was that simple! 🤣

This on actually sends the wrong message about success:

There are two rules for success…

1. Never reveal everything you know

The most successful people I know have been overly generous in their sharing.

This is just a little rant about some of the not-so-motivational quotes that seem to circulate on social media, disguising themselves as useful content. Posterized words on images meant to inspire, but not on target, littering my social media timelines. I’m just surprised how many I’ve been seeing lately.

The paradox of increasing effort

If your motivation is low, and you are not accomplishing what you need to do, then more effort would probably improve productivity.

If you aren’t trying very hard, then increasing your effort can make things better. There are definitely times when we can put more effort in and work harder.

But more effort does not always mean better:

  • Athletes pushing themselves to their maximum could actually increase their speed by relaxing, rather than pushing even harder and tensing up.
  • Someone trying to meditate will not improve their mental state by working harder to relax.
  • Concentration can be derailed by more effort to concentrate.

If effort is low, increasing effort has great value. If effort is high, there is a diminishing return in adding more effort. And at a certain point greater effort can be detrimental. Sometimes ‘try harder’ should be rephrased to ‘try smarter’. We don’t always need more effort, we need the wisdom to know that effort alone has limits.

It is interesting that when someone is exceptionally good at a skill, they make that skill look effortless. I think this happens only after they have discovered that the work and effort has already been put into training, and maximum effort is no longer needed.

Motivational Speakers

Have you ever heard the term, ‘knowing is half the battle’? What a load of crap!

How many people know that:

• Smoking is bad for you.

• Eating poorly can lead to health issues.

• A sedentary lifestyle will take years off of your life.

• Focussing on negative thoughts will reduce your happiness.

How many people:

• Stay in dead end jobs that they hate?

• Remain in unhealthy or abusive relationships?

• Choose to self medicate with elicit or even prescribed drugs?

Most people that do these things, on some level, are ‘in the know’, and that is certainly not ‘half the battle’. I love this quote Derek Sivers, shared on the Tim Ferriss podcast:

“If information was the answer, then we’d all be billionaires with perfect abs.”

Knowing that you need to change is the first step in the process of actually changing. ‘Knowing’ is the compass that points you towards the battle, as opposed to being half of the battle. Once you have the direction you want to go, then the key thing that needs to happen is taking action towards that change.

Recently I’ve seen a lot of platitudes on Twitter and Facebook, as well as in searches for memes when looking for images to add to these Daily Ink posts. Words of wisdom and encouragement that I’m prone to sharing too. They sound nice. They feel good. They tell you that you are special, ‘You can do it!’, believe in yourself. These are wonderful words of inspiration, but there is nothing actionable about them.

They remind me of Matt Foley in his Saturday Night Live skit, ‘Go for it!‘, where he plays a motivational speaker who essentially says, change your life or you’ll end up just like me, “living in a van down by the river”! While most platitudes and words of wisdom and inspiration do not fall under the category of ‘change or you’ll end up being a loser like me’ they are similar in that they don’t really do more than provide encouragement.

A favourite quote of mine comes from John Grinder and Richard Bandler, the founders of NLP – Neuro Linguistic Programming, “What is the difference that makes the difference?” This goes beyond platitudes because it identifies what can be done differently in order to change behaviour. It’s the ‘it’ in ‘You can do it’. It’s actionable.

There are some pretty amazing motivational people out there that understand what it takes to change behaviour in people for the better, and there are also a lot of motivational speakers who understand inspiration but don’t meaningfully inspire perspiration – the work needed to actually change… and to me, this is the difference that makes a difference.