Tag Archives: reflection

Documenting progress through journaling

When I restarted archery last December, I was told by my coach that I should be journaling after each practice. I don’t know why, but I decided that I’d do this using pen and paper. So when I come home from practice, I open my paper notebook and I reflect and journal. Then I take a photo of this and add it to an archery album on my phone, where I also add photos of my score cards.

At Inquiry Hub we are always telling students to document their journey. For some this is a natural thing that they do, for others it’s a challenge. I remember doing a presentation at a local conference, and I took along a few soon-to-be grads from our first year with iHub grads. An educator asked one of the grads, ‘What would you tell your younger self if you were to start back at Inquiry Hub all over again. (A great question.) One of my grads said, without missing a beat. “Oh that’s easy, I’d say, ‘document, document, document’.”

This student and his twin brother had done some amazing inquiries, however they didn’t journal along the way nearly as much as they should have. For example they assembled a very finicky 3D printer, and watched many amateur user videos to trouble shoot, but they didn’t make their own videos when they came up with clever fixes and hacks. Graduating and looking back, they could see what they missed out on.

Students can learn so much from regularly reflecting on both successes and failures. So too can adults. My journal today didn’t look at the frustration I had tuning my new bow. Instead I capitalized on the idea that, while my site and rest are still off, and I’m adjusting as I go, I can still focus on my shot process and do that well.

I know that keeping a learning journal has helped me with my progress as an archer. For some reason, I also feel that literally putting ‘pen to paper’ has helped me anchor in the lessons that a digital journal wouldn’t. And yet, I tend to look at the journal more because it is also available digitally on my phone. All this to say, that as part of a learning process, reflection and journaling are very effective.

Remember that along your learning journey, it’s a good idea to journal, reflect, and document, document, document.

Sharing my posts

I had a meeting yesterday morning where we did small breakout sessions, and we discussed a topic that I’ve talked about a few times here on my Daily-Ink. I wanted to share something I wrote, but decided not to. Then we met a second time but it ended up being me and just one other colleague in the room. We continued the conversation and afterwards, I shared a link to one of the pieces I wrote via email. I got a really positive response, and I’m glad I did share it, but I’m always hesitant to do this.

It’s kind of weird, I write every day, and my post is automatically shared to Twitter, LinkedIn, and my Facebook page, so I obviously don’t mind sharing my work publicly. Yet I always feel like sharing my own writing at work is like shameless self-promotion rather than sharing my thoughts. It feels like I’m trying to show off, or that I’m bragging. Sometimes I’ll use my writing as a reference to what I say, but don’t mention the blog post or share the link.

I think that part of the challenge is that on social media people can choose to read or ignore my posts, and there is no price to pay if someone chooses to ignore the post, However, if I share it directly with someone, well then I’m kind of expecting it to be read. I’m forcing it on someone. This is me just thinking ‘out loud’ about this. I don’t think I’ll change my habits. I think I’ll continue to be overly cautious about sharing my writing in conversations with colleagues.

It’s not that I’m shy, it’s that I’m trying to be respectful. I don’t want to push my writing on people. But sometimes I articulate things better in my writing than I do trying to formulate my thoughts on the spot. I’m a slow processor, a slow thinker, and work through things better through writing than speaking.

That said, I can be quite vocal and no one has ever accused me of not participating in a discussion. Maybe that’s part of issue? I am vocal enough, and spreading or sharing my writing is just ‘over the top’. I’ve spent a few years developing my listening skills, and redirecting my thoughts to what’s being said, rather than what I want to say next. This is a skill that needs to be practiced, especially since I tend to be a lateral thinker that sees connections to things rather than seeing a single track of a conversation. So my brain wants to bounce to related things, off topic things, and maybe something I’ve previously written. But is that thing I wrote truly relevant to the conversation, or is it just relevant to me?

I don’t think I’ll share my posts at work any more than I already do after writing this. I think it’s probably a good thing that I hold back, and I’ll continue to do so.

Writing out loud

For 4 days in a row, I’ve been up before my alarm. This morning it was before 4:30 am. In addition to a bit more writing time, I might also get a bit of email time in… along with my meditation and workout before heading to my school. But also for the 4th day in a row, I started writing a blog post, and more than 1/2 way through decided to erase it and start again. This isn’t a journal that I tuck under my bed, for my eyes only… it’s public. That changes the dynamic of what I want to say.

Monday when I wrote, We are all in the same lifeboat, the original, deleted post was on a similar topic but it was very negative and scathing towards people I call in the post above ‘vaccine hesitant’. It was a full on rant against people who selectively choose the science they want to pay attention to on the fringes. With 7.8 billion people on earth, and social media designed to share attention seeking information, you can find an expert somewhere that disagrees with convention and spreads misinformation. You can find a quotation out of context. You can find data to manipulate in a way that makes it look worse than it is, or use data n a way not intended by the research.

I was listening to a podcast recently that spoke of how much we love the Galileo story. We want to find that story, about the person who sees the world differently than convention… and is right. But while science is dependent on this for progress, these stories are far more infrequent than conventional science being right.

Two days ago I wrote, Thinking Time and Space, and I wasn’t fully honest when I said, “I’m not ready to share the drawing yet, ideas are still being put together. But I can share a couple parts I’ve already written about”. I would have shared the image in progress, or more of it, if it had time to discuss the image, but I wasted too much time writing about an issue that I realized I shouldn’t share. It was some thoughtful writing that took time, but I had no way of masking who I was talking about as I navigated a challenging situation at work… again, some writing that should only be written in a private journal.

Yesterday’s The gift of giving almost didn’t get published, because after writing it I thought, ‘after making the point that giving has a selfish aspect, am I not also emphasizing this in a really negative way by somewhat bragging about giving?‘ But I’d already erased a post I didn’t want to share, and needed to schedule my post and get on with my day.

Today I started to write about a really sensitive topic, and realized that I wasn’t doing it justice. I was trivializing a challenging issue in a way that was disrespectful, to make a point that was completely undermined by my aloofness towards the topic. So I erased it and here I am giving a summary of how hard it is to write publicly sometimes.

I find myself struggling to write openly, while also being respectful to others; Trying to not disclose information about the lives of other people that should stay private; Trying not to rant when something is bothering me; Trying to be personal, but not over sharing.

Some mornings the writing flows, sometimes I stare at the blinking curser and my mind is more blank than when I try to meditate. But the hardest part of writing a daily, public journal is going through phases like this where I actually invest time in writing something, then delete it. For 4 days now, I’ve woken up early only to write and erase something and start over again. I’m not trying to be thoughtful, poignant, meaningful, and/or interesting every single day. I’m trying to be honest. But writing out loud every day can be challenging to do because not everything that comes to mind, and gets written, should be published.

Old home movies

Recently my wife had our home made DVD (digital) tapes converted to MP4 so that we could watch them on our computers. Last night we watched a few. The videos ranged from 15-20 years ago. With my daughters now at 21 and almost 19, it was a wonderful trip down memory lane.

Taking videos like these really dropped off after those early years. I think this was a combination of two things happening. First, the kids were older and in school, which made for changes in the dynamics at home. Next, the iphone came out and suddenly you always had a video camera available. However, as convenient as this was, it also made me less likely to record everyday activities, when I knew that I’d also have my recorder ‘right there with me’ the next time. So, video became reserved for happy birthday wishes, and graduations, and ‘special’ experiences like these.

When I was watching these videos last night, I was so thankful for the experiences I recorded. I was sharing snippets with my parents and siblings, laughing with my family, and making comments about how young my wife and I, and my parents and siblings, looked. Moments in time captured and then re-lived.

With the advent of 3D video and fully developed 360° immersive cameras, I wonder what home movies of the future will look like? Will we be able to put on some immersive goggles and enter a scene from the past? Will we be able to enter a scene, turn our heads and see the expression on our own faces as we take the video? What will the experience of looking at ‘old’ home made videos look like for our grandkids?

It’s exciting to think how the experience could be different in the future, but for now, I’m quite grateful for what we do have. It’s nice to have easier access to our old videos, and we are going to enjoy the fond memories for years to come.

Healthy living goals, past and future

I shared my health living goals and results, and some helpful tips last year. And I think they are worth sharing again:

My healthy living goals year-end reflection, with 5 key tips.

Here is my calendar chart for 2020:

The one stat worth noting: Workouts

Last year: 63% (57% would have been an average of 4-days a week. I only did less than 4 days a week 3 times during the year.)

This year: 78.7% (288/366days or an average of 5.5 days a week. I only did less the 4 days twice and one of those was the week after I broke my patella.)

I barely missed mediation or a day of reading/writing. A difference of note to last year, I listened to 33 books in 2020. That’s up from 26 last year and included a lot more fiction than in previous years.

I was also consistent with intermittent fasting until I stopped doing this in October. I was dropping weight that I didn’t want to lose at that point. While at some point I might return to this form of time restricted eating, I think I’ve ingrained the habit of not snacking after dinner, but my early morning workouts leave me too hungry to do this when my last meal is usually done by 6:30pm. I’m over 25lbs lighter than I was 3 years ago and actually want to add some muscle mass this year.

Overall, I have to say that this has been a healthy year. Besides my accident, breaking my knee, I had a shoulder injury that was slow to recover, and my (chronic) back issues flared up only once for about a week. Besides that, I’d easily say that I’m the fittest I’ve been in 25+ years.

So where to now? Here’s my plan with my calendar and stickers for 2021:

Red: Exercise (continued) I know the visual of gaps in workouts pushes me. I will try to match this year’s average.

Blue: Meditation (continued +) I plan to continue to give myself a sticker for doing a guided meditation in the morning. But I also plan to give myself a second sticker if I can do a minimum of 10 minutes of unguided meditation sometime later in the day. I think for me to progress in my meditation I have to dedicate more time to staying focussed on my breath and commit to putting more hours into this.

Yellow: Writing. I don’t need to track reading anymore. I read (listen) during cardio and squeeze in more reading whenever I am doing menial tasks or driving alone. But I want to continue to advance my writing. So, one sticker for my Daily Ink blog post, and a second sticker when I do any writing beyond that. Let’s see if my sticker chart can inspire me to do more than just a daily post. At least to start, much of what I write beyond these posts may not be immediately public – so tracking with a 2nd sticker will keep me honest about how much of this I actually do).

Green: Archery. Goodbye intermittent fasting, hello hobby! After a year-and-a-half hiatus, I started shooting again and I’m loving it. It helps that I have a (socially distanced) friend coaching me a bit, and I’m seeing great results. To me this is a form of meditation. It’s also something that I started then watched get pushed asides due to being busy and not prioritizing. If I can get 100 days of shooting in next year, that would be amazing!

So while there are many reasons to throw 2020 the middle finger, I think that my healthy living sticker chart is not one of them. I know that without keeping myself honest with this system, 2020 could have been an abysmal year for my physical and mental well-being… but this charting and commitment to myself was a shining light in what was otherwise a very dark year. I hope to see equal success in 2021!

A hard realization

There are times when I think that I have goals and ambitions to do so many things, and other times when I have the time to do things… and I just don’t.

Is it a by-product of being in a pandemic or is it my nature to be more lazy than I wish I was? Is it that I don’t really have the goals I thought I did, or is it the priority I put on things?

I’m about to head into my home gym for a workout, I’ve done my daily meditation, I’m doing my daily write. I’m fit, I’m restarting archery and loving it. I’m spending time with family.

So, why do I still feel like I should be doing more? Why do I feel like I’m letting myself down for not starting a big project or hitting some other target I’ve created in my mind? Why does binge watching tv make me feel as much guilt as pleasure?

It’s a hard realization that no matter what I do, a part of me feels I should be doing more? What drives this feeling? What makes me feel this way? I’ll start back at work next week and I’ll be so busy that I won’t have the time I have now. Then, I’ll look back and think, why didn’t I do more last week?

Am I the only one that thinks like this?

Habit tracking – what’s next?

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!

Back to archery and a focus on process

Yesterday I took a hacksaw to the combination lock on my compound bow case. It has been about a year-and-a-half since I shot any arrows with this bow. I did shoot some arrows one afternoon this summer, but that was with a recurve bow, for 45 minutes. Other than that, I basically shelved my new hobby for way too long… obviously to the point that I couldn’t even remember the combination to the case lock.

Today I was lucky enough to be able to shoot a few arrows, and get some (safe and socially distanced) coaching. I was expecting to be rusty, and to have bad form, but I shot surprisingly well. Then I got some key coaching around my thumb release that helped me shoot the most consistent I’ve ever shot!

Reflecting on how well things went, I think that I am fortunate to have a few things going for me. First, I’m still fairly new, so I don’t have years of ingrained bad habits. Second, I had some decent coaching early on, and my bow hand and anchor (where I place my draw hand against my face) are things that came back to me really easily. Third, I’ve kept myself really fit, and having recently recovered from an shoulder injury, a few of the exercises were also excellent for improving my archery strength as well. And finally, I had excellent coaching!

I started archery in the summer 2016. I was recovering from 6 months of chronic fatigue, and realized that if I didn’t start this hobby I’ve wanted to start at this time of renewal, I never would. Then in 2019 I made an intentional decision not to spend time on archery when I rededicated myself to being healthy, but realized to make certain commitments, I also had to make some sacrifices. Now, as 2020 comes to a close, I’ve decided that archery is something I really enjoy and want to get back into.

My favourite part of archery is that it is all about process. Yes, I want to shoot well, and yes the ‘end result’ of where the arrow lands is important. However, once I’ve released the arrow, there is nothing I can do to change that shot. If it isn’t as good as I had hoped, I have a choice of letting it affect my next shot, or I can focus on the process and shooting ‘fresh’ and probably better the next time. It is a mental game that forces me to to ‘let go’ of results and focus on being present. It is a form of meditation, of being in the moment. And for someone who tends to be ‘in my head’ a lot, archery doesn’t allow me to escape from ‘the now’.

I’m excited about returning to this fun hobby, and I’m sure that I’ll have more lessons to learn from, and reflect on, in the coming months.

Last school day of 2020

Tomorrow is the first day of Christmas holidays, making today the last school day of the 2020 calendar year.

It seems like ages ago but back in February, I had just finished 2 years of running 3 schools. It was absolutely exhausting and I was, for the first time since becoming an administrator, ready to quit. It was too much. Thankfully my job was adjusted and I knew that I could stay on and feel for the first time in a couple years that I could do my job.

Then the pandemic hit, we went to remote learning, I had some responsibilities to support others added to plate, and I found myself in online meetings for over 4 hours each day. It was overwhelming for everyone, and my crazy schedule continued. It felt like I couldn’t catch a break.

Summer finally came, with the cancellation of a trip to Europe. We still had a good summer, but it was nothing like we had planned.

Since September things have been better at school, with students coming daily, but the stress of the virus is ever present .Things still remained off kilter and very busy. There has been nothing normal about this calendar or school year. Nothing.

I know we aren’t out of the woods yet. It will take several months to get the vaccine out and schools are not the initial priority. But in my head I have been telling myself, ‘Things will get better by January 2022,’ I have been preparing for 2021 to be ‘2020 Part 2 – The Sequel’. I didn’t think we’d see vaccines start to role out until summer, or even September ’21.

So, while hoping for things to go faster, I’ve been preparing for another whole year of this. Seeing the vaccine already out before the end of 2020 has filled me with enthusiasm about how much better than expected 2021 can be.

Yes, we must proceed with caution. No, the pandemic isn’t over… but 2020 feels over. And while I throw a metaphorical middle fingers at the year, I will look back at it over this break and try to find the silver linings this year has brought us. What have we learned? What can we carry forward? What can we value and appreciate more as we slowly head back to normal? I am happy to see the year end with optimism for the future… optimism that I did not expect to have.

Salvador Dali - clock

Fast and Slow

How is it that time seems to go by really slowly day-by-day, but months and years seem to just race on? I recently celebrated my 53rd birthday. As a kid, 53 was old. Ancient.

My youngest daughter turns 19 in a couple months. How did that happen so quickly? It sounds cliche, but where did the time go?

I heard an interesting perspective on time recently: When you are 12, 4 years of your life is 1/3 (33.3%} of your life, that’s so long! When you are 52, 4 years of your life is 1/13 (7.7%) of your life… much less significant. The older you get, the less significant a set amount of time is relative to how long you’ve lived.

Time doesn’t just march on, it marches on at ever increasing speeds. It’s up to us to slow it down by making our days worth living. What will you do to enjoy life today, rather than just let that time slip by into an ever-decreasing amounts of significance?