Monthly Archives: April 2007

Monday Mornings

Yep it’s that time of the week again, Monday morning.

Time for some reflection on the weekend. Hands up those of us who get stressed at the weekend. Am I the only one?

Weekends are supposed to be for relaxing and shedding the stress of the previous week. This weekend has been anything but relaxing for me. I’m not going to go into the details of what went on; nothing out of the ordinary really. What is important is what happened to me.

At first I found myself getting what I thought was depressed; but when I looked again I found that it wasn’t depression it was anger I was feeling. I wasn’t angry at the people around me, though my daughter did press a few buttons for me from time to time; it was more anger directed at myself.

So Monday morning this week is a time for reflection. A time to ask myself, “Why was all this anger directed inwards? What was it trying to accomplish and what was its root?”.

Needless to say I’m nice and relaxed this morning.

Getting To Your Goals

Once you have set a goal you need a path to take you to it. This is where your task lists and your ‘trusted system’ come into play.

Without some tasks, some actions, we’ll never get to our goals. Goals don’t accomplish themselves. So for my cycling goal I have the following tasks:

  1. Get the bike out of the back of the shed.
  2. Service the bike.
  3. Find my riding gear (or buy new stuff).
  4. Devise a suitable route that’s going to give me my target 30 miles a week. This is probably 3 x 10 miles or maybe 2 x 15 miles.
  5. Start building up the mileage.

How will I ensure that these tasks get done? Put them into my trusted system. The ‘trusted system’ is whatever methodology you choose for managing your goals and your tasks provided you trust it completely. If you don’t trust it to give you the tasks as and when you need them it will never work for you; but will work against you instead. More about trusted systems and how I work mine in a later posting.

I know I’m not going to be able to get on my bike and just cycle 30 miles. In fact I’ll be lucky if I can cycle 300 yards (metres); but I know that if I can get to point 5 then the battle is half won. The other half is making it a habit.

Not Dieting

Having posted earlier saying I was not going to go on a diet as part of my weight loss program (can I call it a program?) Leo over on Zen habits has posted up today his Top 15 Diet Hacks.

These aren’t a “diet”; but instead are tips for adjusting the diet to make it more healthy and his number one tip is; “Don’t Diet”.

Looking down the list there’s a lot of his tips that are already part of my life style like:

  • avoiding too much saturated fats,
  • eating brown foods (bread and pasta),
  • cutting down on meat – we only eat red meat once or twice a week and one or two meals a week will be meat free.

One area I could improve on is my junk food intake. I still eat too many crisps and the like, particularly in front of the telly last thing at night. Another thing I find very hard to cut down on is cheese. I know I said I avoid too many saturated fats; but I love cheese and frequently have it in my sandwiches at lunch time. That will be a tough one to give up.

Overall I don’t think my diet is too bad; I must get the exercise level up!

Loosing Weight – The Next Steps

In my post How To Set A SMART Goal I described what SMART goals were and why they were important. I also set myself the goal of loosing 23lbs by Christmas this year!

After setting a goal, any sort; short, medium, long term the most important thing is to take some action. No goal is ever going to be achieve unless some action is taken; but how do we decide what action to take and when to take it? In this post I want to go through the steps I propose to take to achieve my goal.

Right, I have to loose weight, what are my options?

  • Go on a diet. I won’t do this unless directed to by a medical professional because I don’t believe they’re the right way to go about loosing weight. I believe that if I diet I will reduce my carb. or fat intake, my body metabolism will slow as a result and if I slip off the diet the weight will just pile back on because my metabolism is slower.
  • Cut out unnecessary junk food. This is dieting in a way I guess; but it’s more of an adjustment to my diet than an actual diet. I can do this by eating healthier, fewer sweets & biscuits and more fruit.
  • Exercise. Oh dear, I knew I’d get to this one eventually.

Stop the list there, let’s talk about exercise. I’ve already said I’m not going to starve myself and only make modest changes to my diet so realistically the only way (weigh) I’m going to achieve this goal is to exercise.

I’ve already set myself a walking goal; but to be honest that is ramping up only slowly and I don’t think it’s going have a huge impact on my weight loss goal in the short, or even medium, term. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a contributor to this goal; but I’m going to need something more.

What else might I do?

  • Swimming? I can’t swim, tried to learn about 10 years ago. We won’t go there.
  • Running? Look, I’m having enough difficulty walking. Let’s walk before we run, please.
  • Cycling? Ah, this is a distinct possibility. In my thirties I was a reasonably keen cyclist, nothing excessive; but I could manage 60 miles. The point is, I was fit.

So it looks like cycling is my best bet. I have a bike and cycling is good aerobic exercise. I feel another goal coming on:

  • Specific – I will cycle 30 miles a week.
  • Measurable – I’ve a trip meter on the bike
  • Attainable – I feel 30 miles a week is within my grasp; but I may have to sacrifice something to fit it in.
  • Relevant – Yes, this will contribute to my weight loss.
  • Timely – By the end of June!

So I’ve a second exercise goal to help me loose that weight. Over the next two months I should be able to judge whether or not the pounds are starting to come off or whether I need to step up the exercise program. Until then I will work on integrating exercise into my life, something I’ve not done for many years now.

Taking A Break

One of the most difficult things for me to do is to take a break from the keyboard. When I’m in the zone I just want to keep typing; but over the years this has had a detrimental affect on my neck and shoulders.

I even had a little message pop-up occasionally to remind me, “Every hour take a 15 minute break.”.

Did this work? Did it heck!

Then I came across Workrave. This little program is designed so that I have to take a break when it tells me to. It’s very flexible and can be set up so that:

  • You periodically take micro-breaks of a short duration.
  • Less frequently you have to take a longer break where you do some stretches or take a walk around.
  • It will even limit the total amount of time you can spend on the computer each day.

So now I have a set up where:

  • Every 8 minutes I have to stop using the keyboard for 30 seconds. This is a micro-break.
  • Every 45 minutes I have to take a 10 minute rest break.

Because my day is very open ended at the moment I have switched off the ‘total time allowed each day’ facility.

When the break time arrives you get a audio and visual (pop-up window) reminder. If you ignore these then the pop-up starts to flash, first orange then red. However there’s no escaping your break because if you continue typing Workrave will add on the extra seconds you need to complete your stoppage.

The rest breaks advises you to get up from the computer and do something else. It will even pop-up a series of exercises to perform to help relieve fatigue and muscle stress.

You can, it you choose, postpone or even skip a break if you simply must; but then that rather defeats the purpose of running Workrave. I’ve been using it for less than a week and I can already feel my shoulders are less tense.

Oops time for a micro-break….

Quietening The Super-Ego

I recently wrote about how the super-ego will try to prevent us doing anything risky and will try to keep us in our box. This has a purpose in that it is trying to prevent us getting physically or emotionally hurt; but it can also be very restricting as it doesn’t like us to set goals or do anything the least bit risky.

So how do we quieten the super-ego?

One technique that works very well for me is to utilize The Power Of Now. If you look at what the super-ego is saying to you it will either be:

  • Something about the past. For example, “What did you say / do that for?”, “You failed at that last time.”, “Don’t you see how silly you looked”. All past tense.
  • Something about the future. For example, “You’re going to screw this up”, “You’ll make a fool of yourself”, “You won’t be good enough”. All things to come in the future.

You see it never says things about now, always past or future and in that lies the key.

Eckhart Tolle, in his book The Power Of Now, teaches that you can dissociate yourself from all the past / future stuff by being present entirely in the moment, in the Now.

The techniques Tolle expounds are very much akin to meditation. I don’t want to go too much into this here; sufficient to say that if you become aware of these mental processes that take you out of the Now then you can more and more bring yourself into the Now. You can be present in the moment.

On a practical level I now watch for every time my mental process slips into either berating myself about the past or setting myself up for failing in the future. I now recognize this as the super-ego having a bash at me and I can say to myself, “OK, this is my super-ego. I don’t need this” and allow myself to focus on the moment. The unhelpful mental pictures or thoughts then just fade away into the back-ground. This has had the added bonus that my anxiety levels about being made redundant and going for interviews have reduced considerably.

It sounds simple to do; but it’s not an easy thing to achieve; it takes practice. The first step is to recognize when the super-ego is running your show, then you can start to do something about it.

What's Blocking The Goal?

Some people I meet are unable to define medium or long term goals. When I ask them, “What do you want to do?” their mind goes blank and they just shrug, “I dunno”.

Why is this?

We each of us have a part of our personality called the super-ego, you many also hear this called the ‘judge’ or ‘critic’. The purpose of this part of our psyche is to keep us out of harm, both physically and emotionally. If it thinks we’re getting into a situation that might be risky then it will start to send us warning messages. Often these can be feelings of anxiety or tension or stress and they’ll often be accompanied by thoughts like, “I can’t do that”, or, “I’m not good enough for this person”. Anything the super-ego can come up with to keep us in our box.

Now if you ask someone, “What are your life goals?” the super-ego will often panic! “A life goal? That sounds really risky, what if we fail? Then we’ll be a failure! What are you getting into here?”.

Bang! A mental block comes down as the super-ego goes into over drive and clamps down on anything it might think is a risk. It stuffs you firmly back into your box and slams the lid.

So what can we do about the super-ego, how do we unblock and put ourselves in a position to start setting goals for ourselves?

First let me say that there’s no magic cure for this. The super-ego is there for a purpose and it’s only trying to do it’s job, even though that may be limiting you.

To overcome the super-ego we must first become aware of its presence.

The next time you want to plan something for your future and you start to feel some anxiety look at your thought processes. If you’re doubting your abilities then that is your super-ego talking. Say hello to it, tell it you recognize it. If you feel it’s limiting you then you can even tell it you don’t need its input just now and see what happens to your anxiety level.

If you want to set ‘life’ goals; but are feeling blocked then I suggest you reassure your super-ego that everything is going to be OK and that you’d like it to be quiet for now.

Take a deep breath.

Now write your goals.

How To Set A SMART Goal

I’ve mentioned in recent posts that I’m over weight. I weigh 14st (197lbs to be precise) and my ideal weight for a man my height is 12st 6lbs. That’s 23lbs I have to loose if I’m to regain my ideal weight.

So the purpose of this post is to frame a goal to shed those pounds. Most of you will have heard of setting SMART goals to ensure that goals are met. I’m going to go through the steps of setting a SMART goal here to illustrate how a SMART goal differs from not-SMART goals and how it will help me achieve my goal.

Let’s begin with defining what we mean by a SMART goal. In case you haven’t guessed SMART is an acronym; it defines all the attributes a goal should posses for it to be achievable:

So how do I make my weight loss goal into a SMART goal?

Specific
A specific goal names exactly what the goal needs to achieve. An example of a non-specific goal I hear quoted often is, “I’m going to be successful’. Successful at what? How do you define or measure success? This non-specific goal in too open to interpretation and needs to be stated in terms of something real, like finances for example.

My goal is to loose weight. Specifically I’m going to loose 23lbs in weight so that I weigh 12st 6lbs.

Measurable
I used to get this confused with being specific. If course if I’m going to loose 23lbs then it’s measurable – haven’t I just said it’s 23lbs?

Really this attribute is about having the structures in place to measure your progress towards the goal. I’m not going to wake up one morning and say, “Hurray, I just lost 23lbs” (well I might; but more fool me if I do). No, I need a pair of scales – something to physically be able to measure my weight with and so determine my progress.

I have scales at home so my goal is measurable.

Attainable
Goals are great; but they must be set within some sort of boundaries. For an extreme example I might set a goal to take lunch on Pluto – not really attainable is it? Another nice example I saw recently on another blog was a goal to be the next king of England. As the writer pointed out, unless you’re in the royal blood line or you’ve a huge army prepared to conquer England by force this goal is not attainable. You could argue that all goals are ultimately attainable; but here you have to look closely at your goal – are you prepared to devote the time and energy to attaining this goal? If not then it’s not attainable.

Loosing 23lbs is attainable. I put it on, I can loose it.

Relevant
How relevant is this goal to the overall plan? It would be great to have a goal to be the next king of England; but if the overall plan is to gain entry to a Buddhist monastery then the goal isn’t relevant to the plan.

Loosing weight contributes to my desire to live a long and healthy life and so contributes directly to this. Yes, the goal is relevant.

Timely
Goals must be given a time frame for them to become real entities in your life. If I have a goal to loose 23lbs; but don’t give it a time line then where is the motivation going to come from to actually make me take the effort to shed that weight. Believe me, it will take effort.

This is often the big blocker. Here I have to nail my colours to the mast and state by when I’m going to loose that weight. Here goes….

By Christmas 2007. I’m going to loose that weight by Christmas this year.

There, I’ve stated it publicly for all to read.

Let’s recap this SMART goal:

  • Specific. I will loose 23lbs.
  • Measurable. With the bathroom scales.
  • Attainable. Yes, it’s within my abilities to do this.
  • Relevant. Yes, it will contribute to my health and longevity.
  • Timely. By Christmas this year (2007).

In a posting in the near future I will demonstrate how I’m going to achieve this goal.

Setting Life Goals

Who has life goals?

Until recently I didn’t think I had any life goals. Today I do; but a lot of people I speak to can’t tell me their life goals.

So what’s the block? Why don’t more people have life goals?

Firstly let’s look at what a life goal is. A life goal is either:

  • A goal it takes your entire life to accomplish. I.e. you only accomplish it on your death bed at the end of your life. Who wants one of those? No one? Didn’t think so.
  • It’s a goal that you achieve at some point and then maintain for the rest of your life. This looks to be a better bet.

OK, if a life goal is something you achieve and then maintain for the rest of your life, then it has to be achieved at some point in time before the end of your life. no? So really life goals are just like any other goals, right? You set the goal and, at some point down the line, you achieve it.

A life goal can seem like a big deal, “What goal do I want for the rest of my life?”. Scary question! On the other hand setting medium term or long term goals doesn’t seem like such a big deal. What do I want in five years or ten years? These are time frames I can relate to, they’re within my reach and they don’t scare me.

Does that mean any goal as a ‘life goal’? No, a life goal has to have long term implications, “Get my hair cut”, is a goal; but it doesn’t have life long implications so it’s not a life goal. For me a life goal is:

A goal that has life long implications.

Finally let’s take a look at some goals I posted a few days ago and see how they map into this new definition for life goals:

  1. To be my ideal weight (12st 6lbs) – is this a life goal? Yes it is, even though it’s got a relatively short time frame it’s something I want for the rest of my life.
  2. To live in a cottage by the sea – is this a life goal? Yes it is; but it has a longer time span of 14 years, which is when I retire.
  3. To earn more than €100K a year – is this a life goal? Not as it’s phrased, it’s a medium term goal of 4 years and then stops there. I need to work on this goal to ensure it becomes a life goal.
  4. To run a successful life coach business – is this a life goal? Yes it is. It has a medium time frame also of 4 years; but it’s something I want to be doing the rest of my life.

(That last goal is not a properly defined goal at all; but I’ll explain that in another posting).

I may have started off this session thinking I’d no life goals, where as in fact I’ve lots of them. So don’t be intimidated by the notion of setting ‘life goals’. Just set your goals and enjoy achieving them in this life.

My Top Goals

I was planning to introduce goals over time, along with some theory and tips about goal setting; but Leo over on Zen Habits has forced my hand by asking the question, “What are your [my] top goals?“.

As ever Leo’s posting is provocative and not to be denied an answer so here goes:

  1. What are my top goals?
    1. To be my ideal weight (12st 6lbs)
    2. To live in a cottage by the sea
    3. To earn more than €100K a year
    4. To run a successful life coach business
  2. What productivity system do I use?

    3. My productivity system is based strongly on GTD with a few principles adopted from Mark Forsters book “Do It Tomorrow”. The main idea I use from Do It Tomorrow is the Closed List that tightly defines what I’m going to do off my prodigious to-do list each day.

  3. What habits have I learned to support this?

    4. The main habit I’ve developed is to dump every idea about anything that needs doing straight into one of my in boxes as soon as it occurs to me. Now that I trust my productivity system I know that once an idea or task is in an in-box, doesn’t matter which one, that it will get done. This has freed my mind from the constant jumble of; “Must do this”, “Must do that”, Musn’t forget about x, y, z” so I have much less stress and much more freedom to come up with creative stuff.