Archive for the 'Conversation' Category

As the new year starts up it is usually the time that everyone starts thinking about New Years resolutions. I have often made numerous resolutions in years past only to break them in the first week. It seems like the more I make the quicker I break them. The problem with resolutions is they are often vague and usually just an idea not a written goal.

I have a thesis that I am working on for 2006. It goes like this. Each month of this year develop one new habit. Make it simple and doable. At the end of each month decide on a new “habit” for the next month and continue doing the existing habit. At the end of the year 12 habits will be developed. All of these habits will be written down and be simple enough that I can verify if they have been done. Experts say that most actions take at least 21 days to become “habits” so a month should be ample time for it to become routine.

I started this thesis back in October. My first habit was to drink at least 2 quarts of water per day. This is a pretty simple habit but it did take some planning to accomplish. I had to make sure I had a way to measure the water I was drinking and that I had a good source of water that I could take with me in the car and to work. I decided that 1 liter bottles of drinking water would do the trick. I bought a case of them from Costco and took some to work with me. It’s real easy to see if the goal has been accomplished as I will have 2 empty bottles at the end of the day.

Even though this was an easy goal it took verification to keep me on track. The regemintation of the work week made the goal reasonably easy to follow during the week, but weekends tended to be a problem. It is the “change” of schedule that throws things off. I can say that I have been about 80% successful with this goal. It’s real easy to get back on track.

November was a new habit. This time it was taking my lunch instead of eating out. This would not be an ultra rigid goal but one that would be practical for most work days. The good part about this habit is cost savings and eating healthier. This goal took preparation and weekly shopping trips to accomplish. This goal has been somewhat harder to maintain but overall I have been successful with it.

When my father passed away in mid November I decided would wait until January to start “habit” number three. When something unexpected happens like a death in the family everything gets thrown off and a “normal” schedule becomes impossible. My goal for the month of January is to write a new article at least once a week for this blog. This is a little different than my other habits as it is a weekly task instead of daily. This will take a little different form of verification and I’ll have to decide on a day of the week to review my “habits” to make sure I’m on track. If this habit holds true, I’ll have over 50 additional articles by the end of the year.

With my new week starting tomorrow, I’ll now have three habits that I’m responsible for, drinking water, taking my lunch, and preparing an article. I have developed a weekly checklist that I can check off each habit on a daily basis. The weekly habit I will check off on Sunday. By the end of the year I’ll be tracking 12 things. My thought (thesis) is that this will be much more successful than trying to set numerous goals in January and trying to do all of them in a short period of time.

I also think that most of these “habits” will become second nature after a period of time. Time will tell. So far written verification seems to be the key. With this type of thesis many things should be possible. Diet and exercise goals can be broken down into components and developed over time. One month choose to give up sodas. This alone may save 300-400 calories a day. Later in the year make it a habit to have at least 2 pieces of fruit a day. Simple doable things.

Travel and recreation goals can be combined in a timeline. A monthly travel and lodging combination sounds great to me. Example… each month make it a habit to travel to a new place and stay at a nice hotel or bed & breakfast. Combine these two “habits” with a photography habit and a journaling habit and the results could be life changing and really fun.

Imagine the habit of taking your camera wherever you go and recording people and places. Combine this with a journal of your activities (paste some photos into the journal) and you have history in the making, recording your travels and the people you meet along the way. Do you like a certain type of food? Say you enjoy tacos… how about discovering the best taco place in the town that you stay in. At the end of your year you’ll have a journal full of pictures, stories, and memories of interesting people and wonderful food. Maybe add the habit of corresponding with people you meet along the way by e-mail or snail mail. Sounds like a great book to me… how about writing a chapter a month?

Twelve simple habits over the period of a year… it could be a real adventure.

How about starting today?

In my previous post I talked about “Peer Production” and the synergy that can be derived from working with a group of your peers. As I thought about the topic I ran into some interesting conversations around the net about bloggers getting together for meetings, bike rides and just plain fun. Here are some of the ones that I found.

Fellow bloggers Adrian Trenholm and Jason Womak met up in London along with 4 other bloggers for a bike ride through the streets of town. Jason Comments…

I must say that my latest weekend in London goes down in history books as one of the best ever! Just taking the slice of life, 1 October, from 6:30am until 11am by itself is something I will remember for always.

The guys put together something special. As we had scheduled, the meeting in front of the Marriott Park Lane hotel (literally across the street from Speakers’ Corner in Hyde Park) occurred at 7am. From there the 5 of us rode to pick up Ben in/near Putney.

Our ride took us down/along the King’s Road, and then out to Richmond Park. What a fantastic day it was! Six of us guys, in a line, riding through the roads of London, I have to admit a few times I laughed out loud to myself.

“What are you laughing at?” someone asked.

“I can’t believe it. By all counts, this day shouldn’t have happened!” I said…

Wow a bloggers meeting with exercise too…

As I was reading Adrian’s blog I realized we have something in common, we both use the Wordpress template “Blix” and we both have been talking about a redesign. Well Adrian’s post gave me the incentive to actually set a concrete date for the new design of this blog. His post brought up an interesting milestone that I didn’t know about…

Since Jason reminded me of the power of setting a date and sticking to it, I realised that I have been procrastinating about the redesign of this site. My use of the Blix theme from King Cosmonaut - excellent though it is - was only meant to be temporary, yet months later my custom design is still no more than a flicker in Photoshop’s eye.
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Peer Conversations

As we take our dream from the creation stage to the next level, the addition of passion or feelings will keep the dream alive. It’s the “why” behind the dream. The force that looks beyond ourselves to the greater good. It’s taking a black and white picture and adding color and action and bringing that photo to life. It’s the sights and sounds, and most important, the feelings of the moment.

Do you have a dream like that?

I did a little research online and looked for keywords about success. What dreams are people pursuing? I wanted to look deeper than self centered, sometimes selfish goals to those that had real meaning. What is the why in all of this?

I looked up the following topics and found some interesting pictures..

Academic Success: Helping others to get an education.

ORAL LEE BROWN – HELPING OTHERS
In 1987, Mrs. Brown made a tremendous commitment towards giving something back. She adopted the entire first grade class at Brookfield Elementary School located in East Oakland. She deposited $10,000 into a trust account and created the Oral Lee Brown Foundation. She continued to deposit $10,000 each year into the Foundations trust account, making a commitment through1999.

The money will go towards the college tuition for each student. Not only is she supporting the children financially for their future education, but she meets with the parents on a regular basis and mentors the students. Mrs. Brown sponsors an annual Scholarship Gala and celebrated the graduation of the OLBF scholarship students this year. Of the original twenty-three students, nineteen graduated and are currently enrolled in college.

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Passionate Success: Adding Feeling to the Dream