Cons: I'm scared. (Part 2/2)

Yesterday I wrote on the two excuses halting your sucess. Yesterday I addressed the first: It's hard. Today I am going to address the second: I'm scared.

This is my big excuse. I like hard. Hard makes it special. I can kick Hard to the curb. But I am always scared. Scared of succeeding. Scared of failing. Scared or changing. Scared of not accomplishing anything. It's the kryptonite to my superman.

Suggestions on overcoming fear are welcome. I will tell you, however, the two ways I am confronting my excuse.

First, being scared goes away a little bit with each success and each failure. Just by trying something you become a little less scared. That's the main reason why I have been putting myself out there for critisism and compliments. I have been joining forums left and right to promote this blog and to hold myself accountable. Each time I allow myself to be vunerable, I realize that vunerability is not so bad and I become a little bit more confident. This allows me to take bigger risks daily. With this confidence I have even been able to open up to my wife about "my silly little dreams" lately. It truely feels good and our relationship is stronger.

The second thing that is helping me overcome my fears is my daughter. I have to be a rock for her. She is completely dependant on me and my wife. I have no time be afraid. I must be strong for her. Additionally, my daughter has forced me to confront my mortality. Life is precious. Time is fleeting. We only get one shot here on this planet. The only time to do it is now.

I am working on this excuse. It will take time. I can't promise I won't use it as an excuse, but I am aware of it now.

-P
Challenge day 09/30

Cons: It's Hard (part 1)

My friend Jean posted this on her Facebook. I just had to ask her if I can publish it on this blog. It's too good and too true.

Too often we don't follow through on a hope, a dream, a goal. Most of the time the only con is an excuse. I have only been able to come up with two excuses for not following through. One of them? It's hard. My goal? Not to use this excuse for the remainder of the year.

It will be hard, and because it is hard... well, that's why the reward is all the greater.

See you all tomorrow.

-P
08/30 Creativity Challenge.

"Do it for her." Inspiration from the Simpsons.

Sometimes I get tired. Sometimes I don't want to do the right thing. Then I think of the Simpsons. Specifically the episode "And Maggie Makes Three."

It was an episode during the prime of the series. In the epiosde, Homer quits his job at the nuclear power plant to work his dream job at the bowling alley. The only issue is that Marge is pregnant, and Homer needs to get his old job back to support his growing family. He is forced to grovel and beg before Mr. Burns. Mr. Burns allows Homer to return and to put Homer in his place, Burns hangs a sign above Homer's desk that reads "Don't forget, you are here forever." Homer is not allowed to remove the sign, but makes the best of the situation by hanging pictures of Maggie around his office covering up portions of the sign so it then reads "Do it for her." I remember the scene being powerful when I was younger, but it has taken on whole new meaning now that I have a young one.

I disagree that you shouldn't follow your dreams, however there is a lesson to take away from the scene. Sometimes when I don't want to go forward I think about the type of man I want to be. Not for myself, because that really hasn't worked in the past, but what type of man I want my daughter to know. "Do it for her" has become a mantra.

-P
Day 07/30 of creativity challenge.
Day 01/30 of fiscal responsibility (yuck).

Things to do: Network Online

Currently I working on building a network of people from various blogs and forums around the internet. I have started to post on forums and promote this blog. Feel free to leave a comment if you have a blog or website that you would like me to visit!

My new motivation game.

I can't take credit for this idea. I got it from listening to the iProcrastinate podcast. Here's what I did. I took 45 note cards. On thirty of them I wrote down motivational quotes. One 15 I wrote prizes. 5 cards had prizes like "Spend two guilt free hours playing video games." or "Spend a night watching Netflix without worry." Five of them had prizes with a value of about $5-15, and the remaining five had prizes of items I really want with values over $15.

Now every Sunday I will give myself experience points based on the things I do. For example; if I don't spend money on junk in the morning I give myself 50 xp. If I don't spend it on junk twice a day I give myself 150 xp and if I don't buy junk at all I give myself 300 xp.  I also give myself 200 xp for every time I run in a week and a bonus 200 xp if I run all four times a week.

I make these mini-challenges so that on a perfect week I can earn 5,000 xp. For every 1,000 xp I draw a card at random. If I win a prize then I have to get the prize within the next 24 hours.

So far I've only drawn quotes last week (3 of them). Next week I am hoping for a prize.

-P

As far as the spending on junk challenge. I had a bad day yesterday, so I am back at 01/30.
I know I didn't post yesterday, but I am going to post twice today, plus I had a very productive creative day. Please stay tuned to this blog for a future post about what I have been working on in the past couple of days.

Creativity challenge: 06/30
Fiscal Responsiblity challenge: 01/30

Finding Motivation in the Weirdest Places 01: Silver Linings Playbook

Things are going well. It's a lot hard than I thought it would be to come up with new content for this 30 day challenge. It's really helping me find inspiration in many different places. This is good, and will only make me a stronger writer and more creative minded person. That is exactly what I was going for.

Tonight's post was going to be about a new reward system/ game that I have semi-created (I got the idea from a podcast I listen to), but that will wait until tomorrow.

Instead, I am introducing a new series of articles: Finding Motivation in the Weirdest Places. This evening I red-boxed Silver Linings Playbook. My wife wanted something romantic and I obliged. It was not exactly what I expected it to be. I will try to keep this spoiler light and will keep, but there might be some minor details that come out, so SPOILER ALERT.

The movie is a quirky character-based dramedy about a man who is trying to find his footing again. He has just been released from an eight month stint in a mental institution for savagely assaulting his estranged wife's lover.

The story is choppy and the characters are frustrating at times, but boy was it entertaining. I would give it four out of five stars.

Anyway here is the personal motivational truths I took away from this movie:
1.) Dogged determination can improve your life situation. Our hero lost 80 lbs, runs every morning and whenever he is frustrated, and is reading through every book on his estranged wife's syllabus to better understand you.
2.) A positive outlook also helps. Our protagonist takes every setback with the mantras that he is looking for the silver linings and "Excelsior".
3.) However, they can only take you so far. You need to not be afraid of mistakes, but you must learn from them. The main character suffers many self-inflicted set backs in order to improve his situation and win his wife back. Each time, he learns from them. Sometimes the lessons he learns are frustratingly inaccurate or too small, but each time he tries to change something. By the end of the movie the character is taking his medicine, is avoiding situations that would put him in trouble with the law, and creating new mantras. End result: Happy.

END SPOILER

Here's what I took away.
1. Find a goal and create a routine to achieve that goal.
2. Stay Positive.
3. Make mistakes, and learn from them.


That's it for now. I needed to make sure I stayed on task. I'll see you tomorrow.

-P (Both Challenges 04/30)

How I am Beating Self Sabatoge

I just knocked off one of my 2013 goals.
I have raised over $1000 for the St. Jude's Children's hospital. I had been lazy and sitting on the money from a previous fundraising party. After yesterday's post and my goal of fiscal responsibility, I know that I had to just suck it up and deposit the cash.

That's one of the problems with me. I get scared. New situations terrify me. So I am setting these goals and constantly having Arnold yell. "Do it now!" at me. So far it's working.

I've been running again. I'm back under 200 lbs for the first time in months. Really the only changes I have made are the 30 day challenge goals and finding a mantra that works for me.

I know this post is content light, but there are some major projects in the works. I just need to stop looking over the ledge and jump.

See you tomorrow.

-P

Challenge of Creation - 03/30
Challenge of Fiscal Responsibility - 03/30

What to do when you don't want to do it?

So it's no lie, and I am not ashamed to admit that I get a lot of inspiration from sites like Nerdfitness. So the other day, I was going through the archives over there. (Don't judge. It's the end of a school year, and there is way too much going on at work), and I noticed the post about Doing it Now.

The video comes from The Art of Manliness. It has helped me immensely. Go on over there and check out the post. HERE. I linked it for you. You are welcome. If you are lazy here is the video embedded from YouTube

Following this advice has greatly helped. Just the other day I finally got around to grading papers which were just weighing on my soul. It felt so good to get them done. I should have done them right away. It only took 45 minutes and added days of stress hormones to my body.

After this experience, I have been following the advice of the video. Whenever I don't want to do something, I hear Arnold's voice in my head. "Do it Now!" My stress levels have gone down. I feel better about myself and because of that, I can already see I am being more successful.

30 day Challenge: 02/30 - Challenge of Creation
02/30 Challenge of Fiscal Responsibility.

30 Day Challenge: TED talk.

So here I am again. Tired. Pushed around. A little burnt out. But here. My dreams are killing me. I have too much inside that just needs to get out.

I just wanted to link to this TED talk. I think it might help me. Maybe it will help you too.

So here is my first 30 day challenge. I am going to pick two. I know that picking two will make it that much harder to complete. However, I need to do both of these.

30 Days of Creation - For the next 30 days I will do  the following (today counts): I will create content. I will practice producing my thoughts. I will post 30 (29 now) new blog posts or 4 panel webcomics to be posted in the future.

30 Days of Fiscal Responsibility - For the next 30 days I will not spend money friviously. This includes junk food, soda, and impulse buys. I will pay my bills on time. I will donate the remaining funds to my fundraiser by this weekend.

Day 01/30