Personal Insight at the Super Spartan.

Today I ran the Super Spartan race, and it was tough. The race was about 8 and a half miles with over 15 obstacles.  I made it through though (with the addition of soreness and nicks and cuts all over my body). It was a great fun experience, and I need to make sure that I sign up for next years race and make sure I am in even better shape to run it.

In fact, that ties in directly with the insight that I gained from running the race. If you don't know much about these mud races; they are competitions over very rough terrain with the added challenge of obstacles and lots and lots of muddy water. One of the obstacles of this years Super Spartan obstacles was a sand bag carry. I had to carry a 30 lb sand bag about 100 yards down a steep ravine and then back up the same ravine. It wasn't the hardest challenge but it was hard on me. I threw down the bag, and at that point I realized...

... that sandbag is the exact amount of extra weight I am carrying above my "healthy" weight. This means that I am basically carrying a thirty pound sand bag with me... every hour of every day. Every hour of every night.

It amazes me that I had such a rough time carrying that bag about 200 yards, and I felt such a relief to drop it off. I can only imagine how good it will feel again to drop the 30 lbs of weight I am carrying and get back down to my feel good weight.

This feeling is a great motivator. If you have weight to lose, try this. Try to carry an object that weighs the amount of weight you need to lose for a few hundred yards. Really think about how it is making you feel. The physical act of carrying the weight will stick in your head. I know for me, until the memory fades, it will keep me on track for my diet and exercise
routine.

Thanks for reading. See you soon. Build those cathedrals.

-P

Personal Update - Dreams on their way, and family time.

It's been a crazy week. I've been running around like crazy for almost two weeks. I do not want to get into particulars, as I do not want to fall into excuses for lack of updates.

But I do have positive news. I have made a major stride towards my goals. My website is up and running. You can visit it here: sciencescenes.com.

Everything looks pretty good. I am very proud of the work I put into it, but I still need to generate content. I have scripted the first dozen or so webcomics and am ready to start illustrating them, but I have hit a wall. I just cannot get motivated to push through. After a couple of days of asking myself why, I have determined it is one of the big two excuses... I'm scared. Time to set a goal. I will have my webcomic up and running by Monday July 22nd. Plan on it. On that day I will have a link here for the first Science Scenes comic. My first science scenes blog post is also in the planning stages. I should have that finished before the weekend.

Other than that, I have been working a lot around the house. I finally got the garage all organized and updated. I still want to turn one area into a little workshop, but that is for the future. I have also been spending time with my brothers and my daughter. My uncle-in-law and I worked on putting together one of those playsets for my daughter. It turned out great!

That's all for short term goals and planning. Hopefully I will be back again tomorrow. In the meanwhile, keep on building cathedrals.

See you soon.
-P

Personal Update - Where in the world am I?

Hi all.

Just a quick check in. I will not be able to blog post for another day or two likely. I am currently working on getting my website figured out and launched. Look for an announcement by the end of the week.

I am doing okay with all my other goals. No worries there.

See you soon.
-P

Lifehacks (Mindhacks) - What is the cost of doing nothing? Hint: it's not nothing.

Over the weekend I was listening to Tim Pychyl's iProcastinate Podcast, and for a very short time during this podcast Dr. Pychyl and his guest talked about a way to improve follow through on goals.

We human beings are terrible at predicting the future. It's one of the reasons large long term goals are rarely completed. We overestimate our future abilities and mood. We put off what should be done now in preparation for the future. This procrastination causes disappointments in ourselves, and can lead to a vicious downward spiral.

I often do not wish to get things done now. I would much rather put it off later. For large goals it makes sense to write the goals down. Research shows writing your goals down and reviewing them will lead positive outcomes.

However, here is a hint on how to improve the odds of finishing your goals.
 Hopefully by performing this excersice you will give a boost to your willpower, overcome procrastination, and accomplish great things.

When you do not wish to follow through with an action, ask yourself two questions. Question 1: What is the positive outcome of me performing this activity? Question 2: What is the cost of doing nothing?

By asking yourself these questions we can begin to see past our human nature and see some of the true costs of not following through. Here are some examples.

I don't wish to go for my training run today.
1.) However, if I do run, I will feel better after (I never feel worse). I will feel happy that I accomplished something today. My fitness will improve. Future runs will be easier.
2.) The cost of not running are my fitness will not improve. I will be more likely to skip the next workout. I will not have base miles to perform up to my expectations in my next race.

If I want to give in and drink that soda.
1.) If I don't drink the soda, I will be proud of myself. I will be able to add another day of going soda free. The cravings of soda will decrease each day.
2.) If I give in, I will likely give in again. The cravings will return and I could backslide.

You can go on and on for every activity. You can come up with many pros and cons of performing the activity. By thinking about these two questions you become more likley to accomplish your goals. Better yet write down these pros and cons and put them in a place you can review them often.

 Your will strenghten your will to get better. It's not fail safe, and you will fail, but with practice it will get easier.

Hope this helps. See you tomorrow.

-P

Stuck in a rut? - Volunteer.

When I first graduated college, I was a little lost. I had left the structure and safety of graduate school, where I was surrounded by similarly aged people who held similar interests to me. Once I entered "the real world" I lost a lot of that. Sure, my coworkers were awesome people, but it just wasn't the same.

I had joined Team in Training and met some good people through the program, but an injury prevented me from continuing with the program. For a while I was at a loss. I wasn't meeting people who held similar passions with me. I followed the typical work-home-sleep routine. I had my friends on the weekends, but they were now scattered across the country and some had started the very busy family life. So, they were often away. It could be lonely at times.

One day at lunch, the topic of how to meet new people in your adult life came up. One of my coworkers suggested that I try volunteering somewhere. She had a friend who started volunteering at the Shedd Aquarium and was loving it.

During the conversation, I remembered one of my favorite places as a child, The Field Museum. My late-uncle used to our large brood of cousins there for our weekends. Just the thought of the place brought back sweet nostalgia of exploring the maze-like halls filled with dinosaur bones and exotic creatures and cultures. I think I submitted my application to volunteer that day .

Volunteering fulfilled me in many ways. I felt like a kid again; memorizing dinosaur stats and learning and sharing stories of discovery and science. I met some great people, some who have became life-long friends.

When my old career was up in the air due to a rocky econonmy, volunteering kept me stable. The type of volunteer work I do involves the sharing of information, and led me to my new career in education. By giving myself as a volunteer, I was able to gain so much more. Bankrate.com even included me in an article about using volunteering as a career stepping stone.

So if you feel like your life is at a standstill... try volunteering. Contact institutions who are in line with your passions and skills and see if they could use a hand. You will learn new skills, rekindle old excitements, and meet like-minded people. Give it a try. Whats the worst that could happen?

See you all tomorrow.
-P

Personal Update and a Little Sarcastic Motivation

It's been a busy couple of days. I am still getting the schedule for the summer together and finding a strategy that will continue to work during the school year. My list of blog posts to write has grown over the past couple of days, and I have taken to writing them down in my iPad which I carry around with me at all times.

I haven't had time to fully write them yet. Yesterday we made a 4 hour round trip to celebrate my wive's nephew's birthday and today we took a trip to my mother's to visit with my grandparents who are in town. So I haven't been on top of my blogging or social media.

But, I still want to get a post in, and there are many other aspects of my life that are going well. For example, I was able to run for 50 minutes straight this morning. This is pretty specatacular because it is the first time I ran that long in over two years. I am feeling stronger, faster, better and more motivated.

Speaking of motivation, as I was brainstorming ideas for blog posts I remembered an episode of Weird Things podcast where they were talking about an article from the Onion that had been making the rounds of acedemia. I remember listening to the episode back in April on one of my runs (that were actually more walking than running at the time), and I immediately went home and looked up the article.

Here it is. It's the most motivational piece of writing I have read in a long time. It's spot on to how I felt about life at the time, and somewhat still explains why I am doing a lot of the activities I am doing right now.

I don't want my passions to take second stage to the motions of life. I want my passions to drive me. I want to look back on my life at the end, and have many more memories of "That was awesome!" than "I wish I would have...".

In a way, this silly Onion article put me on the path of doing the blog, purchasing web domains, and working on various other projects. Read the article, and if it motivates you take action. Learn, Try, Grow, Do.

See you tomorrow.
-P

Personal Update

I have a list of topics to write about, but I thought I'd save them for a later day. Today was the 'Hawks Stanley Cup Ralley and I've been on daddy duty all day. So Instead, it's time for another personal update.

I'm doing pretty well on my 21 days of happiness challenge. I've been journaling my gratitude and my 24 hour successes and reached out to friends I haven't talked to in a while. 

My 30 day of organization challenge has fallen apart, and I took two days catching up on reading while fighting the weather to get the outdoor chores done. I guess that would make it a partial fail. I am getting back on task with organizing. Tomorrow night I am going to tackle the book shelves and filing.

I've been keeping up with the Nerd Fitness challenge. My soda intake started to peak again, but I haven't had one since yesterday, and for the few days before yesterday I kept the amount of soda intake relatively low.

I have been running four days a week in preparation for the Spartan coming up. I do need to increase the body weight workouts. I am feeling stronger and faster... and unfortunately more tired and sore. I'm not as young as I used to be. Tomorrow is another long run. I am hoping to increase my run time to 50 minutes.

And that about wraps it up for today. See you all tomorrow.

-P

How to be successful? Be a big baby: 5 things to learn from infants.

Okay, I am not suggesting you beg and whine to get your way. Nobody likes that. What I am saying though is that there is a lot to learn from infants. I've been on daddy duty quite a bit for the past few days and here are something's that I observed from watching my daughter.

1. Don't be afraid to try something new everyday. Never stop learning.

The world is new to a baby. They are always looking for something new to touch, see, smell, and of course, taste. By not fearing novelty, you open up a whole world of growth and experiences. Don't be scared.

2. When you learn a skill that you like, do it over and over and over and over again until you master it.

My daughter is learning to stand and walk. She will pull her self up on everything and is using anything that slides on the floor as a walker. 

3. When you fail at the new skill, take it in stride. Laugh it off and try again.

As a new walker, my daughter is constantly falling. When she does fall, she looks around startled smiles to herself and gets up again. On the rare times her fall causes pain, you know what she does? She gets pissed, and stands up again tears and all. Life and skills should be the same way. When you start something new you are going to stink at it for a while. You are going to make mistakes. Don't let it  get you down. Laugh it off, or get angry, and try it again.

4. When the tears get to be too much; when you are crabby and snapping, and the mistakes keep coming; take a nap.

Lots of studies show, we need our rest. When you are no fun to be around, when you make mistake after mistake, take a break from it. Meditate. Relax. You might be lacking sleep. Take a nap. Get your Eric to eight hours. You might think you are productive by burning the midnight oil, but if you do it too often you ability to get things done suffers greatly.

5. You can't do everything yourself. Ask for help.

Babies can't crawl up high. They don't have the strength to twist off lids. They can't open doors. They need you to help them do things. You do too. No matter how good you are... no matter how much you've studied, or trained you cannot do everything. You will need help. And that's okay.

So it's okay to be a little bit like baby. See you tomorrow.

-P

Stuck in a rut? - Try changing your physical appearance.

In honor of my favorite hockey team,the Chicago Blackhawks (perhaps you heard of them?), I decided to jump on the bandwagon and not trim my beard or cut my hair for the duration of their time in the playoffs.

What that means is that I put off my annual ritual buzz cut for the summer. Until yesterday, that is, because my Hawks are now NHL champions! So, anyway, yesterday I shaved my beard and my head.

I shave my head every summer to institute a physical change in my appearance. The act of making a change in my apperance helps move me into summer mode.

In addition, when I shave my head, I look lighter and more athletic. The wind blowing through my hair makes me feel faster. Partially because of this physical change, I actually work out more and have more confidence.

So here's a suggestion. If you feel like you are in a rut or are not happy with your station in life, try making a physical change in your appearance. This change can alter your mood and increase your confidence, making your life change easier and longer lasting.

Want a different career? Try dressing and grooming yourself in the same way as someone with that career. Putting on glasses makes people feel smarter. Dressing up in ties and power suits makes people feel more confident.

This is the reason swimmers shave their heads. The physical drag reduction is minimal. Swimmer shaves because the swimmers "feel" faster, then believe they are faster, and finally they swim faster.

This is the reason job coaches tell their clients to dress up for even the most casual phone interviews. And they tell job hunters to always dress up as if they were going into the office even when performing their search.

Now, I am not saying you should spend money on plastic surgery or make drastic expensive changes. Even small changes can lead to large mental changes. If you want to make a life-change, try making a change in your appearence.

See you tomorrow.

-P

Things to do - Communicate Appointments With Your Family Using Google Calenders.

Yesterday, as part of my organization challenge, my wife and I created a shared calendar using Google Calendars.

It's a great communication tool. Hopefully this will help alleviate problems due to my absent-mindedness and our very busy schedules. Google Calendars is great because either one of us can edit the calender, and we can sync them from our smart phones or tablets. She can even create a honey-do list to keep me on task.

In order to create a shared google calendar, all parties must have a google account. I highly suggest you sign up for one. They're free now. Just go to www.google.com and click on the upper right hand corner. You can use a previously existing e-mail, but I prefer to create a brand new g-mail account. By creating an account, you will have access to not only the calendar, but also YouTube, G-mail, google drive, and many many more google applications.

 

In order to sync a calender, the first thing you need to do is sign into google and click on calendars. Once there, you can create a new calendar .

Name your calendar whatever you wish. Then scroll down to the bottom of the page. Once there, you can add people to your calender under the "Share with specific people" option. If you want the other parties to be able to add and edit event then I suggest you move to the drop down menu and give them the option to "Make changes and edit sharing". Just in case.

After that, just click on the time you have an appointment, and add follow the directions to add that event to the calender. You can even add non-date specific tasks. You and your family can now keep each other in the loop for all your important events. It makes forgetting anniversaries a thing of the past.

See you tomorrow. Build those cathedrals.

-P