Getting busy and falling behind already! How miserable! I'm still going though. Everything is being completed, I just can't find the time to write. Its the first week though, so I need to take a step back and analyze how I can better fit everything into the day.
Day Three Results
Reading: 4 chapters
Exercise: 30 minutes of walking
Calories: 1890
Communications: +1
Writing: 4 pages
Day Four Results
Reading: 1 chapter
Exercise: 15min of walking
Calories: 1420
Communications: +1
Writing: 0 pages
Friday, August 27, 2010
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Forget the Bucket, Welcome to the Invincibility List (Day Three)
“Everything. Everyone. Everywhere. Ends.” - Six Feet Under
Some day, something is going to happen to you and there will be nothing you can do to stop it. You can’t hide from it. You have no idea what will happen after it happens, you just know it will happen eventually.
Everybody dies. There’s no escaping that.
But not everybody lives, either.
So, put down that bucket list and stand up. DO SOMETHING!
I am decidedly anti-bucket list for anyone under the age of 70. The bucket list is meant to be a way to cope with mortality for people without much time left who want to prioritize the last few exciting things they may get to do before they shuffle off the mortal coil.
It is absolutely ridiculous for a 20/30/40 year old to sit down and compile a bucket list. I’m sorry if that offends you, please continue reading to understand my rationale.
If you are under the age of 70, a bucket list is meaningless for you. Don’t write things down, just go out and DO THEM.
You’re always told that when you turn 20, you think you’re invincible. That you can get away with everything and anything and no one will ever touch you because you think as such.
Why is that a bad thing? (Side Note: I don’t mean stupidity like drunk driving, drug use, etc. Anything you couldn’t tell your parents about makes you very vulnerable and not invincible at all. Its kryptonite. But you’re gonna do it anyway, aren’t you? Don’t say I didn’t warn you.)
Why is it a bad thing to consider ourselves invincible? As defined, invincibility is the thought “Incapable of being overcome or defeated; unconquerable.”
Is that such a bad thing to wake up every morning and declare ourselves invincible? We woke up, didn’t we? Death didn’t overcome us.
Is it wrong to go into every situation you encounter in a day with the thought that nothing will overcome you? Nothing will stop you from what you need to get done. (Again, barring extreme circumstances. By no means do I want you to step in front of a bullet or a speeding train just to test your invincibility. Within limits, true believers.)
It shouldn’t be.
Invincibility is fleeting though! It doesn’t last forever. Its like the star in Super Mario Brothers...it’ll only get you so far before it’s gone forever.
You only have so many years in your life to be invincible. You shouldn’t be wasting them thinking about the days when you will no longer have that invulnerability.
You should be out enjoying the fact that you have another day of invincibility. Use it. Speak to that girl/guy that you’ve always wanted to but never had the courage. You’re invincible! If she/he says no, do you die? Are you mortally wounded?
Nope.
Get off the couch and take a brisk walk around your block for a couple minutes. Feel the sweat dripping down your forehead and the air as it rushes in and out of your mouth. Feel your body fight against the exercise, but at the same time be SO ECSTATIC because you used it.
Did the sweat melt your skin off your bones? Did your lungs turn to ash?
Nope.
Take a crazy plunge. Go skydiving in California, or hang gliding in Colombia, or take a year in Africa to help with AIDS research, or Haiti in rebuilding after the earthquakes.
Big or small, trivial or monumental, the great thing is it doesn't matter. Just as long as you're out there appreciating the gift given to you and using it!
Go out there and don’t even think about your bucket list.
Think about your invincibility list. What haven’t you done that you should be doing? What haven’t you done that you want to do?
Here’s the trick. Don’t write it down. Don’t go near that pen or I’ll find you and smack you.
Just go do it!
I think bucket lists are great for people who are close to actually kicking the bucket.
But more than likely, you’re not one of them. So quit worrying!
Enjoy your invincibility. Just remember, capes get caught on edges and sharp things pretty easily, so stay away from propellers.
Some day, something is going to happen to you and there will be nothing you can do to stop it. You can’t hide from it. You have no idea what will happen after it happens, you just know it will happen eventually.
Everybody dies. There’s no escaping that.
But not everybody lives, either.
So, put down that bucket list and stand up. DO SOMETHING!
I am decidedly anti-bucket list for anyone under the age of 70. The bucket list is meant to be a way to cope with mortality for people without much time left who want to prioritize the last few exciting things they may get to do before they shuffle off the mortal coil.
It is absolutely ridiculous for a 20/30/40 year old to sit down and compile a bucket list. I’m sorry if that offends you, please continue reading to understand my rationale.
If you are under the age of 70, a bucket list is meaningless for you. Don’t write things down, just go out and DO THEM.
You’re always told that when you turn 20, you think you’re invincible. That you can get away with everything and anything and no one will ever touch you because you think as such.
Why is that a bad thing? (Side Note: I don’t mean stupidity like drunk driving, drug use, etc. Anything you couldn’t tell your parents about makes you very vulnerable and not invincible at all. Its kryptonite. But you’re gonna do it anyway, aren’t you? Don’t say I didn’t warn you.)
Why is it a bad thing to consider ourselves invincible? As defined, invincibility is the thought “Incapable of being overcome or defeated; unconquerable.”
Is that such a bad thing to wake up every morning and declare ourselves invincible? We woke up, didn’t we? Death didn’t overcome us.
Is it wrong to go into every situation you encounter in a day with the thought that nothing will overcome you? Nothing will stop you from what you need to get done. (Again, barring extreme circumstances. By no means do I want you to step in front of a bullet or a speeding train just to test your invincibility. Within limits, true believers.)
It shouldn’t be.
Invincibility is fleeting though! It doesn’t last forever. Its like the star in Super Mario Brothers...it’ll only get you so far before it’s gone forever.
You only have so many years in your life to be invincible. You shouldn’t be wasting them thinking about the days when you will no longer have that invulnerability.
You should be out enjoying the fact that you have another day of invincibility. Use it. Speak to that girl/guy that you’ve always wanted to but never had the courage. You’re invincible! If she/he says no, do you die? Are you mortally wounded?
Nope.
Get off the couch and take a brisk walk around your block for a couple minutes. Feel the sweat dripping down your forehead and the air as it rushes in and out of your mouth. Feel your body fight against the exercise, but at the same time be SO ECSTATIC because you used it.
Did the sweat melt your skin off your bones? Did your lungs turn to ash?
Nope.
Take a crazy plunge. Go skydiving in California, or hang gliding in Colombia, or take a year in Africa to help with AIDS research, or Haiti in rebuilding after the earthquakes.
Big or small, trivial or monumental, the great thing is it doesn't matter. Just as long as you're out there appreciating the gift given to you and using it!
Go out there and don’t even think about your bucket list.
Think about your invincibility list. What haven’t you done that you should be doing? What haven’t you done that you want to do?
Here’s the trick. Don’t write it down. Don’t go near that pen or I’ll find you and smack you.
Just go do it!
I think bucket lists are great for people who are close to actually kicking the bucket.
But more than likely, you’re not one of them. So quit worrying!
Enjoy your invincibility. Just remember, capes get caught on edges and sharp things pretty easily, so stay away from propellers.
Day Two
I should put something more in-depth up later. Forgot to write something last night for today. I'll get to it though.
Day Two Results
Reading: 2 chapters
Exercise: 15min of walking
Calories: 1630
Communications: +1
Writing: 5 pages
Day Two Results
Reading: 2 chapters
Exercise: 15min of walking
Calories: 1630
Communications: +1
Writing: 5 pages
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Personal Records (Day Two)
In the working world, the first thing you think of when the letters “PR” are used is Public Relations. I still have trouble with this even to this day, thanks to 10+ years of cross country and track.
In running terms, a “PR” is your personal record. It’s the best time you have to date for whatever race you’re running. You have to be proud of your PR, its an extension of you. It is the absolute best you have done.
Its a benchmark. Cross Country and Track are very lonely sports once you get on the playing field. You’ve got people cheering for you and you’ve got competitors around you, but there is no break. You cannot pass the ball off and take a second to regain your composure. You can’t return to the huddle because something didn’t work and try to create another way to success. Its a constant, fluid, individual sport. When it comes to race time, you HAVE to trust yourself, your legs, your brain, because at the end of it, your success relies solely on your shoulders.
The PR exists so that you can compete with yourself. I always imagined it as a shadow. Depending upon my pace, it would be running ahead, next to, or behind me, but it was always with me. It was the one thing I was after the most.
If you push yourself to be better than you could ever be, you will simultaneously become better than those around you. That’s just how it works. If you work to just be better than the people you’re competing against, you will NEVER become better than yourself.
For years, thats how I functioned. I had my PR and it was great, but I was more focused on doing better than those around me. Proving that I had something. Always grasping at straws for ways to prove myself. I never stopped to think that maybe, just maybe, I should be focusing on what I could do to better who I was the day before and that doing so would lead me further.
I’ve always been a bit of an angry kid. Always with the chip on my shoulder. Never the best looking, strongest, fastest, tallest, smartest, etc. I always thought I could be though.
That entitlement is important. Even if it isn’t the case, you constantly have to think that you can become better. That you know its within you to do better than you previously had.
Obviously, I was misguided. Instead of trying to be smarter than I was yesterday, or faster than I had been in the last race, it was always trying to be smarter or faster than the people around me. By chance, sometimes it would improve me. Mostly, however, it was just a false result.
Compare it to cramming for a big test. All you’re doing is working to be better than the test, to outfox the teacher giving the test.
What do you learn from that? How are you bettering yourself?
You’re not. You’ll probably forget 95% of the information as soon as you drop that test off at the teachers desk and vacate the room.
If you took the time to read, study, and participate in class, you retain the information. You become smarter and more knowledgeable and, by effect, become better than the test that you’ll have to take weeks down the road.
Its with these ideas that I try to tackle this challenge, the Better Me Project. It finally, for me, isn’t about being better than the person next to me, or adding weight to the chip on my shoulder. It is just about becoming a better me than I was yesterday and being excited to become even better the next day.
It took me 24 years to realize that. Maybe it takes you longer to come to that realization. It doesn’t matter how long it takes in comparison to everyone else, it just matters that you get to that point. Again, better than YOU can be, not better than THEY can be.
At the end of every post, I’ll put up my PR’s and then compare whether I’m meeting them or not on a daily basis. This will exist as my shadow. Whether running beside me, behind me, or in front of me, that part of me will always be there to push me harder than I had previously gone. Some days will not meet my PR and that’s okay. Sometimes you hit benchmarks that are harder to pass than others. It doesn’t mean you fail on a daily basis, it just means you did extremely well on a certain day.
I still look at my cross country and track PR’s as a source of personal pride.
5k: 18:57 (sophomore year HS)
800m: 1:57 (junior year HS)
1600m: 5:02 (sophomore year HS)
400m: :50 (junior year HS)
Those were all set 7-8 years ago and I still look at them with pride. They were the best I could do. Maybe some day I will get back to those levels. I’d love to be there. If not, they still represent the best I have. There are others better than me out there and that’s fine. I still became better than I had been. My first 5k race as a freshman, I finished in 22:40. Within a year, I had bettered myself by almost 4 minutes. I kicked my own ass pretty well, which is awesome.
Day One PRs:
Books: Two chapters of Freakonomics
Conversations: +2 people
Exercise: 30 minutes walking
Caloric Intake: 1743 (which is duly impressive because I had Chipotle for dinner!)
Writing: 4 pages (2 of them being this piece)
Here’s to Day Two! Thanks for the support.
In running terms, a “PR” is your personal record. It’s the best time you have to date for whatever race you’re running. You have to be proud of your PR, its an extension of you. It is the absolute best you have done.
Its a benchmark. Cross Country and Track are very lonely sports once you get on the playing field. You’ve got people cheering for you and you’ve got competitors around you, but there is no break. You cannot pass the ball off and take a second to regain your composure. You can’t return to the huddle because something didn’t work and try to create another way to success. Its a constant, fluid, individual sport. When it comes to race time, you HAVE to trust yourself, your legs, your brain, because at the end of it, your success relies solely on your shoulders.
The PR exists so that you can compete with yourself. I always imagined it as a shadow. Depending upon my pace, it would be running ahead, next to, or behind me, but it was always with me. It was the one thing I was after the most.
If you push yourself to be better than you could ever be, you will simultaneously become better than those around you. That’s just how it works. If you work to just be better than the people you’re competing against, you will NEVER become better than yourself.
For years, thats how I functioned. I had my PR and it was great, but I was more focused on doing better than those around me. Proving that I had something. Always grasping at straws for ways to prove myself. I never stopped to think that maybe, just maybe, I should be focusing on what I could do to better who I was the day before and that doing so would lead me further.
I’ve always been a bit of an angry kid. Always with the chip on my shoulder. Never the best looking, strongest, fastest, tallest, smartest, etc. I always thought I could be though.
That entitlement is important. Even if it isn’t the case, you constantly have to think that you can become better. That you know its within you to do better than you previously had.
Obviously, I was misguided. Instead of trying to be smarter than I was yesterday, or faster than I had been in the last race, it was always trying to be smarter or faster than the people around me. By chance, sometimes it would improve me. Mostly, however, it was just a false result.
Compare it to cramming for a big test. All you’re doing is working to be better than the test, to outfox the teacher giving the test.
What do you learn from that? How are you bettering yourself?
You’re not. You’ll probably forget 95% of the information as soon as you drop that test off at the teachers desk and vacate the room.
If you took the time to read, study, and participate in class, you retain the information. You become smarter and more knowledgeable and, by effect, become better than the test that you’ll have to take weeks down the road.
Its with these ideas that I try to tackle this challenge, the Better Me Project. It finally, for me, isn’t about being better than the person next to me, or adding weight to the chip on my shoulder. It is just about becoming a better me than I was yesterday and being excited to become even better the next day.
It took me 24 years to realize that. Maybe it takes you longer to come to that realization. It doesn’t matter how long it takes in comparison to everyone else, it just matters that you get to that point. Again, better than YOU can be, not better than THEY can be.
At the end of every post, I’ll put up my PR’s and then compare whether I’m meeting them or not on a daily basis. This will exist as my shadow. Whether running beside me, behind me, or in front of me, that part of me will always be there to push me harder than I had previously gone. Some days will not meet my PR and that’s okay. Sometimes you hit benchmarks that are harder to pass than others. It doesn’t mean you fail on a daily basis, it just means you did extremely well on a certain day.
I still look at my cross country and track PR’s as a source of personal pride.
5k: 18:57 (sophomore year HS)
800m: 1:57 (junior year HS)
1600m: 5:02 (sophomore year HS)
400m: :50 (junior year HS)
Those were all set 7-8 years ago and I still look at them with pride. They were the best I could do. Maybe some day I will get back to those levels. I’d love to be there. If not, they still represent the best I have. There are others better than me out there and that’s fine. I still became better than I had been. My first 5k race as a freshman, I finished in 22:40. Within a year, I had bettered myself by almost 4 minutes. I kicked my own ass pretty well, which is awesome.
Day One PRs:
Books: Two chapters of Freakonomics
Conversations: +2 people
Exercise: 30 minutes walking
Caloric Intake: 1743 (which is duly impressive because I had Chipotle for dinner!)
Writing: 4 pages (2 of them being this piece)
Here’s to Day Two! Thanks for the support.
Monday, August 23, 2010
The Better Me Project
At a training session a couple weeks ago, an idea was brought up, involving grade school gold star charts and the pursuit of becoming a better and more well-rounded person. The more I thought about about it, the more I dismissed it. The concept was pretty simple- pick a group of things, make a chart, every day you do it put a star up. Where it got interesting is the guys who did it posted their star charts on a daily basis on Facebook, using their friends to motivate them.
That is what captivated me. People were actually following along, enjoying their progress, helping them out however they could- whether it was through phone calls, or facebook messages, or text....there were people out there who cared enough to keep them on task, keep them moving toward their goal. The goal wasn’t perfection, it was just a constant pursuit of becoming a better person.
I began to consider how I could tailor a program like that for me. I know there’s a lot I need to change and a lot of ways to improve the situations around me. I have also known that for the past year or so, my main source of inspiration and contact with most of my friends, family, and so on is through social media. So putting the two together just started to make a lot of sense.
For those of you who don’t know, for the past two years I’ve been dealing with pretty bad cases of Social and General Anxiety Disorder, Panic Disorder, and Depression. I’m really not ashamed of it anymore, though I once was. Part of the process of fighting it is admitting it in public. Its nothing to be ashamed of and it happens to a lot more people than you think. It took two years for me to really come to grips with it and not be afraid to talk about it in public. It actually took until three weeks ago when I had a sit down with somebody who had similar problems that I finally came to terms with it and overcoming it.
The past two years have been a constant struggle of ups and downs. I let it all get so bad that it messed with the electrical chemistry of my heart, complicating everything by creating random heart palpitations/arrhythmia. Which then just made the process cyclical- I’d overcome a lot of anxiety, depression, etc. and as soon as things started to improve, my heart would react in an odd way and it would toss me back down the slope, only to start things over again. Imagine, if you will, you’re in the middle of a crowded bar of about 500 people with 6 of your friends and all of a sudden, out of nowhere, your heart starts pumping at about 200 beats per minute for ten seconds and nothing you can do will stop it. Or, imagine if you’re sitting down with a friend, having a random conversation about nothing in particular and you feel your heart start to hiccup...one second it’s a really strong beat that makes your entire body tingle.....the next its a really soft beat and you have to wonder if you’re heart is about to stop beating.
That’s what I’ve dealt with over the past two years. I let it affect me significantly. I’d stay in when everyone went out. I cut myself off from a LOT of people to avoid talking about it. There would be times where I would just get out to be with friends and have an episode...and I’d have to make up an excuse to leave immediately. It was a significant hindrance upon life in general.
These past couple months, I’ve been fed up of letting it dictate who I am and what I do. I’ve fought by myself for almost two years now and clearly the results are not what I had hoped.
Enter the BMP. The idea behind it is to use measurable goals to fight it and attempt to become a better person, better worker, better friend, better son, etc. I’ve spent two years hiding from a lot of things out of fear, but I want to use this Project as a way to put myself back out there and make positive changes.
The name, the Better Me Project, has a two-fold definition. First, obviously, is the desire to better me. I want to lay down guidelines that will make life better, will better educate me, will allow me to better help other people. At the same time, I need YOUR help. I need you to better me. I need you to keep me on my toes. I’m setting measurable goals that I came up with that I think will make me better. I need you to set goals as well. What do you think I need to do to become better? Where do you think I’m lacking and what goals would you set that you’d like to see me complete?
Over the next 30 days, I’m going to give this a shot. This is the trial-run of the BMP. To see if I can do it and to see how many people can reach out to help make a difference. I encourage you to take the idea and run with it. Even if you think you’ve already got a good grasp on everything, there’s always room to improve.
I’m going to use my blog as my daily updater. Part of the goal is to start writing more. I’ve always told people I love to write and would love to get paid to write, but there has never been any follow through.
GOAL 1: Update my blog on a daily basis.
I love to read. I love to read many different genres. I think reading randomly is the best way to learn and retain knowledge. Going to college completely turned me off from reading because the textbooks would put me to sleep.
GOAL 2: At least 6 books completed in 30 days.
I picked out a random assortment of books for my 30 day period. Books I may not normally read. I encourage you to do the same.
My books:
Freakonomics by Stephen Dubner and Steven Levitt
Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs by Chuck Klosterman
Never Eat Alone by Keith Ferrazzi
Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell
Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
Again, random assortment- from women’s lit to fiction to business networking to pop culture.
Because of my heart, I’ve had a real problem convincing myself that getting back into the gym was a worthwhile venture, for fear of keeling over and dying on the spot.
GOAL 3: 14 days straight of at least 30min worth of cardio
I’ve also used the excuse that because of my job as a consultant and constant road travels, eating healthy and watching my calories was impossible.
GOAL 4: 7 days straight of eating no more than 2,000 calories
I’ve also become averse to meeting new people. While I was never the best at it, I could at least do it when push came to shove.
GOAL 5: Create random interactions
I don’t mean randomly introduce myself to people on the street. What I mean by random interactions is striking up conversations with co-workers when I might actually just walk by them. Smile at people while I’m in an elevator instead of stare forward like a zombie. Say please, thank you, and create conversation with people when in stores or waiting in line.
Those are my five goals. The basic start of the BMP. If you have more or want to add on, I NEED you to do so.
This is a constant pursuit. I’m going to constantly need help. YOUR help. There are tons of mini goals to meet attached to the big ones, such as cutting out pop to meet the 2k calorie mark, or staying away from the TV or PS3 to keep reading, or to push my ass out of the house to get to the gym.
Here are my email addresses: mhart@ato.org michael86hart@gmail.com
Here are both of my cell phone numbers: (216)702-8027 (317)514-9291
Be relentless. If you don’t see a blog post for a day (within reason, 6am phone calls and Goal 3 may involve tracking you down and killing you), call or text me and ask me what’s going on. Ask me if I’ve been keeping up.
The title of my blog has been “Lost in Sleep” for the longest time because for the past two years I have felt like I’ve been in a constant sleep. Life has just drifted by and there hasn’t been much I could do to catch up and wake up.
My hope is that with your help and the BMP, I can change that and in doing so, not only change my life for the better, but hopefully make a positive impact on yours.
It is time for me to wake up and reassert control.
If I can step out of my comfort zone and do this, why can’t you?
Good luck to all of us!
That is what captivated me. People were actually following along, enjoying their progress, helping them out however they could- whether it was through phone calls, or facebook messages, or text....there were people out there who cared enough to keep them on task, keep them moving toward their goal. The goal wasn’t perfection, it was just a constant pursuit of becoming a better person.
I began to consider how I could tailor a program like that for me. I know there’s a lot I need to change and a lot of ways to improve the situations around me. I have also known that for the past year or so, my main source of inspiration and contact with most of my friends, family, and so on is through social media. So putting the two together just started to make a lot of sense.
For those of you who don’t know, for the past two years I’ve been dealing with pretty bad cases of Social and General Anxiety Disorder, Panic Disorder, and Depression. I’m really not ashamed of it anymore, though I once was. Part of the process of fighting it is admitting it in public. Its nothing to be ashamed of and it happens to a lot more people than you think. It took two years for me to really come to grips with it and not be afraid to talk about it in public. It actually took until three weeks ago when I had a sit down with somebody who had similar problems that I finally came to terms with it and overcoming it.
The past two years have been a constant struggle of ups and downs. I let it all get so bad that it messed with the electrical chemistry of my heart, complicating everything by creating random heart palpitations/arrhythmia. Which then just made the process cyclical- I’d overcome a lot of anxiety, depression, etc. and as soon as things started to improve, my heart would react in an odd way and it would toss me back down the slope, only to start things over again. Imagine, if you will, you’re in the middle of a crowded bar of about 500 people with 6 of your friends and all of a sudden, out of nowhere, your heart starts pumping at about 200 beats per minute for ten seconds and nothing you can do will stop it. Or, imagine if you’re sitting down with a friend, having a random conversation about nothing in particular and you feel your heart start to hiccup...one second it’s a really strong beat that makes your entire body tingle.....the next its a really soft beat and you have to wonder if you’re heart is about to stop beating.
That’s what I’ve dealt with over the past two years. I let it affect me significantly. I’d stay in when everyone went out. I cut myself off from a LOT of people to avoid talking about it. There would be times where I would just get out to be with friends and have an episode...and I’d have to make up an excuse to leave immediately. It was a significant hindrance upon life in general.
These past couple months, I’ve been fed up of letting it dictate who I am and what I do. I’ve fought by myself for almost two years now and clearly the results are not what I had hoped.
Enter the BMP. The idea behind it is to use measurable goals to fight it and attempt to become a better person, better worker, better friend, better son, etc. I’ve spent two years hiding from a lot of things out of fear, but I want to use this Project as a way to put myself back out there and make positive changes.
The name, the Better Me Project, has a two-fold definition. First, obviously, is the desire to better me. I want to lay down guidelines that will make life better, will better educate me, will allow me to better help other people. At the same time, I need YOUR help. I need you to better me. I need you to keep me on my toes. I’m setting measurable goals that I came up with that I think will make me better. I need you to set goals as well. What do you think I need to do to become better? Where do you think I’m lacking and what goals would you set that you’d like to see me complete?
Over the next 30 days, I’m going to give this a shot. This is the trial-run of the BMP. To see if I can do it and to see how many people can reach out to help make a difference. I encourage you to take the idea and run with it. Even if you think you’ve already got a good grasp on everything, there’s always room to improve.
I’m going to use my blog as my daily updater. Part of the goal is to start writing more. I’ve always told people I love to write and would love to get paid to write, but there has never been any follow through.
GOAL 1: Update my blog on a daily basis.
I love to read. I love to read many different genres. I think reading randomly is the best way to learn and retain knowledge. Going to college completely turned me off from reading because the textbooks would put me to sleep.
GOAL 2: At least 6 books completed in 30 days.
I picked out a random assortment of books for my 30 day period. Books I may not normally read. I encourage you to do the same.
My books:
Freakonomics by Stephen Dubner and Steven Levitt
Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs by Chuck Klosterman
Never Eat Alone by Keith Ferrazzi
Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell
Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
Again, random assortment- from women’s lit to fiction to business networking to pop culture.
Because of my heart, I’ve had a real problem convincing myself that getting back into the gym was a worthwhile venture, for fear of keeling over and dying on the spot.
GOAL 3: 14 days straight of at least 30min worth of cardio
I’ve also used the excuse that because of my job as a consultant and constant road travels, eating healthy and watching my calories was impossible.
GOAL 4: 7 days straight of eating no more than 2,000 calories
I’ve also become averse to meeting new people. While I was never the best at it, I could at least do it when push came to shove.
GOAL 5: Create random interactions
I don’t mean randomly introduce myself to people on the street. What I mean by random interactions is striking up conversations with co-workers when I might actually just walk by them. Smile at people while I’m in an elevator instead of stare forward like a zombie. Say please, thank you, and create conversation with people when in stores or waiting in line.
Those are my five goals. The basic start of the BMP. If you have more or want to add on, I NEED you to do so.
This is a constant pursuit. I’m going to constantly need help. YOUR help. There are tons of mini goals to meet attached to the big ones, such as cutting out pop to meet the 2k calorie mark, or staying away from the TV or PS3 to keep reading, or to push my ass out of the house to get to the gym.
Here are my email addresses: mhart@ato.org michael86hart@gmail.com
Here are both of my cell phone numbers: (216)702-8027 (317)514-9291
Be relentless. If you don’t see a blog post for a day (within reason, 6am phone calls and Goal 3 may involve tracking you down and killing you), call or text me and ask me what’s going on. Ask me if I’ve been keeping up.
The title of my blog has been “Lost in Sleep” for the longest time because for the past two years I have felt like I’ve been in a constant sleep. Life has just drifted by and there hasn’t been much I could do to catch up and wake up.
My hope is that with your help and the BMP, I can change that and in doing so, not only change my life for the better, but hopefully make a positive impact on yours.
It is time for me to wake up and reassert control.
If I can step out of my comfort zone and do this, why can’t you?
Good luck to all of us!
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