Step Three: SMART Goals

Step Three--SMART Goals

How do you make changes happen? All the wishing in the world doesn't do it. Haphazardly struggling through every day second guessing everything you do doesn't either. In order for a goal to become reality, it requires a few special features to make it a SMART goal. You probably have heard of this acronym: 

Specific Measurable Achievable Realistic Time-Based Goals=SMART Goals.
Learn more at https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/smart-goals.htm

You want to lose weight? An example SMART goal would be something like the following.
          I want to reduce my weight to X, and these are the steps that I will take:
               1) Track my food intake daily
               2) Record my weight and water intake daily
               3) Stop eating anything with added sugar, etc.

In order to make it realistic, it helps to read the stories of others. I hope my story helps others feel like they can do this. I cannot say it has always been easy, but it is something that is worth the doing!

A time-based goal would be made by determining how much weight you can expect to lose on average per week and plotting a chart to see how many weeks it should take. Most people lose more weight at first when they begin a diet. So this may be adjusted over time. Actually any part of the Change Your Life Diet can be adjusted as needed. 

I tweaked my diet (sort of bio-hacking) as I went along until it worked for me. And of course, exercise is incorporated in a progressive fashion, because you have to start somewhere, and you won't get anywhere fast unless you add to your routine as your fitness level increases.

Next time, I will talk about BIG BAD SUGAR. Until then, keep drinking water, tracking your food and weight, and start trying to formulate a SMART Goal or two that you can adapt as you go on. 

BORED!

Although I claimed that I was closing this blog earlier this year, I have reconsidered. It is such a good name, after all! I think the point was to create a variety of blogs instead of one, specifically random one. Since I only started one other blog, I think that I should stick to one blog for now. I would like to make this blog contain more of my life and focus on whatever concepts I am pondering at the moment!

Currently, I am pondering the state of boredom. Why am I bored? I usually never am. In fact, what is boredom, even? LiveScience has an article on their website that addresses this question, at least partially. The definition of boredom, according to researchers at York University in Ontario, Canada, is "an aversive state of wanting, but being unable, to engage in satisfying activity," and this is due, the researchers explained, to some sort of problem with attention to our internal thoughts/feelings or even exterior stimuli. It is sort of like being unfocused, but aware of the fact, and unable to concentrate even on activities you might otherwise enjoy.

Mike Licktieg offered some strategies for fighting boredom. These include the following:

1. Throw some variety into your life; shake up the normal routine. Make a different meal, take a different class, watch a movie you would not normally watch, etc.
2. Create and use a bucket list (or 101 things to do in 1001 days); explore new ideas and activities for joining or forming a hobby.
3. Express yourself (creative activities such as writing, drawing, pottery, etc.)
4. Focus on helping others rather than your boredom or problems.
5. Conduct a personal search for meaning in your life, through connection with family, friends, God (in whatever form you subscribe to), public service or charity...in other words, rejoice in making your own purpose. 

These ideas are broad but definitely have made me think today. I hope that you find panache for your boredom. I will work toward a more active anti-boredom strategy that involves most or all of these suggestions to some degree. No more whiny teenage angst! (Although I am 40...just have seen this comment inundating teenagers' social networking presence at times)

What to Do When You Have Too Much to Do

Feeling overwhelmed? Yeah, me too. For every task I complete there are always 20 more waiting for me to do. Sometimes I write a list of things to do, and cross them off, which is mildly satisfying, when I complete them. But then the next day, I have more to add, and I get less proportionately done, because of the leftovers from the day before...!
How to solve this dilemma? Let's start by following Brian Tracy's advice, from Eat That Frog!:

People with clear, written goals, accomplish far more in a shorter period of time than people without them could ever imagine.

Eat That Frog!  Every bit of planning, prioritizing, and organizing comes down to this simple concept.

Every great achievement of humankind has been preceded by a long period of hard, concentrated work until the job was done.  Your ability to select your most important task, to begin it, and then to concentrate on it until it is complete is the key to high levels of performance and personal productivity.

By concentrating on your most important task, you can reduce the time required to complete it by 50% or more.

It has been estimated that the tendency to start and stop a task – to pick it up, put it down, and come back to it – can increase the time necessary to complete the task by as much as 500%.  This is not productive!

But when you prepare thoroughly and then begin, refusing to stop or turn aside until the job is done, you develop energy, enthusiasm, and motivation.  You get better and better and more productive.  You work faster and more effectively.

Another great source of advice is James Clear. In one of his recent blogs, he outlined the principle of the Two Minute Rule. The basic tenets of this rule are: if you can do it in 2 minutes or less, get it done now, and anything else, get started now, because 2 minutes is enough to get past your inertia and leads, quite often to getting the task done or at least a substantial start.

Well, it sure beats sitting around and sighing about how much you have to do!

Until next time!

More about Personal Learning Plans and Relevant Links

Hi again. When I last posted, I promised to continue my Personal Learning Plan discussion. In particular, I wanted to make sure that I included the list of helpful links for those who want further information.

First of all, remember than a personal learning plan is a guideline that can grow and change. I think that it might be easier to understand its purpose if you think of it as goals and how to reach them. The goals have to be specific enough to have a measurable outcome, or else one may not be able to know when or even whether the learning plan has been completed. 

Recommended links to get you started or stir the imagination in the right direction anyway:

How-To 2: Write a Personal Learning Plan | The Edupunks' Guide

How to Learn Anything | UnCollegeUnCollege

https://p2pu.org/en/groups/diy-u-getting-started-with-self-learning/content/write-a-personal-learning-plan/

http://www.topra.org/sites/default/files/assets/pdf/Personal_Learning_Plan.pdf

The last one is particularly useful if you have a business mindset, or if you are working on a PLP within the context of your job.

An article that I read awhile ago now is clamoring for attention (in my mind). It is about making 101 goals to complete in 1001 days. Here are a few links to information about this idea:

http://www.thesimpledollar.com/2007/05/04/101-goals-in-1001-days/

http://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/2007/03/24/101-things-in-1001-days/

http://dayzeroproject.com/about/

The last link is to a site that is something like a social network for people who love to make lists... I gather from perusing the site that people make and post lists to share with others, often including photographs, and that the 101 goals in 1001 days meme may have been the original list that started it all. It all looks like fun.... I may join.

On any account, I must be off, since I have places to to go and people to see. It's Summerfest on the Rio Grande time, and I have promised to go watch some kids I know belly dancing...

Until next time, happy random thoughts!

Instant Gratification

Who doesn't want that?! But I believe that many of the problems of the Western World are due to the desire for instant gratification. Crime is often spurred simply by an uncontrolled urge to possess something that you don't have, up to and including power. The uncontrolled urge for power is an inherent weakness--even evil knows that gratification cannot always be instant!

Patience is a virtue; I need some NOW!

Here is the deal: children really need to be taught to delay their gratification. Seriously. Because I hate it when I see adults that never learned. Respecting others requires a delay of gratification as well at times. This will benefit you as well, in the long run. For example, you probably should not walk up to a complete stranger, grab them by the hand, serenade them with a love song, then ask for their hand in marriage. Um, bizzare! (although oddly entertaining as a possibility)

Remember "Good things come to those who wait" (Unknown author, English origin)

Well, it is true, but having a positive mindset definitely pays off too! You have to believe that those good things are coming, and work toward removing obstacles to their arrival! Maybe there should be a class in schools on how to plan/manage one's life. It should be required! Learn how to make goals, then set up practical steps to their achievement. Yeah, that's the ticket! Most teenagers today don't know what they want to do, where they want to be in life, much less how to get there.

Here is an interesting related thread with a thought-provoking psychological bent:

http://www.bordeglobal.com/foruminv/index.php?showtopic=16703

Well, enough specific randomosity for one day...