Tag: Goals

“Up 30lbs over last year” – More Fitness Reflections

Happy Canada Day weekend for those who are observing it!

In preparation for the holiday, I’m writing this post a little early as I will be sans networked connection at the lake.  As of writing, I don’t yet have all of my sleep data recorded for June, so the typical sleep update will be delayed one week.

Instead, I want to briefly give some further health and fitness thoughts that I’ve been mulling over recently, in no particular order.

 

1. “I’ve put on some weight…”

Exercise was a bigger part of my life last year, but I’ve recently recalled that my gym habit waned in the days before heading off to Scotland in July 2016.  Prompted by the realization that July starts next week, I looked up my weight stats for this time last year.  Ugly truth time!

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Starting Weight for June 27th, 2016 – 297.8lbs.  Starting Weight for June 27th, 2017 – 328.6lbs (+30.8lbs).

 

Needless to say, that’s a little disappointing.  Finding a system that I can stick to has been a challenge for a number of reasons that aren’t particularly compelling, and I’m disappointed in my progress so far.

 

2. Goal Setting with a Deadline

I realized that last Saturday was exactly 63 weeks away from our wedding day.  I’m hoping to leverage the not so far off wedding date as a concrete goal in my mind to spur action.  Every week that I do nothing in regards to exercise or fitness brings me one week closer to the wedding where I didn’t prepare.  With lots of lead-in, I have plenty of time to exercise safely to look good for my future-wife.

 

3. Tracking Excuses

I found a nifty idea on Reddit that I’m implementing in my notebook called the Excuse Log.   This will have the dual purpose of aiding purposeful reflection on why I don’t exercise when I plan to, and what I can do about it in the future.  In my notebook, I’ve penned in the table below:

Excuse Legitimate? Reality/Solution
 *What is the reason why I’m not going to the gym?  *Is this a legitimate reason?  I.e. would a good friend or professional excuse my absence based on this reason?  *If the excuse is not legitimate, reframe the problem to better reflect reality for next time. If the excuse is legitimate, what solutions can you implement to help you in the future.

This will help me be more mindful of those times when I didn’t exercise as I planned because I let my baser monkey brain trick me (you’re too tired, YouTube is more pleasant, you ate too big of a lunch, etc.).

 

4. Enjoy What You Do

I stopped rowing, ultimately, because I don’t enjoy cardio exercises all that much.  While it might be true that I like rowing over running, I truthfully don’t like rowing or running that much as compared to lifting weights, especially when it’s the only exercise I’m doing.

Going to the gym to lift weights comes with a whole host of mental barriers that I’ve thus far proven to be weak against.  I give in to temptation when I’m tired, I don’t have the discipline yet to hit the gym in the morning, I’m still self-conscious around others, and I seem to have an aversion to sweating.  Stacked together, I’ve got a lot of friction to fight against just to do the right thing.

A trick I’ve seen consistently in the exercise literature and the self-help sphere is to pick activities you like to do, because you’ll be more likely to stick to them.  I genuinely enjoyed going to the gym when life was simpler a year ago.  Now, having been away for so long, it’s hard for me to build up to the same level where I can coast on the routine.  I need a catalyst to help push me forward.  I need something I enjoy to be the keystone habit/activity that will force me to exercise.  John Green talked about it recently after completing his first half-marathon on his 100 Days YouTube channel.  In the video, he takes the advice that sticking to your fitness habits can be aided by signing up for competitions that you need to train for.

Recently, I participated in a crash course introduction to Brazilian Jiu Jitsu with some friends.  To say that it kicked my ass is a bit of an understatement; I was a hot, sweaty mess afterwards.  As of writing I still have bruises and broken blood vessels marking my upper arms and chest, and in the days afterwards I felt as though I had been run over by a mid-sized American pick-up truck.

And yet, I thoroughly enjoyed the experience.  In the past, I had also participated in a similar session for Krav Maga, and while I enjoyed it, too, the BJJ session was a lot more fun for me.  Despite what you may think about me moonlighting as a security guard, I’m not a big fan of striking combat.  I prefer grappling and restraint over throwing punches, so BJJ spoke to me on some level.

I’ve since looked up the fees and schedule offered by the recreation centre and I’ve been pondering whether I would want to join in on some of the drop-in classes.  To keep up and learn BJJ (or any martial art) would require me to improve my flexibility, mobility, and cardiovascular endurance; I’d also be more inclined to hit the weights to gain strength as well.  I haven’t made any decisions or commitments yet, but it’s something that’s been on my mind.

—–

Of course, this is all talk.  My problem is that I don’t translate talk into action.  All the best laid plans come unraveled when you can’t put the rubber to the pavement (worn cliched metaphors and all).  Or, as Mike Tyson has quipped, everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face.   In this case, lacking a solid fitness plan opens me up to the punches of day-to-day life, where every available excuse becomes a valid reason to not commit to exercise.

As I review this post, I realize the order I laid things out in creates a pretty good reflection of 1.) identifying the problem, 2.) setting a realistic timeline, 3.) anticipating roadblocks, and 4.) setting good plans of action.

I don’t know where this will go, but I’m curious to see what comes of it.

Stay Awesome,

Ryan

 

What I’ve Been Reading (as of June 19th)

Drawing inspiration from Marginal REVOLUTION, a blog co-maintained by economist and author Tyler Cowan, I think I’ll insert an occasional update of the books I’m reading.  While Cowan and Alex Tabarrok update the site several times each day, and you’ll see these lists from them at least once a week, I do not have plans to update with any regular frequency.  However, I’ve been reading books at a decent pace, and I have enough books on the go that I can make a short list here from time to time.

For all the books I read last year, see My 2016 Reading List.  You can also follow my reading on my instagram account, where I post the covers of books as I finish them.

Here are five books I’m currently reading:

Reading the Humanities: How I Lost My Modernity by John Greenwood

This book was authored by one of my former professors from way back in first year of undergrad.  I still owe him two papers from the class I took with him – it’s the only class I failed at university (surprise, surprise).  I found myself in the university book shop on a recent visit to campus and decided to pick this up and check it out.  It’s exactly what you would want and expect from a professor who teaches literature and meditates on various topics relevant to life.  It reminds me a lot of what you see from The School of Life.

 

Mort by Terry Pratchett

I’ve been taking in the world of Terry Pratchett by audiobooks as of late.  It helps me pass the time on the commute to work, and I enjoy fictional books delivered by audiobook, as listening to the story is easier to absorb than nonfiction.  The titular character Mort is alright enough, but I’m really in this story for Death.  Everything about the character Death is awesome to me, especially his dry humour and the metaphysics that goes into explaining a character who reaps souls.

 

The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin

This book pops up in a lot of self-improvement and self-reflection blogs and books, so I think it was inevitable that I would read it eventually.  This is doubly so because she name-drops Aristotle on the cover (virtue ethics for the win!).  I actually stole this copy from my fiancee’s mother, so I should finish it and put it back on the bookshelf before anyone notices.  Amusing sidenote – I stole this book from her a couple months before Christmas, then my fiancee received a copy from her mother as a Christmas gift.  Really, I should just read the one we have a home…

 

 The Road to Character by David Brooks

Another book related to my future mother-in-law.  This was actually a book I had mentioned to my fiancee that I was interested in checking out and was planning on swiping from her mother (I really seem to have a problem with theft and books, specifically the books owned by my future mother-in-law…).  Well, my fiancee told her mom  that I was interested in the book, so I received it as a gift for last Christmas.  Funny how things work themselves out.

 

 

Rome’s Last Citizen by Rob Goodman and Jimmy Soni

I believe I saw this book recommended by Ryan Holiday on one of his monthly reading lists.  Last year, I was on a big stoicism kick, so the life of one of Rome’s most famous stoic practitioners appealed to me.  I am finding the read a little slow as there is a lot of extra history that is included to give context to the events of Cato’s life, but I’m still finding the book interesting and insightful.

 

Feel free to comment below with books that you are reading that I should check out.  I’d love to hear about them and grow my reading list.

Stay Awesome,

Ryan

Quarterly (+1 month) Sleep Review

Last week, I gave my fourth sleep check-in for 2017.  With four months of data, I thought I’d put it all together to see what trends shake out and what I might learn from the experience so far.

2017Q1 Sleep
(Note, I missed the opportunity to review a true quarter, but an extra month is just more data for me to dig into.)

The single best day for sleep for me are Sunday’s.  This makes sense, as I typically don’t work Saturday nights at the bar anymore, and I consider Sunday to be a down day – I don’t set alarms unless I have something planned.  Therefore, it makes sense that I hit at least 7-hours of sleep 10 our of the 18 Sunday’s in the first four months (55.5%).

If Sunday’s are successful, why aren’t Saturday’s?  I attribute this largely to working at the bar Friday nights.  When I work a bar shift, I don’t get off work until 2:30am, which means that by the time I get home, wind down, and finally push myself to go to bed, it’s 4am or later.  Since I don’t like sleeping too late on Saturday’s and wasting the day, I’ll often get up by 10 or 11am, well before I hit the 7-hour sleep mark.  Because of this, it doesn’t surprise me that Saturday’s are displaying the worst results.

With the Monday through Friday results being largely similar, I can offer some brief commentary on their successes.  Sleep results from Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday are the most likely to be successful for me since I often have those nights free, and am able to go to bed around 10pm.  In this case, I’m not successful because I’m usually not in bed until after 10:30pm, meaning any kind of restlessness while I sleep cuts into the narrow margins.  While the opportunity for success is there, poor execution on my part is to blame for the poor results.

Thursday’s results are curious.  Thursday’s come after I work the Wednesday night shifts at the bar, so you would expect me to have as poor of results as Saturday.  However, what’s not captured in the graph is the time I go into work Thursday mornings.  While I’m *supposed* to start work at 9:30am, I’m often sleeping in Thursday mornings and not getting to work until 10am.  That probably accounts for the times I’m hitting the 7-hours.

Friday’s are a little anomalous, as I would expect them to be on par with Monday through Wednesday.  I suppose there’s a few things going on there: I’m a little fatigued by the end of the week, so I’m making poorer choices; or perhaps my sleeping schedule shifts later because of Wednesday night.  It’s also possible that there are other externalities that I’m not accounting for, such as other events in my calendar that I’m not including here for simplicity.

Of course, it needs to be pointed out that we should not draw a lot of inferences here.  All things considered, four months is not a lot of data, and I’m still performing poorly in terms of the sleep challenge.  In the four months (120 days), I hit my target 25 times (20.8%).  Not accounted for, as well, are the near-misses where I slept over 6.5-hours in a night, but less than 7-hours.  Also not accounted for are the nights were I was asleep for 7 or more hours, but due to restlessness, getting up in the night, or being disturbed by my partner and pet, I was tracking less than 7-hours on my Fitbit.

Still, near-misses are failures, and I must accept those instances where I barely fail my goals.  With more intentionality, mindfulness, and better systems, it is possible for me to improve over the next four months.

Stay Awesome,

Ryan

Evolving Job Description

Having lost out on the competition for the new job at work, I’ve been motivated to consider how to position myself for future advancement at the college.  I’m trying to figure out what steps I can take to make myself a more attractive candidate.  One way I’m looking into is to turn back towards education and find a part-time online program I can take to add more credentials to my name.  I won’t dive too deep into what I’ve turned up yet, but I’m exploring a few options that could result in an additional bachelors degree in education, or even have me return for doctorate graduate studies.

Setting those aside for now, another way of improving myself is taking on additional roles and responsibility at work.  This is not to say that I’m looking to make myself busier, or becoming a martyr to work.  Instead, I’m looking at selectively adding roles that require me to learn more about curriculum and post-secondary education delivery.

I just got out of a meeting with my boss, where we discussed some avenues of growth she’s looking to take me in regarding student academic advising and program review process management.  By necessity, these new roles will require me to understand how curriculum fits together, and how students progress through their programs.  This deeper understanding will benefit me in the long-run and expose me to new areas of the college.

Coming out of this meeting, I reflected on my job at the college to date, and how it has evolved over time.  I realized that for each September I have been here (new academic year), my job changed from the previous year.

I started out as a temporary research assistant.

The next year, I was an assistant for the program advisory committees.

Then I added program review support the following year.

At the start of this year, I began teaching and I took on a more significant role with program reviews.  With this increased responsibility, my boss has also added academic advising at the start of 2017 – both to current and prospective students.

At each level, my job description has changed and evolved.  I’ve lost some minor, menial tasks, and I’ve automated others to free up cognitive space.  This is ultimately a good thing for me.  While I’ve been slowly improving my place at work (moving from contract, to part time, to full time permanent, and slowly earning more money along the way), I’ve been turning heads and catching people’s attention.  I may feel stagnant a times during the day-to-day grind, but it’s important to remind myself that I’ve been going nowhere but up since I started here.

 

Stay Awesome,

Ryan

March Sleep Check-in

I decided to hold off on posting the March sleep check-in in favour of discussing the job related stuff while it was fresh and ongoing.  However, now that the bulk of that is out of the way, I can return to updating my progress on getting more sleep.

IMG_20170412_202637121
6/31 days, or 19.3%.

As you can see from my daily tracking, basically no change over February.  I did get one less night of sleep over 7-hours last month, but overall I stayed consistent with the previous month in the number of nights with over 7-hours in a month.  Obviously February and March don’t have the same number of days per month, but I’m treating this as a rough estimate.  Ideally, I would have liked to have seen an improvement, so it’s something to keep in mind for the rest of April.

Hope you had a great Easter weekend!  Talk to you next week.

 

Stay Awesome,

 

Ryan

The Motivation of Failure

Last week, I was passed over on a job opportunity for a more qualified candidate.  Such is life, and I don’t bear any ill-thoughts for the results of the job search.  I’m disappointed, but not soured by the experience.  It’s an opportunity to learn and grow, and I find that more important to focus on than to give in to a fixed mindset of self-pity.

After the feelings of sadness ebbed, I found myself experiencing a different feeling – motivation.  This has happened a few times in my life, and it was strange to be reaquainted with it.  There have been a few critical moments in my life where I failed at something important, and that failure created a fire within that motivated me.

It happened when I climbed Mount Kenya in 2007 after I failed my summit in the summer of 2003 of a mountain in Alberta whose name I’ve forgotten.

It happened when I joined the Campus Response Team and became a Coordinator after I failed twice to be a residence don.

And it happened again last week when I wasn’t selected for the job.  The self-critical sadness was overtaken by a motivation to go to the gym.

As I’ve written previously, It’s been a while since I’ve visited the gym.  According to my fitness journal, the last time I was in the gym was around Hallowe’en.  I’ve been rowing this last month a few times a week in the mornings, but I haven’t lifted iron in around five months.

Initially, I stopped going to the gym after my routine was disrupted by travelling to Scotland.  Then I didn’t go out of laziness, and then I didn’t go because I didn’t feel like I could justify going to the gym when I was supposed to be marking assignments and prepping my lectures.  By the time December rolled around I had regained my weight, but I also proposed to my fiancee, and started the planning process for moving out of my apartment.  Along the way, I was tired from a lack of sleep and dissatisfied with what I saw in the mirror.  Yet, it was never enough to overcome my inertia.

Failing to get the job was the final push I needed to hit the gym.  Maybe I needed a physical outlet to vent some frustration.  Maybe it was a form of punishment.  I’d like to think it was something more constructive – I accepted that I failed but I also saw that I could do better next time.  It is within my power to learn from the experience and grow.  The failures seemed to stack until it hit a critical mass; a line was crossed that set off the warning bells that I was heading in a direction I didn’t want to go.

It was time to make the first step and correct my course.

 

I vlog occasionally for my buddy’s YouTube channel, Artpress, and posted this immediately after I got out of the gym.

So, I hit the gym and pumped some iron.  I was nervous to go back as a beginner again, and overcoming inertia was incredibly uncomfortable, but I did it.

Now the trick is to keep it up.  That’s, perhaps, the greater challenge I face.

 

Stay Awesome,

Ryan

(Update) I Didn’t Get The Job

On Monday, I briefly commented that when it comes to job interviews, I am not particularly good at interviewing.  My native pessimism seems to have paid off because when I arrived at work yesterday morning, I had an email from HR thanking me for participating, but they will move forward with a more qualified candidate.

Yep, it stings and I’m disappointed.

I’m trying to keep my outlook positive, though.  I’m glad I went through the process – I had a chance to practice some skills I haven’t touched in a while, and I will learn from my mistakes and do better next time.

My immediate next step was to reply to HR, thanking them for the opportunity, and to ask  them for feedback or comments on my performance in order to grow.

Feedback

In this case, HR assured me that they went with a candidate that indeed had more experience related to the job than I; it was a competition, and I did not perform badly, all things considered.  I’ve heard through the grapevine who the successful candidate might be, and if it’s who I think it is, I feel at peace with losing to this person.  They are a great colleague, very good at their job, and will excel in the new role.  To put it in perspective, the person I believe got the job is also the person who has been instrumental in creating new, standardized processes for program reviews – templates and workflows that many of us at the college have adopted.  Further, I’ve been working with my manager to redefine my current position in order to qualify for a higher payband, and we’ve been using this person’s job description as an exemplar.  I don’t feel so bad losing if I lost to this person.  I wish them the best.

HR did have two bits of feedback that I can use to improve next time.

First contrary to what I said on Monday, they said I didn’t say enough, and didn’t go deep enough in my answers.

*Gasp!*

Ok, maybe we need to unpack that.  Keep in mind that I am a verbal train wreck at times, but the interview lasted maybe 20-25 minutes out of a 45 minute time slot.  So, what I’m taking from this is that while I may have said a lot of words, I wasn’t saying the right things.  They wanted more than direct answers – they wanted clear answers and elaborations.

I should have taken a cue from the fact that for a couple questions, the interviewers asked follow-up questions that prompted me for more answers.  It’s obvious now, but in the moment I missed that connection.  My answers needed to be commensurate with the level of responsibility the role requires.  In all likelihood, I would have done the right thing in the job, but at the interview level, I wasn’t able to articulate the depth needed to satisfy the interviewers.  It’s hard to pay attention to those cues in the moment when your mind is in a million different places and you are trying to summarize your experience in a coherent response.

The second bit of feedback I received was that I didn’t give a good explanation of why I was interested in the job.  HR’s feedback was that my reasons for wanting the job didn’t really align with the PDF (our initialism for the job description).

Sure, I played it smart by not being up-front that the pay raise played a huge role in it (it would have been 2-steps up from where I am).  What I had told them was  that the job was the next evolution of what I’m currently doing at the college, and since I started teaching last term, I’ve been seeking ways of further developing myself at the college.

A fine answer, sure, but it doesn’t really say anything about the job itself.  I could have given that answer for literally any job I applied for.

Instead, HR suggested I read the PFD and apply what the job description says to my answer.  Upon reflection, I should have mentioned that I’ve found an aptitude for program development and review.  I should have said that I enjoyed my experiences working on the 3 engineering degrees and the 3 post-graduate certificates we’ve developed since I’ve started at the college.  I could have discussed how I’ve taken on some leadership when it comes to program development to help the Chairs share the workload.

Those would have been good elaborations as to why I want to seek out roles that expand myself.  A hard lesson to learn, but important to keep in mind.  If I learned anything from my personal development reading last year (Covey, Sinek, etc.), it’s that you should have a clear sense of why in what you do.

Next Steps

There isn’t much more I can do at the moment but work on making my current position better with my manager and keep an eye out for the next opportunity.

However, one thing I did do is send thank-you cards to my interviewers.  I drafted them up last night and dropped them in the inter-office mail system this morning.  It’s not a common practice for people at my level, so it’ll a.) make me more memorable; and b.) signal my gratitude for the experience.

It may also send some good karma my way.

 

Stay Awesome,

 

Ryan

(Blog) Weak Will and my Monkey Brain

I did something bad last night.  I went against my better judgement and stayed up until just after 1:30am.

*Gasp!*

Ok, perhaps this isn’t the worst thing in the world.  In fact, given the demographics of the area I live in, there were plenty of other people in my neighborhood who were still awake well past my drifting off to sleep.

Why is this bad?

It’s bad for two main reasons.  First, it’s bad because it goes counter to my expressed goals of striving for 7-hours of sleep per night.  It also creeps in on my desire to not use YouTube late at night.  I’ve identified this as a problem before, and I know  that giving in to “just 10-minutes on YouTube” is a recipe for failure.

But the second and more pressing concern is that I knew better, because just 15-minutes before I sat down at the computer, I was musing on the car ride home from my shift at the bar that I should put my staff meal in the fridge and go straight to bed.  I got home, let the dog out, then sat down at the computer and thought “I haven’t done any late night surfing in a while, and I could unwind a bit since I’m not tired, so how about some YouTube?”

Big mistake.

Never mind that passively consuming online videos makes it easy to lose track of time as you spiral down the rabbit hole of content; never mind that staring at a screen is bad for your sleep and inhibits the production of chemicals that help you feel tired; I rationally knew and actively thought to myself that I know what I’m supposed to do, and I went and did the irrational thing anyway!

While I’m talking about this as if it’s an addiction, I know that this is less an issue of some sort of neuro-behavioral compulsion and more of a weakness of will.  Or, more specifically, it’s a lack of discipline on my part.  It’s thinking that I’m smarter than my own laziness.  Once again, my monkey brain won out and I ended up sabotaging my goals without really being aware of it.

You win this time, Laziness.

 

Stay Awesome,

Ryan

(Blog) A New Timeline

As of writing, it is February 3rd.

Yesterday, I had a realization – I am in a new timeline.  And I’m not sure how I feel about that.

The reference comes from an episode of Community where the characters are playing Dungeons & Dragons and the storyline focuses on six distinct timelines based on the character’s decisions.

At the close of February 1st, 2017, I officially entered a new timeline.

For the last year, my focus had been geared towards preparing to apply to a paramedic program before the deadline closed on Feb. 1st.  I took preparatory courses, read books on medicine, talked to teachers and industry people, exercised, and started laying some of the financial groundwork.

When I proposed to my fiancee, I had to re-evaluate my future career path.  My plan had assumed that I would be on my own, or at least my career wouldn’t necessarily be influenced by needing to consider anyone else.  However, by proposing, I was intertwining my life and career with my fiancee’s.  I’ve been at my current job for almost three years now and I enjoy a stable paycheck and good benefits.  My fiancee graduated from her program in April and just landed her first major job in her field.

After consideration, I decided to put going into paramedicine on hold indefinitely in order to help support her.  She’s only on a short contract, so she doesn’t have stable employment yet.  She also commutes about an hour each way, so her ability to manage the house and take care of the dog alone until I finish moving in is challenging.  It would put us in a bad spot if I were to stop receiving an income and re-enter school while she is focusing on putting down her own career roots.

Feb. 1st was the deadline for equal consideration applications to college programs, and it has since come and gone.  I am no longer preparing to make a career switch.  I have entered a new timeline.

It’s a little scary for me.  It’s not scary because of the unknown; I actually relish possibilities.  No, it’s scary because I no longer have a sense of direction.  All last year, I had a target to aim at.  I had a matrix to make decisions within.  Decisions were always made within the context of a mission and a set of values – does this bring me closer to my goal, or does this hold me back?

Now, I’m adrift again.  I don’t know what the next step is, or what I should be working towards.  If I learned one thing about myself this last year, it’s that I need purpose.  I need a mission.  With the close of Feb. 1st, I have neither for my career.

I have entered a new timeline, and it’s time to start getting my bearings.

Stay Awesome,

Ryan