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The ever elusive budget.

I have always struggled with this. I’ve never been a money chaser, and have no problems spending money when I have it. This is a fine lifestyle when you are young, maybe in university, but as you age, I suppose, the items you are looking to buy become a bit more…expensive. Houses, cars, that sort of thing. And when you look at the cost, you think “what does a$60 here, or $100 there matter?” Well it all matters, when you look at that over a year or two. It ads up quick when you are plowing through a couple hundred bucks a month in reckless spending, and that has been my habit for years.

So, this is my vow to get this spending under control. I’m going to take baby-steps. Start by limiting my extravagant nights to once a month at most, and limit the amount i spend recklessly during the week. From there managing a food budget and being conscious of costs while at restaurants, and in fact limiting restaurant eating as much as possible. Sounds like a boatload of fun….

FITNESS

Well Insanity yesterday, but today I fail for the first time. I have nothing on the go today. I would have gone for a run, but it’s pouring rain outside (something I hadn’t counted on). So i’m confined to the apartment today. But I suppose I’ve gotten 6 days in until today, so that ‘s a good start. And we start up agani with insanity tomorrow.

TUNES

Lets break from the theme here a bit. I’m going to throw down my favourite song of all time.

Queen w/ David Bowie  – Under Pressure

The art of assertiveness…I’m always at a loss with this one. By nature, I’m not the bloodthirsty type. I try to live my life in such a way that I impart as little negative impact on others as possible.  For me personally, assertiveness (or lack thereof) isn’t a function of self esteem, but instead of my laissez-faire attitude. I’m a firm believer in letting things happen instead of forcing things to occur. I find myself more satisfied (and occasionally surprised) when I simply let events occur than when I try to force a good time.

But the unfortunate reality of life is that conflict is inevitable, and oftentimes necessary. It’s through conflict that collaboration can become success, whether in art, business, sport, or relationships. But conflict management and resolution is, itself, an art. How do you approach conflict situations, and ensure that you get what you need while not damaging valuable relationships? I’m not trying to increase assertiveness in order to be an asshole, I’m doing it to avoid being taken advantage of. I believe this to be an altruistic reason, but the truth is, along the way, you are going to come across people that are assertive for the sake of being assholes. So how do you effectively manage these conflicts, while not over-compromising and giving up the needs you require?

I did a lot of digging on the web for an article that could help. There are lots based around conflict resolution, but not many that help in my specific requirements. I did stumble across one on ehow.com – How to Increase Your Assertive Skills. The first tip is a basic one, but one that I find myself struggling with: Saying no. Sometimes, it’s tough to say no – you don’t want to disappoint, you don’t want to appear condescending or that you are undermining, in the case of a superior. But by saying no, and factually backing up your reason, you develop that assertiveness, while maintaining your dignity – not saying yes just to say yes.

How will I move forward?

Well, the list goes on to discuss improving casual relationships, achieving goals, staying motivated. I’m going to start from step 1 though. I’ll spend this week focusing on not jsut blindly agreeing to things, but be prepared to defend why I’m saying “no”. From there, the next step involves asking for what you need factually and succinctly. From there, the steps are moving forward.

RECAP FROM LAST WEEK

Fitness – ran Friday, Ran saturday morning, walked sunday (yes, lame, I know). Tonight is hockey, and then insanity every night this week.

Focus – Well, I’ve been working on spending 5 minutes a day mentally picturing one object. I’ve used my guitar, my phone, my wallet, to varying degrees of success. I’ve also been focusing 5 minutes a day on clearing my mind. Also, way harder than it sounds. I will update again, hopefully with some more tangible progress.

Calm under fire – A couple of stressful incidents came up over the weekend. One I tried to consciously stay calm, but the other I wasn’t as successful….Work in progress.

MUSIC

Lets go with a song that gets me excited – since we are talking about motivations and assertiveness.

The Police – Next To You.

To say that I am easily distracted is an understatement. In fact, I’ve found recently that it’s getting worse. I have reason to believe that my current difficulties with focus go hand in hand with my lack of motivation overall, but more on that later. Clearly though, I’m not the only one suffering from a strong case of “hey-look-at-that-button/ad/penny/iphone game/key/etc” syndrome – this seems to be a number-one complaint for many, but usually this easy distraction also gets in the way of solving the problem. The great, unfortunate cycle.

I’m aware of my focus troubles – they’ve followed me around since my youth. And it’s never really held me back much, but now I feel that my potential is being severely limited by the fact that my mind wanders down these bizarre train of thoughts, where one word from the thought earlier leads to a new thought, and down the chain we go. For example, about 10 minutes ago, I switched the song on my itunes to “Don’t Come Around Here No More” by Tom Petty. This immediately triggered a memory of the concert last year where my buddy Ryan was hit on by this girl, so we told her he was engaged. Stef’s engaged now, wedding in August. Gotta remember to book the time off, and while I’m at it I should book off for an extra day on the Canada Day long weekend so that we can go to Point Roberts, we eat like kings down there. Last year we had slow cooked ribs in a home made bbq sauce…..

See what I’m saying here? it doesn’t take much. I got from Tom Petty to home made BBQ sauce in one thought train.

So what do I do about it? 

Well, http://www.betterlife-seeker.com has a whole “how to” article they posted in June 2008 called “How To Improve Concentration: Mental Exercises to Improve Your Focus.” This seems like a great place to start. They have broken it into 3 tasks.

1. The first is to just focus on one object for 5-10 minutes a day, and to chase all distractions from your mind as you do it. Apparently it gets easier the more you do it…We shall see.
2. They suggest setting aside 5-10 minutes a day to “quiet your mind” and clear it of all the random thoughts that shoot through your mind.
3. Last, they say to visualize the end goal of any task. Visualization can act as an effective practice session that helps you master anything. In this case, I suppose, I should visualize being a more focused individual as a whole, but bring that down to each task, imagine the roadblocks and anticipate how to break through them.

Further, I’m going to start small. Each day, at the office, I will try to complete each task through completion (as much as possible), while not succumbing to distraction. I will use the time between tasks to indulge my distractions. As the month progresses, I will try to indulge those distractions less and less – in week 2, I will try to do 2-3 consecutive tasks without indulging distraction. Week 3, I will attempt 5-8 tasks before giving in to distraction. For me, Week 1 will be difficult enough. Starts tomorrow morning.

FITNESS REVIEW

Last night was insanity, tonight will be a 30 minute jog after the hockey game…We will see how it goes.

SONG OF THE DAY

Music has been the one area of my life, always, where I don’t get distracted. Playing or listening to music, when I want to, can hold my complete attention for hours. As music is always playing in the background at my desk through the day, I can, for the most part, tune it out and work. Sometimes, though, a song comes on that I cannot ignore – a song that commands my attention for it’s full duration. When I’m working, this can occasionally instill a type of guilt in me – I know I should be working, but this song requires my attention. So, today, A song that makes me feel guilty. While there are a few that could qualify in this category, I must pick only one, and I will.

Let Wander Your Restless Hearts – Attack In Black

Well not quite.

After last year’s blog project fell short of it’s goal due to the death of my camera in late October, this space has been largely dormant. By largely, I mean completely. It’s always been sitting there, poking me periodically to redefine it’s purpose. Today, I found that purpose.

Yesterday, I had set a goal for myself, fitness-wise. I wanted to be under 200 pounds in time to go to the Sasquatch festival at the end of May. I’m currently 206, so this would require losing 7 pounds. I did the math. The festival is 23 days away – this is just over 2 pounds per week. Difficult? yes. Unrealistic? no. This would be a great dent in achieving my long term target of 185, and a great start to the summer.

Today, though, I dreamt of more. Yes, this is a good short-term fitness goal, but I could do more. Not necessarily fitness-wise, but in terms of taking control of my whole life. I live in a beautiful city, work in the most exciting industry in the world, and am surrounded by fantastic people. However, I have the problem that plagues many – I’m not satisfied, and I’m not motivated.  There are many reasons for my lack of satisfaction and motivation. Many of them are out of my control – the weather, the economy, the actions of others – but many more are fully in my control. My health, my career, my involvement in the world around me, and ultimately my outlook on my life, are all firmly within my grasp.

So, for 17 out of the next 23 days, I will post on a specific area of my life that I can control, and how I am working to improve it. They are broken into 3 categories – Personal, Professional, and Relational. I will also give periodic updates on past posts, as a benchmark to see how far things have come.

I will also use a musical theme as a backbone – each post i will list a song that fits the theme in a way that integrates into my life, loosely based around the “30 day song challenge“.

By May 26, I hope to be fitter, healthier, with stronger relationships, more motivation, control over my career, and a happier life over all.

I’m behind. So here is a collection of key photos from the past 4 weeks. It’s been slow and busy….

First things first. Canadians game for a birthday is a great idea. Friends, beers, heckling, spilly-talking, all great. Sept 3.

Next up: Gaslight anthem at the Commodore. A day of football, all day beers, and bruce springsteen influenced punk music, I’ll take it. September 12.