What is Your One Thing?

Image Credit: Pixabay

As I may or may not have mentioned before, I have three children, one who is only 7 months old. This means my house is in a constant state of disarray. This tends to leave my wife and I extremely frustrated. No matter how much we try to clean up, it’s ruined quickly. It’s one step forward and two steps back.

Last weekend, I was complaining to a buddy about the house, and he gave me a strange but amazing piece of advice. He said, “pick one thing and make it YOUR thing.” Basically, pick one place in the house, whether it’s the bedroom, family room, toy room, kitchen, etc. and always ensure it is neat and clean. No matter how the rest of the house looks or what else is going on, I must ensure my “area” of the house is clean. No complaining just do it.

“Okay, Joe, what’s the big deal?” I think it’s an easy way to give us some semblance of order back in our lives. I know when I feel like my life is completely out of control it’s because I’m worried about too many things all at once. My wife, my kids, my job, my house, my friends, my future, and my world all at the same time. I feel like I’m on a treadmill. I’m going a mile a minute but I not getting anywhere.

Instead of trying to do everything, we need to pick one thing and make it OUR thing. The important thing is to make it small and manageable. Picking too large of a “thing” can be a one-way ticket to Overwhelmsville.

Going back to my conversation about my house, I decided to ensure the dishes are clean and put away every single night. This gives me a base of operations while allowing me to feel like I made a difference by accomplishing something. Then if there is time or if feeling especially frisky I can expand to the rest of the house.

This prevents cherry picking and the “what do I feel like today” mentality. Whenever it’s time to clean the house, I know where I’m starting. Basically, I’ve eliminated the choice of where to start reducing my need to use willpower. Now I’m able to be more effective in the house.

Why is keeping my house clean so difficult? Is it because I’m a slob, I have 3 kids, or own more things than necessary? Probably all of them. The other problem is, by the time I get home, at the end of the day I’m exhausted. Sure, I spend most of my day sitting in a chair staring at a computer screen but mentally, I have very little left in me. I’m all out of willpower.

We’ve all had those days where we know what we should be doing but we don’t have the energy or drive to make it happen. Instead of cleaning or working on a project, we procrastinate because we don’t have the willpower. We feel weak and lazy.

The thing is our willpower is like a glass of water. Every time we make a decision or “force” ourselves to do something, the cup gets drained a little. The more energy we expend making decisions, both conscious and unconscious, the fast cup empties and until we feel overwhelmed. This leads to what researchers call decision fatigue.

There are several ways to help combat decision fatigue. James Clear gives us 5 ways to combat decision fatigue and SJ Scott gives us a few more, with 9 ways. Two of the points they agree upon are making important decisions ahead of time and simplifying the process. The idea of “pick one thing and make it YOUR thing” is an amalgamation of these two ideas. We’ve decided what we are going to do (in this case it’s focusing on keeping the dishes clean) and we’ve kept it small and manageable (concentrating only on the dishes and the sink area). Now whenever it’s time to get to work we don’t need to guess, we know where to start.

The trick is to understand our priorities. What do we care about the most? What can we concentrate on which will reduce our stress exponentially? What are the things we dread doing the most? These are the things we need to work on first. Then when we’ve created the list of our top priorities, we figure out which is number one and start there. This becomes our thing.

Now we aren’t reliant on willpower to push us into action. We know what we need to do, and we can do it. It’s our top priority after all.

I know I’ve talked a lot about my house and my kitchen but the nice thing about this idea is it can work for most things. Dinners, the kids, job functions, and even friends and family. By developing priorities for the major stressors in our lives, we can pick out thing to become our thing. Once we finish our thing, we can move on to the next thing.

This implementation will take time and practice. I’ve been at this for almost a week and I’ve failed more often than not. The important thing is to keep trying and work to continuously ensure it’s the priority. We already know what we have to do, we just need to execute. So, let’s find out thing, make it our thing, and go kick ass together.

My 2018 Year in Review

2018 Year in Review:

I’ve finally gotten around to do my Year in Review. This is something I saw the author of Atomic Habit James Clear and the freelance blogger Kaleigh Moore as a way reflect on the Good, the Bad, and what I learned over the past year. This will be a little rough since this is my first one but I plan on making this a regular thing.

Without further ado…

The Good –

I had a baby girl: To start things off, in September, during Hurricane Florence, my wife and I had our 3rd child and our 1st little girl. She is cute as a button and the whole family loves her to pieces. The best part was deciding to have her at home. IT WAS AWESOME! I woke up around 3:30 am, called the Midwife, the Doula, and the Birth Photographer to come in around 4:30 am, and our baby girl was here by 5:45 am. The Midwives setup everything, they cleaned up everything, and when they left it was like they were never there, except we had a new baby. Thanks to my wife I’ve been an advocate for natural and homebirths for some time now but this was my first homebirth. I couldn’t imagine any other way.

It’s taken some time to get used to having a new baby in house and I’ve personally had some growing pains juggling three. Still I’m thankful to have her in our lives and I couldn’t imagine our family any other way.

Started Lifting again: In April I decided to start lifting again to get my body in shape for the beach trip back in August. My wife, knowing how much I wanted a garage gym, bought me a Squat Rack for Christmas, and, after taking my sweet ass time putting it together, I finally got after it. I LOVED IT! There is nothing like working out in your home. I would roll out of bed, stumble into the garage, put on my lifting shoes, and work out. The best part was how successful I was at it. From the end of April until our trip in the beginning of June, I lifted four times a week, each week. That was over three months, which is the most consistency I’ve had working out ever in my life. Nothing was going to slow me down. I wanted to drop the weight and turn myself into a brick house at the same time. It worked and it was good.

Started a Blog: This is the thing I’m most proud of this year. When I finally decided I wanted to start a blog back in October, I honestly had no idea what would happen. I didn’t know how far I would go or if I would quit because things got too hard, like most things I start. Surprisingly, I’ve been writing for almost three months and almost 50 blog posts now, which is still shocking for me. It goes to show what can be accomplished when it becomes a priority. I have lots of plans for this blog and I can’t wait to see where this goes.

The Bad –

Lifting has been spotty lately: When I started lifting in April I became surprisingly happy. It was still taking me some time to get up in the morning but I didn’t miss workouts because I knew how important it is to be consistent. Then I went on vacation and things went sideways. Between the break and not having ready access to my home gym for a month, my fitness went out the window. Then my baby girl was born and I barely had the energy to function let alone workout. From August to December I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve worked out which was extremely frustrating. Since December I’ve slowly started building this practice again but it’s slow.

Lost almost 25 lbs but gained ten back: One of my main reasons for lifting was to drop, from over 240lbs, down to 215 lbs by my vacation in August. Though I didn’t make the goal I did come close, hitting a low of 219 lbs. This represents the lowest I’ve been since I left the Navy which is awesome. It took a lot of hard work, dedication, and plenty of missteps.

So I had the discipline to drop almost 25 lbs in several months, which was a real accomplishment for me but it didn’t take much for me to gain a good portion of this back. Between the lack of a solid routine, lack of exercise, and the holidays my old bad habit quickly came back. It’s made me feel like a failure. I know this is a bump in the road and I’m more focused on it now but building the habit back will take some time.

I found I still get derailed easily: Routines, while tedious, are great for a reason. They help to keep us consistent. When we break the consistency there is the tendency to lose the routine all together. Then when we want to restart the routine it takes twice the effort. There’s the desire to start the routine but the emotional baggage which comes with it. The frustration of being a failure, the memory of how difficult it was to start the first time, and the willpower to start again when it feels easier to let go. These are all the things I’ve been feeling since August and it didn’t take much.

I don’t know if it was the week away, the emotion stress of having massive amounts of flooding damage due to a broken water heater, the new baby, or a combination of all of it but the grit wasn’t there. I’ve tried to get back into the routine kicking and screaming and I’m finally starting to make progress. Fitness, eating, drinking water, writing, and a variety of other things will gradually need to be worked on this year. I know I need to take it one step at a time to create compound results.

What I learned –

Babies don’t get easier the more you have: This should be a no brainer but apparently I still need to learn things the hard way. Babies are babies no matter how many someone has in their family. They take time, patience, and energy. They take our routines, throw them out the window, and force us to get us to a new normal. It can be difficult to feel like there’s a light at the end of the tunnel when caring for a newborn and it can be difficult to ask for help. I had to remember it was okay and I’ll get through it. Thankfully, after four months things are starting to calm down.

Writing is more difficult than I thought: First, writing isn’t difficult. It’s fairly easy. Writing with intent and with a purpose is the difficult part and I thought it would get easier. The thing is good writing takes time and energy. It takes patience and a willingness to persevere, even when the “I don’t feel like it” or “I’m not in the mood,” for me to keep going. It’s not always fun but I know, in the end, I’m making progress and becoming a better writer.

Don’t be afraid to ask for help: Recently, I recruited my brother-in-law to be an accountability buddy (accountabilibuddy?). This one little step has helped me more than I had imagined. I’ve always considered myself someone who didn’t need anyone’s help to make changes in my life. It’s the “I can’t help you if you can’t help yourself,” mentality. Since I started working out with my brother-in-law I am becoming more consistent. I’m working out multiple times a week and even adding some running into the mix. It’s still a far cry from perfect but I’m making it.

You won’t get anywhere if you don’t start: For years I’ve hated the direction my life was heading. I didn’t feel like I was growing as a person. I kept learning all of these new things but either not applying them or not willing to share. I was on a treadmill heading towards a dead end. Then I started this blog. I wrote one blog post, then another, and then another. I was scared to put myself out there but I was more afraid of how my life would turn out if I didn’t. Afraid of what my life would look like in 10 years if I refused to start. Now I may only be at the beginning of my journey but the important thing is I’ve started. I feel like Bilbo Baggins from The Hobbit. I’ve caught up to the dwarves, fought off some trolls, and I’m on my way to Rivendell. The Lonely Mountain, and Smaug, are thousands of miles away but I’m getting closer everyday.

Each day is a chance to start over: We tend to wait for milestones to start a new habit or new project. “I’ll try again on Monday,” or “I’ll make this a New Year’s Resolution.” The best part is we don’t have to wait. Each new day is a chance to start something new. If we don’t like the way our life is going, we don’t have to wait for a random start date in the future, we get to make a fresh start whenever we want. We just have to decide to make the change.

Thanks for reading my first Annual Review. I can’t wait to see what next year brings and want my review will look like then.

Who Do We Want To Be?

Image Credit: Pixabay

I wrote a few posts last week about New Year’s Resolutions, here, here and here. It was a good week for me. It was the first week, I put three posts out on the day I promised I would. It wasn’t easy but I forced myself to write them, and I’m grateful I did. It made me feel good and gave me an enormous amount of confidence. Unfortunately, this weekend hit and the motivational stores are running low.

It’s not surprising though. New Year’s Day was last Tuesday and it’s easy for us to ride out the “I have goals and dreams and I’m going after them,” high this time of the year gives us. Now it’s a new week and we lay there realizing we have a “Coyote Ugly” hanging on our arm. Present Us made a promise Future Us has to keep and now it’s time for Us to collect.

But a promise is a promise so we give it the old college try. We’ll begrudgingly stumble to the gym or type random works on a blank word document to find our motivation, all the while grumbling about what an asshole the Past Us was for this resolution.

So what happened to us? How did we go from ultra-motivated to the lazy beatnik who only wants to chillax on the couch? We have our goals, we even came up with a plan, but we are still coming up empty.

The problem is we haven’t changed our identity. We still see ourselves as the same slackers we were last year and don’t think our goals will help us become our own Heroes of Battle. I think James Clear in an interview with Jory MacKay from the RescueTime Blog says it best, “Who is the type of person you want to become? Who is the person that’s already achieving the results you want for yourself? For example, the type of person who loses ten pounds is probably someone who doesn’t miss workouts. That’s just part of their identity. They see themselves as someone who exercises consistently. And going to the gym is just part of their being.”

Maybe the goal is to start the business we’ve put off starting. We just became an Entrepreneur. Maybe it’s time to learn a new language. BAM, now we are linguists. We need to change the way we see ourselves to bring us closer to our end goals.

For me, I want to be a Skald, the badass warrior-poets of the Viking world, similar to the medieval bard. These were the people who fought next to great warriors and passed their stories on from generation to generation. They need to be strong to be a part of the Viking world but also used their intellect rather than spend all their time thinking about raiding. I want to be built like a brick house and write like a philosopher.

Unfortunately, if aren’t willing to focus on the person we want to become it is easy to stay in our rut. If we want to lose weight but don’t see ourselves as a lover of fitness or we want to write but don’t see ourselves as a writer, it’s easy to let our goals slip away. Basically, if we continue to see ourselves as losers this is how we will stay. It’s only when we are willing to change the way we think about ourselves, we are able to affect real change. Sometimes it happens by accident but most of the time it takes time and focused effort.

Still having trouble making the change? Take a page out of Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert, proverbial book and try writing it down. Every day he writes down what he wants or who he wants to be on a piece of paper 10-15 times until it comes to fruition. Sometimes it’s quick and other times it can take years but it allows him to focus on the path he’s trying to follow. He used this technique when he wanted to be an illustrator and now he’s the creator of one of the most recognized comic strips in America.

Remember, we will never be the same person we were yesterday and tomorrow we can be whoever we want. Taking time to stay focused on who we want to become will only help bring us closer to our goal. This way, when we are presented with what use to be difficult choices, we already know the right answer. We’ve already made the choice. We can skip the extra piece of cake or the three extra episodes of the show we would normally binge. That’s not us anymore. We are the hero of our own story.

This isn’t a magic bullet. We will still need to put in the work but it will make it easier the more we practice. Good luck.

*Check out James Clear’s article “Identity-Based Habits: How to Actually Stick to your Goals This Year” for more on this topic.*