Spark Challenge Update – Health Month

So far I’ve had 3 challenges and I’m currently in the middle of the 4th. It’s been a very interesting experience having a goal a month of something new and it’s the reason I’ve been doing so much of the activities from the challenges. October was writing, November was meditation, December was playing guitar and January is eating very healthy. I haven’t set a goal for the end of the month yet because some of things I’ve been doing don’t fit well with having an end goal. Writing was just an hour a day. Meditation was 15 minutes a day. Playing guitar was supposed to be 30 minutes per day until I found out I couldn’t work my fingers after playing that long so I scaled it back a bit. January’s healthy eating challenge is something that happens all day long.

Coming off December’s food binge it took a few days of struggle to get control over what I was eating. We still had a lot of treats from Christmas laying around and I failed at stopping myself. A little chocolate here, a couple cookies here. Being off gluten has probably been the hardest part. A lot of food from restaurants or that friends bring has gluten in it. I’ve had to say no to a lot of things. We have donuts once a week at work and pizza once a month and those were hard to turn down but as soon as I did it once, I found it easier after that. That and the fact that I told people at work what I was doing and they would be watching.

The first Saturday after the end of the month is going to be a binge day. I’m going to eat pretty much everything, then I think it will be back to very healthy eating for the rest of February. This will be a challenge I’d like to keep going.

PureOutside

Between Corbett’s Million Dollar Blog Project and Tyler’s Bootstrapper’s Guild, I’ve had my hands full for the last 2 months keeping up with blog posts and getting the new guide and newsletter sorted out. The first newsletter will be out at the end of January and the first trail guide will be out at the end of February. I’m very excited for both these things will update you more when they come out. A few things have helped get a lot more done in the past 2 months than I think I’ve ever got done in that time frame.

Batch tasks – Instead of writing a blog post once per week on some topic for PureOutside, I’ve started to group the writing of a few posts together. I’ll focus for a week or 2 on writing 6-8 blog posts and scheduling them. I’ve found this method much easier than switching back and forth from the guide to blog post writing every week. With all the blog posts scheduled for the next 6 weeks I can focus on working on the guide and not switch back and forth.

Chunk time – I often get overwhelmed when I’m trying to think about too many things at once. If I can chunk down tasks to 20-30 minutes then it’s much easier to handle those. I can see exactly what needs to be done and that’s motivation to start it. Hat tip to Tyler (LINK) for that one.

Schedule Work Time – Up until recently, I’ve just tried to work on PureOutside stuff whenever I can. I’ll sit down here and there and do a bit of work. The problem has been that I can’t get much done because I’m constantly trying to remember what I was working on and by the time I’ve figured it out, I’m off doing something else. Now, I schedule 1 hour a day every day of the week to sit down and work on PureOutside blog posts, technical issues or social media. This has worked very well because it’s not a long period of time. I know I can sit for an hour to work on it so I’m more likely to start. Working on it every day keeps everything fresh in my mind.

Monotask – The opposite of multi-tasking. I used to think it was fun and interesting to work on 20 different things in a given week. Now it stresses me out. When I saw how little I was actually getting done on each project I knew something had to change. Anything I start now has to be finished before I start anything else. Batching things like blog posts helps do this. I’ll work on only blog posts for 2 weeks and then go back to working on only the blog. I have tons of things I would like to do but I’m trying to push them all into a cleanup project scheduled for later this year.

Fitness: Marathon Training

My major fitness goal right now is to do well in the Vancouver Marathon on May 6th. I’ve got 4 months to train for that. It seems like a long time but with 13km runs feeling fairly long right now I’ve got a long way to go. I’m going to be documenting my fitness work here to give a bit of accountability to myself and to let everyone see what I’m doing.

Last Week:

Sunday: Rest

Monday: 5km easy run

Tuesday 6km speed workout

Wednesday: 1 hour of floor hockey

Thursday: 6km easy run

Friday: Night skiing

Saturday: 13km long run

Writing

It seems like I’m writing more and more every week. And it feels good. I’ve never been much of a writer but it’s flowing easier now. I used to be held up or not even start because I didn’t have an amazing idea or know exactly what to say for my whole article. Now freewriting, an article framework or a intentionally terrible first draft are great ways to get going and it’s easier to start. Starting is the tough part.

Recent Articles:

The Vancouver Christmas Market on Aviawest.com http://www.aviawest.com/blog/2011/12/vancouver-christmas-market.html

Paddling, Hiking and Climbing Marble Meadows on PureOutside http://pureoutside.com/blog/2011/12/1338/

Mount Elma Ski Tour on PureOutside http://pureoutside.com/blog/2012/01/mount-elma-ski-tour/

Osprey Talon 33 Backpack Review on PureOutside http://pureoutside.com/blog/2012/01/osprey-talon-33-backpack-review/

Good Tunes

Deadmau5 – 4×4=12

I’ve been rocking out to this the past couple weeks. It’s my goto music for working right now. Very few lyrics and wicked bass. Raise Your Weapon and Some Chords are my favorites.

Great Reads

I’ve read a lot lately but some of these will be catch up from the last few months.

Uncertainty

Jonathan Fields latest book is all about being courageous and creative in the face of uncertainty. A fantastic read that I’m about to start again to full get what he has to say about this incredibly deep topic.

UnMarketing

Scott Stratten is the president of UnMarketing and spends way too much time online. Or that’s what his website says. His book is about common sense strategies to get marketing online. So many people get all confused and stressed about marketing online and end up screwing it up big time. Scott sets you straight with his no BS approach and hilarious stories.

Anything You Want

A fun little read from Derek Sivers about how he set up his business and got to where his is now. There are some gems of unconventional business advice in there and is great if you’re looking for a quick read about online business.

Do the Work

Another one from the Seth Godin’s Domino Project, Do the Work was written by Steven Pressfield and is about the demon’s inside us. It’s specifically about the Resistance, a hidden force, demon or whatever you want to call it that prevents us from sitting down and doing the work. It’s pretty much a manifesto of putting on your hard hat and doing what you need to do . If you’re lacking in any sort of motivation I would highly recommend reading this.

End Malaria

A book of many essays by online influential, End Malaria has a bit to say about everything. If you are online running a business, you’ll probably want to read this book. There is something for everyone in it. The best part is that most of the price is donated to help buy mosquito nets to stop the spread of malaria.

The Flinch

Julien Smith’s latest book. He talks about everything you flinch at. Everything in this world that you shy away from because you think it might hurt you. Most of that stuff won’t hurt you though so you’re just wasting your time and you’re life worried about what isn’t going to happen. Another good kick in the pants if you want to get some work done.

How to Travel Full Time

A great little book from Colin Wright. It’s only $.99 and worth every penny. If you ever thought about travelling the world full time or are just curious abut the idea, I highly recommend getting it. If you sign up for Colin’s paid Exile’s letter you get his books for free.

Poke The Box

A great one from Seth Godin about asking questions and doing great work. Along the lines of Do the Work and The Flinch, he asks us to poke the box more to see what happens. Be a rebel, a shit disturber, a nuisance. You might do something incredible.

Cool Sites

Philospher’s Notes

I’m working my way through the first set of 100 Philospher’s Notes right now. Brian Johnson has filtered through tons of philosophy books and brings you the main points from the best of them. There are awesome business and life lessons in there. Brian’s chill demeanor and the amazingly good info that comes out of all these books gets me so stoked to live after reading or listening to them. You can get them in PDF or mp3 format. I’ve been listening to all the mp3′s as I work out or clean the house. Some of the notes are so good I had to go by the actual books to by more.

Hope you guys liked the new updates. I’ll be posting about more as they come up as a bit of an accountability journal for myself.

The months go by so fast when you’re super busy ( and having fun ). I feel like I just post a wrap-up and I have to start writing another one.

December was an especially busy and fast-paced month. I even had a week off from my day job and it still felt like it was packed to the brim with awesome stuff to do.

December’s challenge was one of the reasons that it went so fast. I was trying to play guitar every day. I certainly didn’t end up playing every single day, I did improve quite a bit from where I started. I’m still playing almost every day and love every minute of it.

What can you really learn in 30 days

I wasn’t sure where to start with guitar. The first day in December, I was so hopelessly slow and uncoordinated at doing any of the chords. I didn’t think anything would change as I went through the month. Watching videos and thinking about guitarists in bands and how fast they move through their picking and chords on the guitar, I had to wonder if they were superhuman, or just born with some special skills that I just didn’t possess.

As I played day after day, I would get a little faster. Each time I sat down it was easier to hold the strings. I could hold them for a little longer. It was tiny amounts sure, but I could feel myself getting better and better after a few days would go by.

I know 30 days isn’t going to be long enough to be playing tough songs by the end of it but I was hopeful that I would at least improve.

Unfortunately because of how much I had already planned for December, travelling, Christmas, skiing, New Years, hanging out with people, I found it extremely hard to keep up the guitar every day. I ended up only doing about half the days after missing a big chunk around christmas and it was very noticeable. Most of the time it’s nice to take a break from what you’re doing for a little while and then come back to it refreshed and re-motivated. Taking a break from guitar, thought, meant sore fingers.

Playing guitar isn’t like learning a language or some other act of willpower. You can sit down and learn things on the mental side for hours if you really want to. On the physical side of things  you have a limit. You can only play guitar for so long before your fingers start to hurt so much you can’t play.

The nice part about this natural limit was that it was forced. I could not play longer than my fingers could hold out. It was easier to sit down and play because I knew there was a natural time limit for playing that day. Initially I could only play for 5 or 10 minutes. It got longer near the end. Accidentally taking time off meant that I was decreasing my time limit instead of increasing it. For every day that I didn’t play, I would be able to stand the rough strings on my fingers for a slightly shorter amount of time. Many people say that the best way to learn is little by little every single day. Guitar forces this. It’s the only way to learn it.

What I learned playing guitar for 30 days

Time Limits

As I said above, when you start off, you won’t be able to play guitar for long periods of time. I couldn’t at least. Someone with much more callused hands would be able to play for longer sessions right off the bat. I don’t do much that would strengthen them naturally. Climbers would probably be able to play for hours!

On the plus side, it forced a time limit on each session. This made them more relaxing. I feel like when I don’t go for more than an hour or so doing something, I’m just making excuses and I should go for longer. I know this sounds silly. Most people can’t concentrate on one thing for much more than 90 minutes. The little voice inside my head natters at me to keep going, even when I know I’ve had enough and it’s time for a break. I’ve been experimenting with hard time limits on things. Much like in the pomodoro technique. It’s nice to know that I only have to work for 30 minutes or 1 hour no matter what I’m doing. Sometimes I do get lost in something if I’m really into but I end up doing less of other things. I don’t want to get sick of what I’m working on right now so time limits are a good way to keep things fresh.

Best Practices

Everything in the world has best practices. There may not be one best way for doing something but there are always tips and tricks for getting the most out of your experience. You don’t want to learn something the wrong way and keep those bad habits for the rest of your life. Learning on your own can be a fantastic way to try things out but finding good resources like websites, books or teachers to help you out can save you a lot of time down the road. The book I’m using to learn guitar comes with a DVD with videos and other resources to use while you’re learning. You can watch the videos as you’re playing to learn how to get the fingering correct and how exactly to do things. Words are amazing tools for teaching but often a picture or a video just makes learning so much faster.

Nail the Basics

You can’t play guitar without learning the basic chords and ways to pick the strings. It’s impossible. Also impossible is thinking that you can skip to the awesome part at the end of years of playing and be a rockstar guitar player. It doesn’t work that way. If you practice every day for a couple years, you could actually get to be a very good guitar player. Playing for 30 days is not the same thing. I never liked things that simply required repetition to learn them. While it’s not exactly the same every time, each chord is still the same chord. What I didn’t know before was that it wasn’t just mindlessly strumming the guitar over and over and over with the same chords to learn how to play. Actually learning something required deliberate practice. In this case, thinking about where your fingers are for each chord and moving them from chord to chord faster every time requires concentration. If you never increase your speed, you’ll never become a better play. Sometimes it doesn’t work and the note sounds terrible but you don’t get faster unless you push.

January’s Challenge

I loved playing guitar every day and have continued to practice these first few days of January while I dive into my next challenge.

I almost did this challenge for December but thought that I might fail before I’d even started. It would have been very tough and not a lot of fun. January is going to be month of eating extremely healthy. I’ll be trying to follow the Paleo diet strictly for 30 days. The main idea is that I’ll be eating lots of veggies, meat and fruit with very little sugar, coffee or gluten. I’m already entirely gluten free with what I’ve got in my cupboards and fridge at home but eating out is tough. It’s rare to find a place that has a gluten-free menu and beer is right out the window.

If you’ve gone Paleo, or are thinking about it, I’d love to hear from you. Let me know what your thoughts are about it. Maybe you could do a Paleo challenge for January as well?

One of the biggest encouragements to try was through Jonathon Fields book Uncertainty. After reading through the examples of people using meditation as an anchor in their hectic lives to keep them grounded and live a creative life, I was convinced. I had to try it.

Initially I had a few questions, I’ll answer them here as best I can but I don’t claim to be any sort of expert on meditation. I did it for 30 days and that’s about it. I will say right now that I like the practice very much if for nothing else than the relaxing few minutes of the day I could look forward too.

What do I think about?

I’m not sure which style I was focused more on while I was meditating. Vipassana or “insight meditation” is about just sitting, there is no thinking or focus involved just sitting. I read a bit about Zazen as well or the focus on the breath. I found this to be the easiest to do because it gave me something to focus on. I count to 10 and then start back at one. When you reach 20 or 30 you know you’ve been thinking about something else and can restart your count.

What time of day should I meditate?

I tended to sit and meditate when I got home after work. That was the time that worked best for me. Sometimes I would have too much coffee or my brain would be spinning from everything that happened that day and it was hard to slow everything down. I guess that’s one of the benefits of meditation is it can help you relax and organize your thoughts from the day. I’ve heard many good things about meditating early in the morning soon after you wake up. This helps you be present and mindful for the rest of the day instead of focusing on it near the end of the day. Early morning can be a peaceful and quiet time to sit as well.

How long do I sit for?

I used a recording from Blissitations and sat for 15 minutes each day. I found some days I couldn’t go a second longer than that, and some I took my time and ended up doing 25 or 30 minutes. I’ve read that anything more than 5 minutes can give you some benefit in terms of relaxation and starting to organize your mind but many say that 15 minutes would be he bare minimum you’d need to actually meditate.

Do I listen to anything?

I didn’t plan to listen to anything while meditating but sometimes it’s helpful to screen out sounds from around me. I’d get listening to something in my house and start thinking about the things I had to do around the house. I’ve read that listening to soothing sounds and counting at the same time splits your attention and that’s not really the point of the exercise. I found that I’d either be actively listening to the Blissitation or I’d be counting and not really both anyways.

Did I listen to music? 

I didn’t listen to any music while I was doing it. The Blissitation I was using was 15 minutes long and a relaxing recording of the rain. I find that sound very relaxing to begin with so it worked well.  A lot of what I read said that music can be very distracting although there can be times where just listening to the music and only the music can be meditative.

What’s a Binaural Beat?

I ran across these things called Binaural Beats during my research. Apparently certain sounds can induce your brain into certain states. When you are meditating you want to get your brain to slow down and get into the states where the brain waves move slower. Delta is the slowest. Some people that have been meditating for a long time can get into that state from meditating but most can’t. Binaural Beats can help you get into that state by just listening to them and experience the benefits without having to meditate for years and years. One I came across was called Holosync and I saw a few different recommendations for it.  I did see some information about it causing “upheaval” periods so I decided not to try it now until I got more information about it. It was on the expensive side of the available products as well so it will have to wait.

Should I sit or lay down?

I tried laying down at first because I thought it would be a great time to catch up on my napping and that’s exactly what happened. I would fall asleep. I have read about people doing “napitations” which start as meditating and end up being a short nap. They can be beneficial if you need to catch up on your sleep at the same time. I ended up sitting for most of my sessions. I had troubles sitting in the lotus position or even cross-legged for 15 minutes. The indian position worked well or just sitting on the edge of a chair or couch. Sounds like whatever position that is comfortable to sit in for 15 minutes is ok.

Should I close my eyes?

I closed my eyes for most of my sessions. That lead to falling asleep when I was laying down but it was fine when I was sitting up. The traditional way to do it is to have your eyes slightly open and focused a few meters in front of you. This prevents you from falling asleep. The whole idea is that you are awake and present the entire time. You don’t want to have to close your eyes every time you want to relax during the day!

Meditating before or after exercise?

I ran a few times before and after meditating and both orders felt great. When I ran and then meditated I had to be careful to stretch and then get into my position for meditation or else I would stiffen up while sitting. Running is almost meditative for me anyways so the two went along well. I found I would be a lot more present on my run if I meditated first. I want to experiment with this more and see if there is more of a difference I missed the first few times I did it.

What’s the next Spark Challenge for December?

I’ve been kicking around the idea of doing a Guitar challenge but wasn’t sure if I should just start on my own and see what happens or go take some lessons. I feel like guitar is one of those things that you can get some pretty bad habits engrained if you start practicing in earnest without having had some formal lessons.

I’ve got a marathon training clinic coming up in January so I didn’t want to start any lessons that I’d only take for a few weeks. I am still doing the guitar challenge but it will be with a book and DVD set I have called “Learn Guitar in 24 Hours”. It sure sounds hokey but so far it’s been really good.

I think almost any learning methods would work for guitar as long as I practice a ton. I’ve been doing about 15 -20 minutes a day so far and I’m sure feeling it in my fingers. Each day I go to practice, I feel it less though. I’m not sure how long it’s going to be before I can play as long as I want but I hope to keep up the practice as long as I can and get to a point where I can at least play a couple songs before having to take a finger rest!

I’ve got a couple easy songs in my head that I’d like to learn how to play so the first couple weeks of December are going to be practicing chords and getting the basics down and then the last week, I’ll be trying to get a song or 2 learned.

Anyone else doing a Challenge for December? If you are let me know so I can check out your progress!

I’ve been trying to come up with a format for personal development posts that works for me. I’ve plenty experience learning new things and doing as much as I can to better myself but I’ve never really written about the experience. I wish I could remember in detail the first times I wakeboarded, snowboarded or rode a dirtbike. Joy comes to my heart when I think of doing those activities now but all I can remember from when I started was disappointment and frustration.

I consider myself a fairly quick learner with most things but that’s not to say I can do anything in no time. I can’t even count the number of times I had to relax and tell myself to try again when I caught an edge snowboarding or face-planted wakeboarding. Eventually they became easier and easier and now I don’t even have to think about the details when I strap on a board to go for a ride.

I’ve always enjoyed learning new things. The excitement that comes with doing something I’ve never done before, the satisfaction that comes with attaining the first milestone, the thrill of polishing a skill that many people don’t have. It’s never easy though. The hardest part isn’t starting. The excitement and novelty keep me going for a bit but it’s when those initial feelings start to fade away that the hard part begins. Sticking to it, practicing till a new habit is formed and ingraining that skill into your mind is where most people, including myself, fall apart. Most of the time these exciting new skills fade away to old frustrating memories.

Part of a new series, I’ll be looking at skills that I’ve either got already and hope to sharpen up or would love to have. Regular posts will update you on what I’m doing to improve my skills, where I’m succeeded and where I’m failing. Hopefully you can learn a thing or two about the things I’m learning and help me on my quest to learn everything I can.

For the  next 2 months I’ll be working on the following things:

Running

I’ve always been into sports and dabbled in racing here and there but never pushed into it whole hog. Next year is going to be the start of that. A bit of an experiment in itself. I’m signing up for what will be the most races in one year I’ve ever done.  I’m currently planning to do 5 Gutbuster trail runs, 2 Momar Adventure races, 2 Yeti Snowshoe races and 6 road races. I’m sure there will be many more added to the list by the time I’m through with it. If you’re on Vancouver Island, make sure you check out the 2010 Vancouver Island Awesome Event Calender on Pureoutside. It’s a solid start to the list of all the awesome events outdoor events on Vancouver Island next year. I’ll be recounting tales of my adventures running and riding there as well.

Writing

I’ve definitely been off writing lately and am having trouble pinning down my problem. I’m obviously lacking motivation but not sure why. I have been quite busy lately but I hate to use that as an excuse.  After travelling for four months and having a constant flow of interesting topics to write about, sitting around at home seeing the same things and the same people every day seems very bland and hardly worthy of my writing time. I’m starting to realize though that while it may not seem interesting at first, I can make it as interesting as I want. I’m setting out to do that while working on my writing.

Guitar

I’ve wanted to learn guitar for as long as I can remember. I used to think it could never happen. Only certain types of people could learn a musical instrument and I was not one of them. I was doomed to live a life out of sync with anyone that could hold a beat. Then a friend said he was teaching guitar. Something tweaked in my brain. Maybe I could learn to play. Maybe I could actually hold those strings and strum those chords and make it sound better than some dying animal.

I learned half of a Staind song and got bored. Maybe it was the song I was learning. Maybe it was the guitar that made it sound like crap. I didn’t touch a guitar for another 6 years. There is one sitting in the chair next to me and I’ve picked it up a few times. It’s a frustrating start because: A. I’m not musically inclined. I played the recorder in grade 4 and even that was pushin’ it. and B: It hurts my fingers. I’ll cope, I know. I now have incredible respect for anyone that can blow through any number of songs, one after the other without as much as slight wince. Somehow I can run up mountains but can’t hold strings down on a piece of wood. Go figure.

Getting Up Early

I’ve always thought that getting up early is a good idea. Every hour of the day I think, Yes, getting up early, is a great idea. I will start things off right. I’ll get lots of work done. I’ll run and get really fit. Until I have to get up early.

Sometimes it works fine. I’m able to get up and start my day. But sometimes, there’s a part of me that wants to wait until the last possible minute to get out of bed and then run around like a headless chicken before work. I’m not a big fan of the latter style. There’s always that 1 second that the decision to get up takes and if it happens while I’m still half asleep, sleep wins. I’m still working the kinks out of my method for reeling my sleeping mind out of the depths but it’s slowly getting easier.

I’ve found if I can get myself excited for doing something that day, if I can get myself really stoked about one of my projects I’m about to work on, the morning goes much quicker and I actually want to get out of bed.

Save Money

I can almost guarantee that saving money is high up on everyone’s list but there is a reason for it to be on mine. The second I got back from Australia and New Zealand, heck, before I even left for Australia and New Zealand, I knew I wanted to travel again. I’ve had trouble deciding but finally narrowed it down to a few places. Next October I’ll be heading over to France. I’d like to spend as much time as possible there but I think it might be limited because of work and money. I’m going to try hard to get to Germany, Italy and Greece as well.

Having a good time while travelling and, well, travelling itself is expensive and I know I need to start this second to save up for the trip. Having this goal at the end of all the saving makes it so much more worth my while than just “saving money”. I had no problem saving up enough for my last trip to go because I had such a concrete goal and a well-defined plan for saving. That leads to my next goal.

Learning French

I’ve always wanted to go to Europe and after travelling for 4 months the desire to see another continent has become even stronger. Being in Australia and New Zealand was easy because everything was english and very similar to North America. Europe will be different. I’m worried about how much everyone will speak english and how well we’ll get on with only knowing one language. Before we leave next October, I’m hoping to learn as much French as possible. If I can get conversational in French, I’d like to move on to Spanish or German as well. It’s going to be tough but I know it’s going to be worth it.

Worrying Less

I’ve always been an anxious person. I worry about everything all the time.

I’m learning to get a handle on it but it still gets a little out of control on occasion when I’m tired and have a lot to do. I’ve found it helps to relax and focus on what I’m worrying about it and why it worries me. If it’s something I can deal with myself, I get on it, ASAP. If it isn’t, then I put it in the “who cares” bin. Tossing something aside and not caring about it is hard when it could affect your life but sometimes there just isn’t anything you can do.

In trying to worry less, I’ve concluded that my next item is a really good idea.

Drinking Less Coffee

I love the stuff, who doesn’t. Even when it tastes like an old boot fell into the pot at work, I’ll still grab a mug and sing my way to my desk. Well… it doesn’t usually happen that way because I’m tired from staying up too late the night before because I had too much coffee. So aside from giving me a nice shot of wake-me-up in the morning, coffee is nothing but bad news for me. Despite all the advantages of NOT drinking coffee. I still do it. It’s a tough one to get rid of.

I hope you can join me on my adventure to learn everything I possibly can and cross some items off your Life List. Let me know what you’re learning right now and I’ll join you on yours.

* photo courtesy of Windrock Media