One of my favourite quotes is “we don’t rise to the level of our motivations, but we fall to the level of our systems”. This should be pretty self explanatory, but to expand upon it further, it means that willpower, discipline, and motivation is a fickle and unreliable foundation upon which one builds their ambitions. Far better is to create a system, process, method or routine which catches you into by the shirt sleeves into its gears and takes you where you need to go, whether you like or not, at least in that moment.
In that spirit, I am going to share my five goals, and how I accomplished them. Posts from here on aren’t going to be all about this – God forbid I spend two much time self-ruminating on myself and entering a state of functional madness – but they will feature my progress. So, here we go.
Goal 1, Exercise for 30 minutes a day: I ran 5ks today across my regular route. My wife gifted me some new runners, and it was a joy to be able to try them out.
Goal 2, Call a friend: I called my friend Matt to shoot the breeze and also do some planning for an upcoming stag do. We spoke for an hour, and it was both productive and enjoyable. Thanks Matt, I know you read these.
Goal 3, Learn something new for 20 minutes a day: I do DuoLingo daily, and have decided not to include that into my numbers. Instead, I spent 20 minutes watching Wolfgang Puck’s masterclass on cooking. I love cooking, and I am ok, but I am not great. It was fun to learn from one of America’s best chefs.
Goal 4, Practice a skill/work on a project: I have decided to try my hand at writing some stand up comedy. I have dabbled very lightly in this field in the past, and really enjoy it as a spectator. Writing for 20 minutes is harder than you think.
Goal 5, Cook all meals at home: I slept in, so only two meals today. The first was home made tortitallas with mexican chicken, beans, salad, and cheese. Delicious, and if you haven’t made your own tortillas before, I HIGHLY recommend it. For dinner, I made Japanese Curry with jasmine rice and chicken. It was a little gluggy, but otherwise super tasty.
Anyway, at points throughout the day I wasn’t super hyped to do these, but knowing I had to, and I could then share them with my readers, made it happen. Now to do it all again for tomorrow.
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