JUST START TAKING ACTION!

Lately, I’ve been learning about taking action. The best time to take action is always as soon as you can!

The recently rising entrepreneurial star on YouTube, Alex Hormozi who started from scratch and has made HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS by his early 30’s, is famous for saying, “The key to success is to reduce the time between when you have a thought and when you take action.”

Taking action and running from procrastination is the FIRST KEY TO SUCCESS. Do something and DO ANYTHING. If you just start, you’ll find a way. You’ll receive some feedback, and you’ll discover a different twist along your path. This is much better than “waiting for the right moment to take action.”. Remember you ONLY HAVE SO MUCH TIME. And then, it’s over. It’s better to start making the mistakes and failures now than waiting to make mistakes later.

While ice skating with my 6-year-old son yesterday, I couldn’t help but notice two distinct groups on the rink: cautious beginners sticking to basic forward skating and daring experts executing impressive leaps and spins. It’s as if everyone’s avoiding the middle ground between playing it safe and risking a face-plant!

It made me realize that sometimes we refuse to act because we don’t want to go through the embarrassment of the next risky step. We would rather “show off once we get there” but we hesitate to approach that middle ground of floundering—that middle ground of hard work and trial and error that exists between novice and Pro.

Taking action is easier for some things. Ever notice how easy it is to click on an Instagram, Facebook or other social media Icon on your phone and just start scrolling? It’s extremely easy and mindless to do this task. And if the statistics are valid, BILLIONS OF PEOPLE ON PLANET EARTH ARE ENGAGING IN THIS PASSIVE BEHAVIOR EACH DAY—throughout the day!

What if we started to think of other endeavors or tasks as just as easy and mindless?

 What if we just opened a Word document on our computers and just started writing? What if we  started brainstorming possible things that we wanted to learn?

What if we jumped on our exercise machines without “getting our workout gear on”? Even for just 5 minutes!

It’s intriguing to consider how effortlessly we engage in passive behaviors like scrolling through social media, yet we hesitate to apply the same level of ease and mindlessness to other endeavors. What if we approached writing, learning, or exercising with the same nonchalant attitude? By reframing our mindset and acknowledging that starting is often the hardest part, we can overcome the inertia of procrastination and propel ourselves towards our goals.

Let’s challenge ourselves to adopt the mentality of “just start.” Whether it’s opening a blank document, brainstorming ideas, or hopping on the exercise machine without overthinking it, taking that initial step is the catalyst for progress. Remember, time is finite, and it’s better to embrace mistakes and failures along the way than to wait for the elusive “perfect moment” that may never come. In the end, the journey of taking action is where growth and success truly unfold!

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ANXIETY STACKING/ HOW TO USE IT!!!!

In the world of self-help, self-improvement and motivation we’re all familiar with the phrase “Habit Stacking” or “skill stacking’. “A recent idea that I thought of is “Anxiety Stacking”. This concept came to me the other day when I woke up feeling anxious again, for seemingly no reason. Why do I feel so anxious?

Anxiety always seems to be connected to other people. ALMOST ALWAYS. It’s someone who has unfollowed me or unfriended me on Facebook or Instagram. I feel the anxiety flood in. Maybe it’s a suggestion to “patch a hole in my coat” (as if I didn’t notice that!). It’s someone’s hesitation to be warm or friendly after I have been exuberant and kind with them. It’s someone’s dismissive or “calm down” response to me about an expressive thought that I’ve vocalized–especially when I made an intentional effort to not be dismissive to their thoughts. It’s a job or opportunity rejection. Or maybe it’s the feeling conjured up when someone else in my current niche of interest is producing incredible products. There’s the unmistakable twinge of envy that creeps in when a peer in my field is churning out remarkable work, leaving me feeling like the underdog.

I’m in a quest to tame my anxiety. Anxiety is a very uncomfortable state of being. I’ve realized that I’m often at war with it. Once my psyche is plunged into this state, it tries with might to get out! Sometimes I sit in this state for half a day. I fantasize about the moment that I “will no longer feel anxious”.

I’ve decided to turn this upside down! Instead of dream of the moment where I’m “no longer feeling anxious” I’m going to use my anxiety as a catalyst. I’m going to use these moments of angst to run towards EVEN MORE SITUATIONS and EVEN MORE PEOPLE who AROUSE MY ANXIETY.

But why? The reason is because this is the PERFECT TIME. I’m already in the throes of anxiety. This is the time to allow more of it…because, wait, can anxiety get worse than it already is? Not really. It’s going to feel just as painful and anxiety-riddling with one or two rejections as it is with about 10 or 20 rejections. Sure, lots of rejections slammed on you at once may take a toll on your overall self-esteem (in the moment) but more on that later…

When you feel anxious it’s better to do a bunch of different things that may stir your anxiety. These are things like: apply for a job (that you think you’ll get rejected from), apply for a volunteer position (that you don’t think you have a chance at), ask someone out who’s likely to reject you. Compose an email to that estranged long-lost Uncle of yours! Has a neighbor recently rebuffed you? Bravely approach them and start talking in a bright, cheerful, annoying voice as if you don’t notice their disdain for you. Remember! They’re going to die too. You have one life and now is the perfect time to take risks with your ego because, again, YOU’RE ALREADY FEELING ANXIOUS.

I’ve noticed that when I do this, when I zoom into uncomfortable situations, I end up forgetting (for at least part of the day) some of the other uncomfortable situations that I’ve just encountered. It’s like I’m stacking more anxiety-pervading moments onto the heap. My memory (and anxiety) can only handle and FOCUS on a couple of these at a time.

Now, why do this? Because when you place your eggs in many baskets, when you apply for that job, inquire about a volunteer position in your field of intrigue, ask out a potential date, or speak to someone who you think “doesn’t like you” you actually increase the likelihood that ONE OF THESE ACTIONS works out in the end.

Let’s reiterate! When you diversify your efforts—whether it’s applying for a job, seeking a volunteer opportunity in your field of interest, mustering the courage to ask someone out, or engaging with someone you perceive as indifferent to you—you significantly boost the chances that at least one of these endeavors will yield positive results. Success tends to favor those who cast a wide net.

By taking action and doing a bunch of uncomfortable things in your current “Already-Anxiety” state, you’re learning a trick and modify your behavior and use it for your own self-improvement.

Now you can see the positive angle on anxiety. Use this state to your advantage!

PICKING YOURSELF OUT OF THE DUMPSTER

I’ve concluded that a 20 minute cardio exercise session followed by stretches is perhaps the best strategy for picking myself up from the dumps.

After 20 minutes of fairly intense cardio you start to feel a soothing, warm calmness descend upon you. Exercising regularly like this will assist in achieving a variety of goals all at the same time!

While exercise isn’t a 100% guarantee, it will INCREASE YOUR CHANCES of being more creative, less moody. It will INCREASE YOUR CHANCES of sleeping better. It will pivot your mind away from negative thinking (at least temporarily). It will INCREASE YOUR CHANCES of having a better memory that day because of the increased blood flow to your brain.

Because exercising regularly INCREASES the likelihood of so many positive life experiences and emotions, it ends up diminishing the time…those moments you’re spending in unpleasant states of what I call “mental dreariness”. Exercising gives you a MUCH NEEDED BREAK from anxiety or dwelling on (seemingly) failed experiences or failed personal interactions.

Over the weeks, LESS TIME SPENT IN MENTAL DREARINESS OR DEPRESSION starts to ADD UP! You’re reworking your entire conscious configuration. Think about all the new inputs you’ll receive from more time spent in flow states and less time allowing your brain to wander into jealousy or resentment or comparison to others. It’s like compound interest for your brain. Over time, you’re changing into an improved person, both mentally and physically.

The problem with exercise is that it is often uncomfortable, monotonous and boring. But other than that, it’s a huge investment to your life and wellbeing. Start out for 5 minutes of intense cardio a day and start to add a minute or two. I started around 8 minutes per day and FINALLY got up to 15 (yes, after 2 years). Now I’m easily committed to 20 minutes a day of intense exercise.

Once you start seeing the incremental improvements, you’re hooked. You’ll even miss it on those sick days!

When you FEEL better you DO better!

When you “FEEL BETTER” you DO better and you ACT better. By selectively paying attention to the positives and your strengths, you create a reinforcing loop of positivity that can help you get through the moment.

One of the things I’ve noticed in life is that the people I encounter who are in the best shape of their lives and who look GREAT are uncannily happy too. These are the people who are full of exuberance and energy for life. So whatever there doing, they’re setting themselves up to FEEL better. It would be very hard to feel awful if you’re Sofia Vergara.

Let’s reiterate: it starts be selectively paying attention to what makes you feel both happy and in control of your life. Emotions matter. The negative thought cycle starts like this: someone else acts in some way/says something that makes you feel bad or triggers your ego in some way. Whatever is said starts to make you doubt yourself more. You don’t doubt yourself, what THEY SAID ABOUT YOU makes you doubt yourself. Before you know it, you’re in a vortex of hopelessness and self doubt that seems to penetrate your entire being. You don’t quite know how to get out. Now, if someone insults Sofia Vergara, she can easily brush it off. She can just remind herself of her physique (which I’m sure she’s worked hard for) or she could remind herself of some of her accomplishments. She won’t stay in depression for that long. I’ve discovered that the best way to get out of this kind of depressive funk that gets most of us down is to start actively getting in shape. Next, start thinking about a couple ideas or things that interest you and motivate you. You don’t necessarily have to reflect upon “what you’re good at”–because so many of us feel that we’re not terribly successful at anything. Rather, think about some things you can try (or try again) that excite you. You are momentarily distracting yourself from the present state of negative feeling. You can choose to think of anything you want, so why not expand your thinking to POSSIBILITY? Sometimes it takes a day or two to jettison oneself out of a bad mood or a negative feeling, but it’s good to know that these are fleeting emotions. We can get back into positive emotions by building up a muscle of “seeing the positive” of “thinking about positives” and selectively paying attention to positive things over negative things/incidents. We can selectively decide to forgive ourselves and MOVE ON. Getting your physical body in shape takes considerable time and daily application. In the same way, getting your emotions and mind strong and resilient take daily practice.

Waking Up at 5am–New Habits!!!

Robin Sharma has a book out called “The 5am club”. Though I’ve never read the book, I’ve followed him for many years on Youtube and enjoy listening to all of his golden bites of wisdom.

This January and February I have made a commitment to waking up at 5am. I typically wake up at 6am–but with a struggle. I wanted to jump on the bandwagon and start doing “hard, uncomfortable” things. Waking up at 5am seemed like a significant challenge but I wanted to see if I could FINALLY DO IT. I had been thinking about it and talking about it for years. I had been rehearsing the steps in my mind…even contemplating all the possibilities…all the free time…the chance to get WAY ahead of the day. I thought of how much I could get done and how liberating it would feel to get the house cleaned up and ready to go, to initiate some exercise, maybe even do some painting! But, despite all of this, I HAD NEVER TRIED DOING IT FOR MORE THAN A COUPLE DAYS.

I’ve been setting my alarm for 5am every night before bed. And, believe it or not, I have found myself getting into the habit of actually waking up at 5am. It’s been a very rewarding experience just to witness myself do this! I makes me feel incredible to know that I have been rising to the occasion and fulfilling this challenge I have set out for.

When I wake up early my days improve by 100%. I get a ton accomplished! Perhaps the biggest perk of waking up early has been my sleep! My sleep has improved PHENOMENALLY! I actually sleep at night and don’t find myself waking up for 45 minutes hoping to “Fall back asleep”. I also fall asleep soon after I lay down–which means I’m not wasting more time tossing and turning. In other words, my sleeping period if much more efficient and compressed. I get WAY more out of sleeping when I fall asleep quickly and sleep more deeply. I also feel much more recharged each day.

In a way, by waking up so early it’s like I’ve compressed my sleep period for deeper, more refreshing, undisturbed sleep period each night.

I plan to keep on waking up at 5am but also get into the morning habit of exercising too.

If you have any trouble sleeping at night like I have had for the past 7 years, I HIGHLY, HIGHLY, HIGHLY recommend CONSISTENTLY waking up at 5am. This trick works like MAGIC! You will have no trouble falling asleep at night (I usually go to bed right around 10pm) and if you do wake up at night, it will be MUCH BRIEFER than what you’ve experienced in the past.

Becoming a BIG SOCIAL MEDIA INFLUENCER, THOUGHTS

When blog posters or social media influencers tell you things you already know…you already thought of…you already know how to do and yet they have HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of followers and subscribers, do you become resentful or irritated?

Why, you could have been doing or saying or writing the same thing–but like 23 years ago!

You may be disappointed in yourself that you didn’t start your internet game earlier. Those years of waiting “for the right time” led to thousands of other people jumping on a social media platform ahead of you and saying stuff you could have said–and gaining followers and $$ in the mean time.

I think we all have these thoughts when we stumble across various big social media accounts. Why are they doing this? Who are they to tell us things we already know and also, make a passive income on it to boot! Why didn’t I do this when I had the chance?

It’s tempting to write this whole game off and say “ah well, all the good ideas are already taken!” How could I possibly contribute now? There’s nothing more to invent, say, write about, design or suggest. People will just stumble across my content and think “I’ve already heard/done/thought of this before”. I’m done here.

I don’t think these are good enough reasons NOT TO TRY to become a creator on social media. It’s pretty clear to me that all the ideas aren’t taken, and certainly, all the possible angles on the ideas out there aren’t taken. And, even if you do happen to unintentionally recite, repeat or recycle the same stuff your readers have already heard or read or watched, it won’t be the end of the world! It certainly won’t be the first time anyone has done it. And if people unsubscribe or unfollow, no harm done! Thanks to the population of planet earth, there’s plenty of fish in the sea.

The popular children’s Youtube creator Blippi started making videos for children in 2014. He now has over 17 million subscribers on his Youtube channel. 2014 wasn’t that long ago. I think the recipe that he found was that he found an area that he was interested in and then he kept on track. He continued to upload video after video until he started to have a snowball affect. People start to see you as a legitimate youtuber, blogger, instagrammer etc. if you have a big following, and so, that leads to even more people pushing that subscribe or follow button on your account. It’s all very psychological at some point. That’s when the snowballing starts to happen.

But what about those months, years or decades before the snowball affect? During that period it’s all about consistency and regularity and not giving up. It’s about recognizing that you do what you do because of your intense curiosity for the subject! You like to write in the first place because you love the act of wordsmithing….making your words dance on the page. Maybe you like to make little videos showcasing your artwork or you like to build things and post before and after’s of your projects. You enjoy doing it this in and of itself, so why not use a social media platform and just continue doing what you love?

In the end it’s not about gaining a massive social media following but doing what you love and proving to yourself that you’re not a quitter. You determine for yourself that you will start creating digital content of some kind and you’ll upload and post regularly. I’m pretty sure this is the exact mindset of all thoes instagrammers, and social media influencers.

Finally, remember that everything on the internet is constantly in flux. What/who was popular last year is less popular this year. Some social media accounts will fall by the wayside because not everyone can stand the boredom of uploading and posting regularly. Not everyone can get out of the perfectionist mindset and JUST DO IT routinely. This means there is always room for new people who can (potentially) gain massive followings.

Our Blogs On Their Way Out?

I’ve recently become extremely curious about the way blogs and written content on the internet is being viewed.

Are people going to write and READ blogs anymore? or written content on the internet? Are we, as a civilization, done with reading long sentences or…*gasp* paragraphs?

Has the influx, the demand and the reliance of fast paced Tik Tok videos and Instagram reels brought us to the lowest possible level for our attention spans?

I am worried that we have reached a new level for our brains. People want to consume information in bite-sized chunks more readily than lengthy paragraphs. This trend doesn’t seem to be going away. In fact, it seems to be getting worse.

Studies have found that the average human attention span has dropped from 12 seconds in 2000 to 8 seconds in 2015, which is shorter than the attention span of a goldfish (9 seconds).

This is shocking information! So many things in our lives require focused attention for a lengthy period of time. Learning requires attention and time!

Imagine what this “attention shortage” means for the future of education and careers? Not to mention everyday duties like household chores that are often long and BORING?

As much as I want to ditch blogging for good, I think I’ll stay a luddite for a while longer. I want to develop and increase my own attention span. Blogging large blocks of text will help in this process. This requires both my attention and time.

I believe attention is like a muscle. The more you use it the stronger it gets.

I stretch every day and I do cardio exercise each day on the Peloton. I neglect my attention span. I think it’s important to commit to a period of attention everyday. Picking a topic to blog on and working on it for a half hour or so is a way to train my attention span.

It’s important to remember that there are plenty of people who are still looking for content to read and not just “watch”.

My C-Reactive Protein is High!

Recently I found out that I have high C-reactive protein levels. C-Reactive Protein is a measure of systemic body inflammation. High levels of chronic inflammation in the body can cause problems with the heart, joints, brain and can even be a marker of underlying diseases like cancer. My level was 22.6 mg/L. Normal levels of C-reactive protein usually less than 3 mg/L. My new goal is to try and figure out how to lower this high level of chronic systemic inflammation in my body! I’m only 41 so I’m at a very young age to have such a high level of C-reactive protein.

Since I’ve been having inflammation in my right knee for most of 2021 and all of 2022 (so far) I’m guessing my high C-reactive protein was due to rheumatoid arthritis in my knee, specifically. Hopefully no other area of my body is being damaged! Hopefully I’m not experiencing underlying atherosclerosis or some kind of insidious degeneration of my brain or heart.

But to be safe, I’ve initiated radical changes in my lifestyle starting last week Tuesday (January 25, 2021). I have removed sugary treats from my diet. I still eat rice, pasta, potatoes and breads occasionally; but no ice cream, cookies, cakes, pies…you get the idea. I have also started an exercise routine where I exercise vigorously on the Peloton at least 20 minutes a day.

Today is Sunday January 30, 2022 and I started my first fast. I last ate yesterday around 7pm, so I won’t consume any food until around 1 or 2pm on Monday.

My first day of Intermittent (18 hour) fasting has taught me a lot about myself. It’s dawning on me that I’m an impulsive and thoughtless eater. I’m constantly putting blueberries, apples or random food fragments from the counter into my mouth. I brainlessly place them into my mouth and then I realize, whoops, I’m fasting! Then I spit them out and start again. Thankfully I’ve never swallowed anything yet so as not to waste my effort fasting!

There are so many things I do that are impulsive and mindless so fasting has been a very enlightening experience. Now, if I could just start a cleaning/picking up messes fast where I only allowed myself to tidy the house for a 6 hour window of the day. Imagine how much more I could get done during the other 18 hours?!?!?!?

I will be back very soon to blog about my progress fasting, exercising more and eating less sugar and any changes I’ve witnessed in my knee inflammation.

Pencil Box from Old Baseboards

Pencil Box from Old Baseboards

Last year when our family was still living in Alaska we decided to remodel our kitchen.

Many baseboards needed to be torn out in the process. I thought, why not start making containers and pencil boxes from the old damaged baseboards instead of tossing them?

I used my Hart saw to cut pieces to size and then glued them together. I finished them off with painted pictures and some epoxy.

Here is how one turned out.

Blogging is Hard

Blogging is hard. I haven’t posted in well over 2 years and I’m finally logging into my account again.

The thing I have to keep reminding myself is:

It’s hard to dedicate time each week to “write” but I’m doing it for myself. If other people happen to stop by on my journey of creativity and self growth that’s an extra bonus!

It’s hard to dredge up content. It’s hard to do anything half-ass because most of us are ‘do nothing if it isn’t’ perfect’ people.