Tag: Personal Growth

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Mapping Out the Fitness Journey: From Pushups to Pullups

Hello Dear Readers,

 

As the year progresses, I am inching closer to a significant milestone in my fitness journey. Those following my updates will remember that I chose to diversify my workout regimen when the year began. I expanded my running schedule to include pushups, pull-ups, and planks. It was both a challenge and a test of my determination and today, I’m proud to share the fruits of that decision.

 

Reflecting on my early days, pull-ups seemed like the Mount Everest of exercises. Completing even one felt like an achievement. I’d dangle, struggle, and barely pull myself up most days. But as with any journey, persistence plays a pivotal role. Each day, I felt my strength growing, my endurance increasing, and my spirits elevating. From that singular, challenging pull-up, I’ve made my way to confidently doing 14. It’s a testament to what dedication and consistency can accomplish.

 

My set goal is to hit the 20-pullup mark. It’s ambitious, given where I began, but now, more than ever, it’s within my reach. However, as I approach this goal, I’ve been pondering the evolution of my workout routine. A part of me believes that after achieving 20 pull-ups, the benefits of this specific routine might start plateauing. That’s where the next phase of my fitness journey will commence.

 

Tucked away in my home are some hand weights – silent reminders of workouts of the past. I’ve contemplated incorporating them into my current routine or transitioning to a new regimen centered around them. Designing this new routine, however, requires some planning. I need to decide on the specific exercises, the number of sets and repetitions, and the weight I should start with.

 

While I’m optimistic about achieving my target of 20 pull-ups in the coming weeks, I also understand the importance of foresight. I want to avoid hitting my goal and then standing at a crossroads, unsure where to go next. Hence, even as I push myself harder daily to achieve my current plan, I’m sketching the roadmap for my next fitness destination.

 

In sharing this, I aim to inspire those who are reading. Setting goals, working towards them, and then re-evaluating and developing new ones is the essence of growth in fitness and every sphere of life. My journey from one pull-up to 14 (and soon 20) is more than just a tale of physical progress; it’s a story of perseverance, dedication, and the belief that our limits are only as confining as we allow them to be.

 

So, whether you’re embarking on your fitness journey or any other personal challenge, remember that every small step counts, every day of effort compounds, and every goal achieved pave the way for a new one.

Wishing you all strength and perseverance in your journeys,

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Cultivating the Mind: The Art of Mental Pruning for Self-Improvement

From the recesses of my earliest memories, I’ve battled the demons of intrusive thoughts and impulses. While I have successfully tamed the majority, a few still slip through the cracks, especially in moments of distraction or heightened stress, leading to undesirable actions. To mitigate such occurrences, I practice what I’ve come to call ‘mental pruning.’

Mental pruning is a conscious, deliberate effort to suppress and eventually erase impulsive, negative thoughts. The process demands envisioning the person I aspire to be; this mental portrait serves as a benchmark against which I assess the nature of my impulsive thoughts. It acts as a guiding light, illuminating the counter-thoughts that help me weed out the undesirable ones.

For instance, there have been occasions when I’ve snapped at my wife unreasonably. Recognizing this as contrary to the person I strive to be, I visualize the action, recoil at the thought, and reestablish a mental image of my ideal self. Through repetition, I notice such impulses diminishing as if I’ve pruned that branch of thought to the extent that it no longer overshadows my desired thinking.

This strategy of self-training may resonate with you. While it’s no easy feat and demands constant vigilance and mental effort, I can vouch for its efficacy in my journey. It may well be adaptable to your pursuit of self-improvement, helping you become the person you aspire to be.

By becoming conscious of an intrusive thought, I focus my willpower on suppressing it, aiming to expunge it from the recesses of my mind. This task necessitates the formation of a mental image of my ideal self. I employ this image as a comparative tool to assess impulsive thoughts and as a wellspring for the counter-thoughts that cleanse my mind of negativity.

Such a mental pruning exercise is not merely an act of suppression; it’s a cultivation of the mind, nurturing the positive and curbing the negative. The analogy of pruning is apt, as it embodies the essence of selective elimination and regrowth, creating room for the blossoming of desirable thoughts and behaviors.

The journey of mental pruning is far from a stroll in the park. It demands resilience, patience, and a relentless pursuit of self-betterment. The fruits of this labor, however, are profoundly rewarding. The diminishing of undesirable impulses and the flourishing of positive thoughts are testaments to the transformative power of this practice.

I hope that sharing my experience with mental pruning may inspire others to embark on their journeys of self-discovery and improvement. The road may be arduous, and the pruning shears may sometimes feel heavy. Still, the prospect of cultivating a mind enriched with positive thoughts and actions is a compelling motivator.

 

I encourage you to explore the potential of mental pruning. Adapt it, make it your own, and witness its transformative power on your journey toward becoming the person you wish to be. After all, the mind is a garden. It can flourish into a sanctuary of peace and positivity with careful tending.

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Juggling Work, School, and Life: My Journey to a Graduate Degree

Hey guys! So, one day, I woke up and thought, “I want to go back to school and finish my graduate degree.” Yep, even though I already have a full-time job. Crazy, right? I even decided to take not one, not two, but three courses each week. Oh, and I managed to pass two big CMA exams in just four months. So, how did I pull this off?

First things first, I had to sort out my schedule. We all have only 24 hours daily, no matter how busy. I spent about two weeks tweaking my daily plans until I found extra hours for my classes.

After figuring that out, I talked to my husband about my big idea. He was worried I might wear myself out, but he was super supportive. He even offered to help out with some chores around the house. Teamwork makes the dream work!

Initially, I decided to take it easy and sign up for two classes each semester. But guess what? I felt bold and bumped it into three courses to finish everything in just two semesters. Yeah, I soon found out that was a big oopsie. Grad school isn’t like undergrad; there’s way more work. I had tons of assignments and papers to write. I even had to take five vacation days from my job to catch up on schoolwork. It’s a good thing it wasn’t the busy end-of-year work season!

Despite the craziness, there were some rules I stuck to:

  1. Keep Running: Believe it or not, I still ran my usual 5K every morning. It’s my ‘me time.’
  2. Don’t Overeat at Night: I had to make sure I could focus on studying and feeling too full would make that hard.
  3. Use Spare Time Wisely: Any extra 15 minutes I had, I used for quick chores. A clean home makes a happy mind.
  4. Be Grateful: I couldn’t have done this without my amazing husband. He’s my rock.

So, after a chaotic but super rewarding year, I survived and thrived. I kept my grades up and even graduated with two honors. I know this was one of the craziest things I did. Whatever your big dream is, go for it. Just ensure you have a solid plan, an excellent support team, and a lot of determination.

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From Running to Strength: How I Built an Effective Upper Body Routine

Hello again, dear readers,

After running 1000 miles last year, I decided my legs were in the best condition they’d ever been, even before my stroke. Encouraged by my previous success, I expanded my exercises to include my upper body. I decided on pull-ups, pullovers, pushups, tricep pushups, and planks. These were all exercises I was previously familiar with and knew how to do, and they should help balance the fitness of my body a bit more. 

Next, I had to find a time/trigger for my exercises and determine how many to do. Since I’d been so good at keeping my running schedule, I used getting ready for my run as my trigger. So, every running day, before I head outside, I do some number of pull-ups, pullovers, pushups, triceps pushups, and planking. At the start of this routine, I only did one pull-up, one pullover, 21 pushups, one triceps pushup, and 1 minute, 21 seconds of planking. I found it easier to keep track of the goal numbers if they were aligned. 

I also decided that if I could achieve the target number 10 times, I would increase the number by 1. Eventually, I found that I could do two sets of exercises and did my first before I ate breakfast and my second before my run. In the beginning, when I was doing relatively small numbers of each activity, I tried to do four sets spread throughout the day. Still, I didn’t have appropriate triggers for 2 of them or 3 of them on non-running days, so I periodically forgot to do them all. Still, my before-breakfast set was reasonably easy to remember. I kept up with this set and have done it daily for over 200 days, gradually increasing my counts to 10 pull-ups, 10 pullovers, 20 pushups, 10 triceps pushups, and 1 minute 50 seconds of planking. There have been non-running days that I’ve missed the second set, but those have been rare enough that I haven’t worried too much about it.

So, after you’ve built and established a habit, consider using it as an anchor for expanding it into an entire routine. In making this routine, I prioritized rooting the practice over starting with higher/more challenging numbers. In the beginning, doing a single pull-up felt underwhelming, but I built the habit of slowly increasing the repetitions in my mind. I’m pretty confident that 10 successful sets aren’t optimal, but it’s easy to keep track of, and it’s working for me now. 

If it stops working, I must find a way to fix it. However, what matters most is that I am progressing and getting stronger.

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The Power of Small Goals: Achieving Big Results Through Consistency

One of the lessons I keep discovering throughout my various habit formation is that small goals done consistently over time can lead to pretty startling results.  

I want to accomplish a goal in one herculean effort, and I often fail when I attempt such a thing. Last year, I ran over 1,000 miles. If I had set out to run 1,000 miles all at once or even in a single month, I’m confident I would have immediately failed; however, by splitting the 1000 miles into more manageable albeit still challenging parts, I could achieve this more significant number. 

I also recently committed to maintaining our front yard better, and the first objective was to weed our planted areas. When I first decided, weeding the entire area would be nearly impossible, but I decided to find a mere 20 minutes to work on it every day. 

I expect it to be finished sometime this week, and I’ll have to maintain it. Again, had I tried to strip the areas of weeds all in one day, it would have been miserable and potentially unwise as it’s pretty hot outside.

If you need help to complete your goals or even get started at them, try to make them smaller. Don’t try to run 1000 miles all at once. Intellectually, I know it’s better to set goals this way, but I still feel an urge to try and do it all at once. 

In my goal formation, I remember to make the habits smaller and plan to practice over a more extended period. Starting earlier and going longer is a safer way to approach many activities.

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Running Through Rehab: How I Built a Consistent Running Habit

I’ve been running regularly for the past five years. I began my current running program when we still lived in Portland, Oregon. My wife and I had been walking nearly every day since I’d been released from rehabilitation, and I felt I had progressed enough to try running.

A few years before this, I had attempted to get into running but hadn’t committed to it, but I had learned about the couch to 5k running program (c25k). I had enough commitment to maintain my running schedule and found an app for my phone, which allowed me to import some of my music into this program.

 

Couch to 5K (C25K) Program

C25k fit me quite well; it starts relatively slow with short-run segments with walking segments between them. Each week, the run segments get longer and the walk segments shorter. After five weeks, I ran for the entire time, about 5 kilometers. I went through this program several times, and each time, it got easier, and I got faster.

 

Zombies, Run!

Then my wife heard about a running app that was gaining popularity at the time, Zombies, Run! It’s an app that uses game concepts to motivate running. It’s set during a zombie apocalypse, and you play a character helping a small settlement of survivors by running. During each mission, you collect or deliver items while randomly acquiring materials to build your settlement. I found it quite interesting, and motivated me to run more and more to find out what happens next in the story.

After running 5k three times per week for a year, I was ready to push myself more, and I found an extension program by the same group that made the c25k program, which smoothed the transition from 5k to 10k using the same concepts of increasing the duration of run segments and shortening the walk segments. Again, this worked well for me, and I was proud of being able to run 10k. I won’t say it was easy, but it was possible.

 

An Added Challenge

I kept with this as we moved to Nashville, Tennessee; however, this move added a challenge to overcome. The average climate in Nashville is quite different from Portland. It is quite a bit warmer in Nashville, and I needed to keep myself hydrated while running. Luckily, my habit of counting steps helped me figure out a schedule for sipping my sports drink.

I use the schedule every 400 steps; I pause for a few seconds and drink. Conveniently, I discovered that 400 steps is roughly half a kilometer for me.

Now equipped with a rehydration schedule, I ran 5k nearly every day. It took me a while to get used to the new environment. After running 5k at least three times per week for a year, I aimed to push myself further by increasing my run distance by a kilometer each month. During the first month, I ran three 5k per week, then gradually increased to three 6k per week, and eventually, I was able to run 10k three times per week. My goal was to improve my endurance and speed.

 

1 Month: 3 x 5K (to get used to running)

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End: 3 x 10K

 

While I was faster at running 5k, I wasn’t as fast as I wanted to be, although I doubt I ever will be; however, as long as I’m getting better, I should be content with my progress. I repeated this sequence a couple more times and then set a new goal: I will run 35k per week for a year.

3x10k and 1x5k. Some weeks were harder than others, and I had to figure out how to balance my running schedule with other activities and impediments like weather.

 

I had to set up rules so every solution to a complication wasn’t ad hoc but part of a comprehensive plan. First, I made a goal statement: to run 35k per week. Then, I made a list of likely impediments, which included inclement weather and other obligations like birthday parties or doctor’s appointments. Scheduling appointments was easy since I set running days separate from appointment days.

 

The other complications were more brutal to balance, but I found that if I couldn’t juggle the days to fit my schedule, I could spread my anticipated missed days running over the other days so, instead of 3x10k + 1x5k, I could run 2x12k and an 11k. I was happy as long as I accomplished my primary goal of 35k.