Goal in September

Have been kept fairly busy at office in the last few months. Which makes it all the more important to focus on my fitness. Am going to start off small by jogging for 1 - 2 Km for the initial few weeks in September. By October start, my goal is to run 4 Km in 30 min time.

 Apart from that, have just shifted my house and it gives me an opportunity to become really organized in terms of maintaining the house. By Sept end, i will make my house spin and span clean and organized.

Will keep you all posted soon.

Every Day Work - Goal for July

It has been a hectic month at work in June. And with more work around the corner, i have decided to make work the foremost focus in July. The key challenge at work is the sheer amount of meetings/calls that goes into discussions and reviews, thus reducing the time to be spent in actual work and gaining domain specific knowledge. This month, am setting the following goals at work:

- Reach Office early and spend close to 12 hours at office
- 6+ Hours of actual work/learning every single day including weekends
- Complete Health Care AHM Certification

This would be by far my most challenging goal as time management has not been my forte and also i have never identified with slogging as a worthwhile option to pursue, treating it as something that is short term depending on deadlines. But with so many changes in Healthcare with Obamacare, there is no better time to slog and to learn. Hopefully by this month end, i would have have developed not only the base level domain knowledge but also the hunger to want to be an expert.

Every Day Exercise - What happened in May and What's up for June!

I have had a track record of setting lofty fitness goals but always landing short of what i set out to do. So last month i thought i will change that by doing a few things right:

1. Set a small goal (30 min exercise) that will provide momentum to achieving better fitness in the near future 2. Make it a habit (30 day goal) through daily exercise and tracking

3. Have variety in exercise (Either brisk walking or Yoga)

3. Triggers (Wife/Bro assistance & Posting in Blog/Sharing with Friends)

4. Reward (Indulge in Sweets/Icecream of my choice) - the goal isnt big so the reward shouldnt be as well :)

The first few days were a breeze and while it got a little tougher in the mornings owing to sleeping late, the daily exercise continued (have to credit my wife for pushing me even when i didnt feel like it) without any major hassles. Got busy at work during the last week and had to attend a few early morning calls that meant i couldnt step out to exercise in the morning on those days. Even though i came back home late around 9 - 9 30 on those days, this goal kept playing on my mind and i ensured that i took a brisk walk at night.

Have to share an interesting anecdote - had booked a late night show for the movie 'Neram' with my bro. But i came back home only around 9 30 and immediately went out for my walk. My bro was hopping mad and blasted me all the way up till the movie (we reached about 10 min late). Of course he cooled down once he realized that the heroine had not yet been introduced which was the reason he came anyways :)

That way, am really happy that i made this goal non negotiable under any condition. Which meant that i ended up exercising on all of the 32 days without a break! No way am i going to break the rhythm now :)

This month, am increasing the rigour slowly - Going to exercise 45 minutes every day with a few tweaks.

It will be either (Walking 30 min + Jogging 15 min) or (Yoga with atleast 1-2 sets of Surya Namaskar).

I have not really thought about dieting so far but am going to drink atleast 3 litres of water every day at different intervals. This way, i think my craving for food at odd hours will reduce.

Will let you all know how it works out this month. Cheers!

Quick Update on the 30 Day Exercise Goal!

It has been 15 days since i kickstarted this habit of exercising every single day. Exercising is not new to me but i have never ever exercised every single day for even a week before. So am pretty happy that 15 days into the goal, i have exercised every single day for atleast 30 min a day! This is inspite of having early morning classes or sleeping late at times. I would not say its been easy as at times i have felt the urge to just go back to sleep. But am happy i have stuck it out so far and am confident of completing 30 days without a break. Will keep u all posted!

The 30 Day Habit - Exercise Every Single Day in May!

Over the last couple of years, i had put on quite some weight and as per the BMI chart, i am in the Overweight category. While i have been dieting on and off, lack of regular exercise has proved to be the biggest obstacle in losing weight and getting fitter.

But why should i get fitter or for that matter lose weight? Am not too concerned about the way i look in the sense that i wouldnt lose sleep over it. I am also not bothered even if others comment on the fact that i look overweight. Then why should it bother me at all?

After analysing, i figured it bothered me because i had internalized a belief that physical fitness goes hand in hand with mental fitness. The future me that i visualized always always looked super fit and was super energetic at any point of time. And i think that i fell short of other big goals i set because the logical mind always looked at the future me achieving these goals while the subconscious mind could discern that i was not the future me yet. In a sense, i was sabotaging my own plans!

In that sense, getting fit through regular exercise becomes the biggest objective. Of course, while intrinsic motivation is high, i need to set certain triggers to ensure success of the 30 day habit and beyond as well. To me, the trigger is to do it with a small group who also believe in changing this habit as much as i do. And my partners in crime are my wife & my brother.

Truly excited to see myself continue this habit for the next 30 days and beyond! I really want it to be a lifestyle change! Through this single habit, i truly believe that my whole life would change for the better! Will keep you all posted on the results!

Creating Behavioral Change

Changing a Habit/Behavior is not easy. Especially if you have lived with those habits for over 30 years. I read a very interesting article by BJ Fogg, whos a behavioral expert and teaches at Stanford University. He says that Behavior is caused by 3 elements - Motivation, Ability & Trigger and even if one of these elements is missing, then behavioral change will not occur. This got me thinking.

More often that not, for each of us desiring a behavior change, motivation will not be a problem. And if that was the case, then behavioral change is merely a wishlist and not a goal. Hence one has to be absolutely sure when we desire for a behavioral change in the sense it has to be heart (emotional) based motivation.

Ability is something that each individual can ascertain and accordingly set goals within his/her current capabilities. For eg, an obese person can set a goal that he/she would walk 1 km a day every single morning and that would still be within his/her abilities. The only challenge is overestimating our capabilities and desiring to run a half marathon when you have hardly exercised in the past few months/years. This is a common problem for optimists (namely myself!) but over a period of time, one is able to ascertain where one stands. At the other end, setting easy goals does not help and hence one needs to be able to set small goals that is just within one's reach.

Trigger is an area that most of us miss out on. For eg, alarm clock should be a good trigger to wake up early. Having your sports wear out in the bed where you can see them when you wake up is a good trigger. Having a check list and marking a tick mark every single time you action on your goals is an excellent trigger.
But in spite of all this, something is missing in the jigsaw puzzle of behavioral change. And that one area according to me is THE most important  - Removing Existing Habits. One cannot expect to wake up early by sleeping late or by aspiring to exercise while at the same time binge on unhealthy food all the time. To me, the trigger has to be powerful not just for creating new habits but for removing old habits as well.

Am going to experiment with 'Trigger' to remove some existing habits that am not happy about. Will post on that later. In the meantime, please do share your triggers and your experiences as well. Till then, adios!

Setting Realistic Goals

There has been a pattern that i have been observing with respect to Goals. The more that i set ambitious goals with stringent timelines, the more is the gap in achieving them. This has led to negative energy, self bashing and ending with a promise to meet up to the expectations set. And this cycle has continued for quite a while now. That led me to introspect on where i was going wrong and what i should do about it.

There was this article that i read recently on Steve Pavlina which was extremely insightful on Goal Setting. The crux of the matter is that we set goals with a logical mind believing logic will not fail. I mean, if 20 items are to be completed in 5 days, then the logical mind says that set 4 goals a day and you are done. But what we fail to realize is that the heart overrules logic and eventually our emotional moods takes over and disrupts the goals that are set.

The solution that Pavlina advocates is to first get to a state where your mind and heart reaches a level of coherance. For example, sit in the morning and think of all the things that makes you grateful for, in life. Or listen to a song that puts you at peace. Of course, getting to this state will not be easy and will take practice. But once this state is achieved, the goal setting process will be natural and will almost flow to the point that you will probably visualize your delight after you achieve the goals set. The most critical point here is the heart rules and only the goals that your emotional being resonates with can be achieved, with logic then defining how it can be achieved.

I am currently trying to get to a state of coherance and am focusing on waking up early and meditating for 5 minutes each morning. Hopefully, in some time (maybe in weeks or in a month), the state of flow will take over and when it does, am sure that the results will be positive.