Off the Beaten Plan

plan: to devise or project the realization or achievement of

Humiliation as a path to weight loss – I like it.

The Public Humiliation Diet: A How-To

Huh. You know, I’ve tried doing this kind of thing before. Here on my blog (maybe not this one, but one of them), throughout other sites, with other programs like Lose It! for the iPhone, but it hasn’t worked for me. The public humiliation bit is just humiliating, never really motivating.

I tend to like to keep things to myself, but then eventually I give those things up as well. It’s a tough sell.

It all boils down to determination. How bad do I want it? I guess not bad enough, because my pants size keeps going up, along with my weight I suppose. (I haven’t been on a scale in a year, probably.)

*sigh* It’s all very difficult. Nothing is very easy. (Now I sound like my 7-year-old…heh.)

LoseIt! logo from LoseIt.com

Humiliation as a path to weight loss – I like it. was published on May 31st, 2010, with the tags , , under the Completely Off Topic, Planning category. There are currently no comments on this article so far.

Tracking

Getting on the right track and staying there is hard for me. I like to get grand ideas when I can’t really do anything about them – right before bed, when I’m driving, etc. It’s very easy to have a grand plan you’re going to act on – in the morning, when you get home, when the kids go to bed. And then it’s also very, very easy for me to get derailed once that “magic time” comes.

Right now, just as I’m about to turn off the computer and go get some much needed sleep, I’m thinking about going through The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferris,  and starting my dreamlining tomorrow – when I get to work. What typically happens when I get to work, however, is I check my email, get caught up in “just one game” before starting work, or someone finds me with a problem and I end up starting work a bit early.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

But the pattern is the same at other times. “When I get home” time turns into sitting for a minute, making supper, watching the kids’ movie, playing with the kids, putting the kids to bed, et cetera. “After the kids go to bed” is instead checking email again (home version, this time), catching up on the feed reader (also something I do regularly at work), and playing games online while I catch up on every episode of LOST before the new season starts.

Okay, so I’ve identified my problem areas. Now it should be only a matter of time before I recognize those behaviors and just say no to them, right?

*sigh* No, another problem I have is visualizing the Big Picture. I’m very content to live in the moment – enjoy the video game and put another chocolate in my mouth instead of hooking up the darn Wii and using the new game I got to help me lose some extra weight. I’ll drink the beer, telling myself that it’s because it helps to calm the cough I can’t get rid of (it does, really!) instead of trying out water to see if that does the job just as well without the calories.

I want to get some big pictures printed at work of what I really want. I really want to be skinny, to feel good about myself. I really want to earn extra money and follow the principals in the book I just read. I really want to be a better wife and mother, and I know there are pictures out there to help remind me of this. Once I find them, I’ll make them into posters and tape them to the awful wallpaper (I have to take a picture of it sometime to share).

Then when I find myself indulging in that really bad habit (BH#1) that I want to break, I can stare up at the photos. Do I want to be skinny, or do I really want to taste the chocolate that in the end, isn’t that good anyway?

I need to get back on track.

What is your biggest struggle right now in the new year?

Tracking was published on January 6th, 2010, with the tags , , , under the Editorial, Personal Enrichment, Planning category. There are currently no comments on this article so far.

If It’s Worth Doing…

Photo by Zsuzsanna Kilián

Photo by Zsuzsanna Kilián

“If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing badly. Just [write]!”
-Phil Hodgen, BHB

This is exactly what I needed to hear today, and yesterday, really. I am obviously not in a position to need to pour quite as much effort as Mr. Hodgen did to his particular topic blog, but it is a good sample of what your dedicated efforts can bring you.

I have been watching a particular agent at my office do exactly what Mr. Hodgen just did. Intense effort for a relatively small return. Paying out a not insignificant sum of money for a campaign that has the potential to pay out tenfold, and most probably more. If she gains paying clients from just 0.3% of the mailing sent, it will pay for the entire endeavor, plus the next five just like it. If she received a 2% response, she could earn more than I do in a year. 5%? The one marketing campaign could pay her fees, her mortgage, her utilities, all of any expense she might have for a year. And that’s on the low end on both sale price and commission for our current market. Imagine if she had some kickass, world changing sales?

Whether or not I have a good idea today, the most important thing is to keep working towards my goal. Write, even if it sucks. Write, even if it’s off topic. Write, even if nobody reads.

Obviously I don’t have success yet in this blogosphere to give any credit to my claims. I haven’t backed things up with six references from other successful bloggers, although I’m sure they’re out there. But I’ve seen it work. Mr. Hodgen saw it work. And if I could get more people in my office to try it, they would see it work as well.

And I will see it work.

If It’s Worth Doing… was published on September 29th, 2009, with the tags , , under the Article Response, Completely Off Topic category. There are currently 5 comments on this article so far.

Motivation…almost

I’m blocked tonight. Why am I blocked tonight? I really don’t understand.

I wanted to write about Motivation, but I’m having a hard time finding any. I did find an article I really liked on the subject at A List Apart: Staying Motivated. (I often find interesting articles at this website, but until hadn’t actually added them to my feed reader. Crisis averted – I subscribed today.)

Writing Den, or 4th Bedroom?My absolute favorite tip was to build a creative den. I thought about where I do most of my writing, TV watching, and web surfing – a not-terribly-comfortable-after-two-hours rocker recliner. That’s not a den. I think I would like a separate space in the room just for me. DH has the desktop computer on a makeshift desk, and soon he will get a real desk for the computer. So where will I work? There are no extra rooms for me, and at this point there aren’t even any empty walls. There is a very long, narrow closet…

Of course, picking a Den would require space that isn’t unusable at certain times during the day – or night. For example, it wouldn’t make much sense for me to set up my space in our bedroom. DH goes to bed with the kids at 8 p.m. (tonight being a notable exception – he just went up), and is a very light sleeper. I wouldn’t be able to work with him sleeping, thereby only giving me time to write on the weekends when I’m not at my parents house doing laundry or driving my son to Boy Scout things or taking both kids to church. Oh, wait, I don’t have any time that’s not doing those things.

When my husband gets his desk, I will evaluate the remaining space in the room. Perhaps I will be able to create a Den out of what his new desk has displaced. I can set up my sewing machine, and have an outlet for my laptop, and keep a book on the side for when I’m waiting for my laptop to kick up, and that little piece of wall can be my one-and-only creative space. A bit of wall would be ideal, so I could put up sticky notes and cover the wallpaper noise.

Staying motivated. Repetition. Doing it so often it’s simply habit, and not doing it leaves a void.

Motivation…almost was published on September 28th, 2009, with the tags , under the Planning category. There are currently no comments on this article so far.