30 Days To X

The days keep changing, will you?

Become an environmentalist

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“Environmentalist: one concerned about environmental quality especially of the human environment.”

– Merriam-Webster Dictionary

I hate working out at home, it takes too much discipline. No matter where I exercise, there’s always some form of distraction within arms reach: Netflix, Minecraft, Reddit, etc… Ninety-nine percent of the time I quit my routine to waste time with one of these diversions. Since I already know that my home is a bad work out environment, I always go to the gym. You can find me there five days a week.

At the gym there are no distractions. My phone never comes in with me, and I have nothing to do but focus on my lifts. When I feel like “I’ve done well enough” and can call it quits, I look over at the super ripped old dudes and remember that they warm up with my max outs. Realizing how comparatively weak I am helps drive me to put in extra work.

Likewise, whenever I feel smart I go hang out with super nerds. I do this for two reasons: because it reminds me that I’m still a moron; and because, whenever I hang out those guys, I learn something. I’ve also been trying to befriend as many successful people as I can, so that I can be positively influenced by them.

I know dudes who do nothing but play video games and complain about how much their lives suck. Don’t get me wrong they’re cool dudes and are fun to loaf around with, but compared to them I’m the smartest and most ambitious guy on Earth. Hanging out with them would boost my ego like no other and I’d eventually stop trying to improve myself, figuring that “I’d done well enough.” Because of this, I avoid spending time with them.

You are the product of your surroundings. If you want to change yourself, you must change your environment. And to do so, you’ll need to make sacrifices as well as additions.

One week in…

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“Without goals, and plans to reach them, you are like a ship that has set sail with no destination.”

– Fitzhugh Dodson

This is me on the first day of my challenge, right before I went to the gym:

Day 1

I’d show you a picture of me now, but it wouldn’t look any different.

Nothing has changed.

I didn’t swole up over the span of a week and I probably won’t by the end of the month either.

But that’s okay. Eventually change will come and I’ll get bigger.

How do I know?

Because I used to be flabby and gross looking, until I spent a year eating right and doing basic exercises. Now, instead of looking like a human Chicken Mcnugget, I’m lean and trim.

As long as I’m patient and put in work, I’ll achieve my goal.

Progress is slow and everything good takes time.

 

“I did” list

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“If I had a time machine, I probably wouldn’t even use it.”

-Goldman Sachs Elevator Gossip

Today my mind started to wander and I soon found myself reflecting on how I spent 2012.

I can say, in all honesty, that this year was both the best and most import of my life.

In the past 12 months I’ve managed to accomplish such tasks as:

  • Scuba Diving in Belize
  • Climbing a volcano in Nicaragua
  • Reading over 250 books
  • Getting in the best shape of my life (so far)
  • Starting two businesses
  • Becoming a paid writer

While I had a lot of fun doing everything listed above, I also learned a lot from my year’s worth of failures. Some of the highlights of my 2012 mishaps include:

  • Running one of my businesses into the ground
  • Getting so stressed out that I didn’t talk to anyone for an entire month
  • Having said stress cause me to burst out in tears while eating a bacon cheeseburger (in retrospect this is actually pretty hilarious)
  • Over-scheduling myself, resulting in me pulling a series of all-nighters. My sleep deprivation eventually caused me to nod off while driving, drift into the oncoming traffic lane, and almost get hit by a semi-truck. But that’s another story for another time.
  • Forgetting to pack the guide-book for my Nicaragua trip, resulting in me contracting Salmonella from a shoddy restaurant.

Both my triumphs and loses had an immense impact on my world view and understanding of self. My experiences this year alone taught me more about: sacrifice, achievement, patience, persistence, endurance, recovery, modesty, and acceptance; than I’d ever learned before.

Here’s to 2013, I’m looking forward to it.

The hardest part

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“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”

-Lao-tzu

The hardest part about writing this post was summoning up enough willpower to quit my game of Minecraft, open WordPress, and type this sentence.

Likewise, the most difficult aspect of my workout routine is to stop procrastinating and start lifting.

No matter what the task, be it intellectual or physical, my biggest struggle is always getting the project started. Once I get going the work flies by and I’m often surprised at how enjoyable my “dreaded” task  turned out to be.