Taking action!

Well, I picked up my new running shoes and did my mile yesterday.


I cannot say how good that felt.  It was really amazing.  I always think I feel good when I'm laying on the couch....I am wrong.  Yes, it's relaxing, but it is only relaxing in the moment.  But the amount of "feel good" that walking and running created AFTER I finished the activity, was huge!

This is a shift from present moment thinking to future thinking.

By focusing on activities that have more pay off later, I can build future pleasure and reach my goals easier than trying to stay comfortable and relaxed now and still reach my goals.

Come to think of it, how can I reach my goals if my main goal is to be comfortable.

The human body and the life experience is funny that way.  Sometimes you have to lose to win.  If you want to be comfortable and be able to relax, you need to experience temporary discomfort.

Interesting....

Where to go from here?

I am very dissatisfied with where I am.  It's strange, overall i have so much to be happy about, but there are some very big things in my life that suck on a perpetual basis.  Namely: finances, physical health, and friendships.

Now, I know I have control of these to some extent.  This makes me believe that there is some habit or thing that I am doing that is causing these area's to falter and continually be a problem.

So, what are the specifics.

First, let's talk finances.  Financially we are in debt.  But that's been the case for the last 13 or more years.  I never seem to be able to chip at it.  Some times things go well and we bring it down, other times we don't.  I've settled that the main problem is a cash flow issue.  We have an income problem.

I like to ask questions that help guide my thinking, my question now is, "How can I act to increase our income?"

Second,  Physical health.  Overall, I am healthy.  I quit smoking years ago and don't drink a lot.  But I have been overweight since the 5th grade.  It fluctuates, but after I quit smoking I added a bunch of pounds that never seemed to go away.  I have tried adjusting my food and exercise, but it never really seems to help.  One note here is that back in 2004 I ran a half marathon.  In the 4 months I was training to run that I began to tone up a bit.  It was slow, but I could see some progress.

Question:  What can I do to reduce my fat levels to normal?

Lastly, friendships.  Well, this is the elephant in the room.  I'm not sure if I don't have a good understanding of what a friendship is, or if everyone just already have enough friends and don't need anymore.   My view of friendship is a person or group of people you connect with and get together with on a regular basis.  It doesn't have to be daily, but maybe a group that you see once or twice a month for pleasure.

Question:  How can I re-define friendships so that my interactions with others fulfill my connection needs?

So, how should I approach these?  I think that they will inherently affect each other.  They are truly connected.  First, increased fitness will increase financial income will increase friendship.  You could really put them in any order and they will increase each other.  This is where some of my past reading comes into play.

In years past many of the books I have read talked about building habits and how to create good ones and destroy bad ones.  I think this is where I need to start.

I will start with my second area of concern:  Physical Health.

This will increase my energy, mental frame of mind, and overall outlook.  This will naturally carry many benefits.  So, how do I do this?

Since I had good experience in the past with running, I think approaching that with the idea of forming a habit of running on a daily/every other day basis will significantly increase my health.  So what are my steps:

1. Get new running shoes
2. Begin walking/running regularly.  My only constraint here will be that I have to run/walk at least   every other day.  Every day is good, but if I miss a day, that is fine as well.
3. I'll start with a mile, until I can run the entire way.  Once I can run a mile, I will sign up for a 5k run and begin training. 
4. After 2 or 3 5k runs, I will again move to 1/2 marathons.  My ultimate goal will be to do a full Marathon in 2014.

So, This seems like a good plan to get started.  I'll note how I am doing here and I will also indicate when I feel I have the habit established.  Again, the thought is that increased physical health will increase the other areas naturally.