The No Excuses Project: moving past the excuses on weight

So what am I going to do about all the excuses and constraints on getting more exercise?  Like photography, I’m simply going to set my sights a lot lower. Instead of the 2.5 hours a day I know it took in the past, I’m going to commit to 30 minutes every day. Nothing fancy but I’ve got a treadmill, a hula hoop, weights, and the neighborhood. Between those I should be able to keep myself occupied and moving.

I’m also not going to ‘diet’ but instead make enough meals and snacks to stock the freezer for a full month of Monday through Friday. Like brushing teeth I think it works better to make it so routine that you don’t even notice you’re doing it. This last will actually help move other goals forward (thus eliminating an excuse) by freeing up more time every weekend.

My health is absolutely a priority, but it can’t be the only priority which is why I’m taking a more moderate approach.  Cross your fingers for me that I can stick to it!

Holding Myself Accountable:

I’m keeping up with my plan for photography – I’ve selected the images for the first book chapter and gotten some bizarre and fun shots in my yard over the last week.

Technorati Tags: achieving goals, common excuses, losing weight

Focus, goals, and surprises

I  think my new routine is starting to work for me, while it’s hard to get focused so early and stay focused after a full day of doing other things, knowing that there are limits on it helps.  I’ve put pen to paper or rather fingers to keyboard on the travel book – not much and I doubt any of those sentences will survive to the final draft but it’s a start. And I’ve sent follow-up emails to setup appointments for jewelry and kept up some basic blogging tasks.  There is always more to do!

While I haven’t been watching the Olympics, living so close to where they’re happening means I can’t avoid all the local stories and news features.  It seems like there is always at least one young athlete profile with a kid at the top of her game who also manages straight A’s and is or will be going to an ivy league school while continuing to compete internationally. You can be envious of what they have achieved or critical of what they’re missing but pretty much everyone agrees it requires great focus.  Focus seems to come up everywhere there is talk of great goals that are clearly defined. My two hours a day is giving me focus but it’s also creating space in the remainder of my free time for something equally valuable – observation and daydreaming and everything that is at the opposite extreme.

That’s what I realized as I contemplated the life of said young athlete – she probably isn’t missing out on the big stuff; graduation, birthdays, Disney World but I’m pretty sure anyone that focused all the time is missing out on being unfocused – noticing that a neighbor two blocks down has unusual crocuses blooming or just spending an afternoon on the porch with a romance novel.  Those things were important to me as a teenager and they’re important to me now. If they’re that much a part of my essential self I’d better figure out how to work them in to the schedule…

Technorati Tags: achieving goals, living your dreams, staying focused

Can you really achieve your goals on 2 hours a day?

There’s no big status report  this week – my big accomplishment has been losing my voice as a not-quite-bad-enough-to-stay-home cold has occupied my  time. What I’ve notice though is the amount of pressure I’m putting on myself to still accomplish great things on a very routine basis. It’s always interesting to note where you put punishing pressure on yourself to be superhuman.  And yet not doing those things is not an option to my essential self- it’s going along with this working 8 hours for someone else because my essential self is also fond of its house and warm bed.

Then last night as I was coming home on the train I was listening to a podcast – figuring that would be about all my cold-ravaged brain could really handle.  Synchronicity or not, the phrase ‘most real work happens in just two hours a day’ caught my attention.  The idea being that two separate hours a day, completely focused on the task at hand is what accomplishes great things. I have two hours a day, mostly uninterrupted with wireless access on the train.  The only thing I can’t do is make jewelry during that time  so I’m re-evaluating to how to do less while doing more in that time frame.  If I put in those ten hours a week then time at home can go to eating right and exercising and maybe an adventure here and there.

I am worried about getting to that point of self-sustainment, but it won’t happen if I keep getting sick and this just may force me to be a little more efficient in my writing.  I’ll let you be the judge:-)

Technorati Tags: achieving goals, synchronicity, time management

The No Excuses Project: Moving photography forward

So last week was about some brutal honesty on what I haven’t been doing to move photography forward. This week is meant to be a little more constructive in what I plan to do about it.

First off, I’m committing to do my current list of photography projects without any new equipment – I can produce an ebook with what I’ve got, even if it could be better with newer, shinier toys.

Next, artistic mood is as much about habit as real mood. Habits are much easier to continue in a productive fashion even when you feel grumpy. If I can manage to brush my teeth, I can get the camera out at least three times a week even if those pictures are not good for much.

Lastly, two hours a week spent working on the trip book I’ve been planning – the pictures are all taken it just involves editing, writing the essays and putting it together. Even if that means getting up at 5:00 on a Sunday it needs to happen.

Along with that goes continuing to work on the website, social media and the rest of marketing, but that can’t be successful if I save the actual product ’til last.

And a final note – just to let all of you keep me honest I’m going to append a progress report to each post going forward – that way we’ll both know how effective these strategies really are…

Next week: my health-related goal of losing weight and what excuses are at work there.

Technorati Tags: achieving goals, Art of Happiness, common excuses

Setting mini goals

Have you noticed my weekly reports seem just a tad disorganized? I sure have!  Sometimes life seems to disrupt a plan more than it does just living (in other words the more things I commit to, the less that seems to get done.) The stress from last week translated into a twingy back muscle that didn’t go away until I realized that the bottle of Advil in the medicine cabinet was two years past its expire date and switched over to the almost as old bottle of generic Ibuprofen. It probably would have been a good idea to have checked that a year or so ago!

What I have gotten done is all the prep work to be able to blog remotely (still untested, but I think I’m ready) and clear up a bunch of other odds and ends.  I’m still working on marketing which is part of why this blog has suffered just a teensy bit – the others have been getting a little bit more of the attention which will now switch over.  It’s fascinating to see how fast things can change and what terms people use in search engines.  While it may seem minor I finally achieved my goal set back in May to reclaim the number one spot in Google for my own name. I know it’s not really important, but would you want to place second to an adult-film actress?

My approach right now is just to set mini goals for the week and for each day that allow me to contribute something to each of my profit centers, I do think several things have suffered from waiting for a huge block of time to be devoted which just isnt’ happening.

If I can keep that up then the bigger blocks of time can go towards the bigger projects like ebooks and new jewelry designs.

Technorati Tags: achieving goals, doing less

The No Excuses Project: Phase 2

So if you’ve recently found this project or been following along from the beginning you will have noticed the theme of one excuse per week. Yes, that probably could continue to run endlessly but my goal was to make this only a year long project!  So we started with my 26 most common and limiting excuses which wrapped up last week.  Now comes the really hard part of 26 weeks of  looking at goals and where those excuses come into play and whether there are still any lingering remnants (I’m pretty sure there are…)  Since I only have myself to analyze we’ll be using my goals and knowledge of when I call in the excuses but hopefully you will also find something to relate to.

In general here’s how my life breaks out into areas where I would like to make improvements or more progress.  That should work out to about two weeks per topic and we’ll just see how it goes. I hope you’ll be a part of it!

• Career
  • Jewelry
  • Photography
  • Writing
• Relationships
  • Family and friends
  • Significant other
• Health
  • Losing weight
  • Getting in shape
  • Checkups
• Environment
  • Home improvement
  • Garden
  • Chores
• Personal growth
  • Travel
  • Treasure hunting

Next week: The goal of photography and what’s standing in the way

Technorati Tags: achieving goals, no excuses

The very last week of the year

My single biggest accomplishment for this week was creating a “line sheet” for the sea glass jewelry and sending it off to the first prospective buyer.  I’d never done one before and all the advice I could find had to do with pieces that can  be ordered in bulk even when they’re handmade.  I’ve no idea of what I came up with works as it should but there’s only one way to find out.  I did take great care to make sure fonts matched and spacing was perfect.  Now I need to send it out to other prospects and keep refining.  The first step is always the hardest!

My marketing education continues and the website I’ve built for class made it up to #8 on Google for it’s main keyword and then slipped to 11th – which isn’t bad for something that didn’t exist at the beginning of December.  Sometimes it scares me that this stuff works.  The bigger challenge is applying some of it to my true business endeavors which have a great deal more competition and where “BUY NOW!!!!” isn’t really the appropriate tone!  However, I know a whole lot more than I did five weeks ago and I am starting to see the benefits of what I’ve applied so far.

Now it’s time to take down the lights and the Christmas tree and start working even more efficiently – new projects loom large like learning about ebooks and subscription lists!

Technorati Tags: achieving goals, learning new things

The No Excuses Project: ‘Help will not be available’

This is one of the sneaky excuses – few people will blatantly say they aren’t going to do something because no one will help them, but many of us have said that we aren’t ‘ready’ to do whatever it is that feels like putting on a backpack and heading off solo into the wilderness without a compass or a cell phone.  Most of us will never be ready for that kind of experience! I can’t prove that help will show up, but if you look back I’m guessing that it always has in the past especially if you allow for a liberal definition of help to include finding that useful book on Amazon, or an inspiring website, or a friendly ear on an airplane. Heck, help even shows up sometimes as rejection which can either strengthen our resolve or show us that an alternate path might yield the goal more effectively.

Subconsciously I have used this one a lot. Not being particularly good at asking for help, as well as being more inclined to work alone (as opposed to teams) I have a tendency to feel like I’m supposed to be able to figure it all out on my own.  But most people with big dreams have been in the same position as those of us still dreaming.  So while they may not have travelled the same path or have a specific answer, they remember the feeling and aren’t inclined to stomp all over people.  They will show up in your life.  As will the books and anything else that you need to move forward, it just may not be at the exact moment you think they should!

I have gotten better in the last few years about asking questions with positive results so like any other new habit or thought process this one takes some getting used to.  I’m simply resolving not to use the excuse going forward, to make sure that I’m not subconsciously stopping myself with the belief that help will not show up.  It will, my job is to be open to it.

Next week: ‘The past still has hold of me’

Technorati Tags: achieving goals, asking for help, living your dreams

Patience may just be paying off

I’m resolving from here on out to start doubling my estimates of how long it’s going to get something done – it ends up taking that long anyway and I beat myself up for not getting to the rest of the things on the list!  That aside, it’s been a productive week, at least for the jewelry side of the business.  I finished a few show-stopper pieces and got them photographed, got a few smaller and lower-priced items loaded up to Etsy and finally got a website up – http://jewelry.julietchase.com so that I can direct people to the buying end of things.  My view for website analytics now stretches to two pages.  I will not even make the attempt to blog on this page – my goal is just to keep the pictures fresh with the latest and greatest and make sure any show and selling information is accurate.  It took me a full day just to decide on the WordPress template I liked the best, sometimes too much choice is a bad thing.  I’ve also configured some online advertising and ordered business cards and even got a free car decal included – I’ve never been one for bumper stickers but if I can pull in just one person to take a look at the website, then it’s worth it.

And then yesterday I got a request from a major magazine to use an old photo for an internal advertisement.  I chose not to push for money but instead hope that the wide distribution with a photo credit is like free advertising for me. It was completely unexpected although it did result from my putting some things out there for free Internet use which I talked about back in April.  I think it was probably a very good idea.  Crossing my fingers that this is just the beginning of something great.

On the non-business front, I’m picking a new volunteer case today, it’s always interesting to learn people’s stories and find out what I can contribute to the kids.  I’m looking forward to starting a new chapter there. I’m also keeping the exercise in my routine although I’ve not put in quite as much time the last few days – I’m determined not to let that dwindle into nothing, however. I have a good feeling about the next few months…

Technorati Tags: achieving goals, Personal Growth, solopreneur, synchronicity, the way to happiness, time management

Do romance and dreams make goals more successful?

For some reason the Voyager spacecraft have been popping up on my inner screen lately.  I’m old enough to remember when they were launched in 1977 and the wonder of the golden records.  The thought that anyone would even try to introduce Earth through pictures and music! A lot of the ’70s is worth forgetting, but not those. They didn’t have a website back then which left a lot to the imagination, but now you can see some of the pictures (awfully focused on reproduction!) and the music scores; you can even listen to the recorded greetings in various languages. It’s a romantic idea even if it’s guised as science.

I’m not sure if the scientists really expected either spacecraft to make it out of the solar system; it’s been 32 years and they aren’t there yet and they’ve stayed in communication long past anyone’s expectations.  On the picture above they are somewhere between Pluto and the purple band beyond – power and communications will cease in the next fifteen years. So were the golden records part of marketing? I don’t know -the Cold War seemed to be enough of a motivator for funding in those days.  I would like to believe that they were made a part of the spacecraft as a tribute to possibility, something that Carl Sagan (who got to head up the selection team for the contents) was more of an advocate for than most.  And I think that’s why they’ve lasted so long – they were built for more than just one specific mission (explore Jupiter).  They were designed to adapt to the ‘and then’ and to adapt to the expected like radiation while leaving room for dreams of encountering an intelligent species.  We’ve lost the knack for that as things around us get increasingly disposable.

So if you took a frequently requested goal like ‘quit your job and live by the beach’ and added ‘and then’ and another ‘and then’ and maybe a ‘what if?’  would it change your perspective at all?  Would you do anything differently then you are doing now?

Technorati Tags: achieving goals

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