November will forever be etched in my brain as the month for writing 50,000 words in one month, aka NaNoWriMo. I did it a couple times in previous years, but skipped last year since the Robot Co-op was just getting off its feet. This year, I’m equally as busy, and also somewhat less interested in writing a book, especially a fictional book. At the same time, I love the idea of spending a month vigorously doing something, even if it’s silly.

So November 2005 is going to be National Deliberate Self-Improvement Month (don’t try to pronounce it as NaDeSeImMo, it’s impossible). To me, this means doing the following things:

Join the gym. I haven’t been going to the gym since moving over a year ago… instead have been running, but that becomes much less fun during the winter months. There’s a great gym nearby which costs a lot but since I’m still under 30 I get a pretty good “young professional” discount. I’m looking forward to their pool.

Dress better. I’ve been slowly testing the waters on a few different fashion options… blazers and such… and think I like it. Another couple items should help solidify matters so I don’t have to wear the same thing every day.

Become more of an extrovert. I’ve always taken pride in my introversion… well, alternately hating myself for it as well. It’s time to test the grass on the other side of the social fence… and reading a good book recently has given me some ideas.

I’m working on an in-progress list that, in addition to the above, has 14 other things. Some are a bit more personal/boring like stop biting nails, whiten teeth, buy more art, sign up for a Vipassana meditation retreat, find a therapist, etc. Others are other ways of working on the same basic problems.

The four main areas of improvement are:

• Focus
• Health
• Social skills
• Appearance

If I can keep the first one going, I’ll elaborate more on the rest of them soon enough. Focusing on something for 5 minutes, much less for an entire month, is difficult though. I’m just not very good at motivating myself about some things… it’s almost easier to find a way to trick myself into believing that I don’t need to be motivated. Do things by not trying to make yourself do them… do them the Tyler Durden way, while you’re not paying attention, while you’re sleeping.