wake up every morning and signal my reconfirmed intention to change

I challenged myself to do affirmations at the pool. For each length I made myself think of, and focus on, a new positive phrase, about the day ahead or my goals in general. It was really amazing!! There’s something about exercise that makes you feel more positive anyway, and doing affirmations during that time makes them really sink in – it really cemented my attitude for the day! It’s great, deliberate practice at controlling my thoughts and concentrating only on thoughts I wanted to have, and 30 minutes of solid positive thinking is a LOT!

I am going to try and do this every time I swim or run from now on, as it makes such a difference. I am already looking forward to it as my time for gratuitously thinking nice thoughts about myself and my life! Yay :D

going to get continuously better from now on. Starting today.

by keeping my dreams alive. Working to keep my projects moving forwards every day. Taking risks, pushing myself a little bit further. Trying something that might not work, just in case it does.

Well I promised myself last night that if I somehow was up before stupid o’clock this morning, in spite of not being able to sleep last night, then I would get up and go swimming. And here I am, up and (fairly) wide awake, so I’ll go, because I know I’ll feel better for it, it’ll do me good, and be a good start to the week as well.

Considering all the progress I’ve made this weekend, I reckon this week is gonna be a good one. I feel prepared, and relaxed, and ready to move on to the next challenges.

I am actually doing this!! Been getting up a little earlier to have some time to write, and I try to take my journal to bed with me and make sure that the first thing I do in the morning, before I even get up, is to write something positive.

I have been focusing a lot on how every day is an opportunity, and all I have to do is take it. Lots of positive change-like things have come out of that.

It’s Sunday. There’s nothing on my ‘have to’ list, and everything on my ‘could do’ list. This should be a good thing, methinks, but I’m finding myself in that all too-familiar rut of not really wanting to do any of my ‘things’. Argh!! I mean, there are SO many things I want to achieve in my life, and yet on a quiet, rainy Sunday, I can’t seem to muster the smallest bit of enthusiasm! These are supposed to be my life goals, and yet not one of them would have me jumping out of bed with a passion to work on them. Bleugh.

What’s my problem? Largely I am just lazy. Life has become that list of ‘should be doings’: exercise, study, dragging myself to do something. I hate feeling like this – I’m WAY more sensible and everything, surely?!!

I need to work on it, obviously. Everything is either long-term, or doesn’t seem particularly important. Sure, I could sit and finish a card within the hour, but that’s not important. Or I could study – but I won’t see results for months or years. Heck, even the ‘phew’ of passing my exams didn’t exactly feel like a pinnacle of achievement, as I’d started slogging through the next lot.

Gawd, this is not a good mood to find yourself in of a morning, is it?! Caught between telling myself to just go do, and that bleugh feeling that it’s all just going through some set of motions. Eeep!

I wonder… is being stuck in limbo with job stuff behind at least some of this? Am I chipping away at some small edges, while the big picture is ignored? Or am I just swamped with too much choice, of things that won’t make any immediate difference?

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I think I might have figured this out. For one thing, I am tired which never helps. But looking at my list of things – and not just ‘shoulds’, fun stuff, too – I’m not seeing anything I’m good at. Studying I’m muddling through with no feedback, and totally unable to do the tutorials designed for the unix computer lab with another person (grr!). Card making has produced a few disasters recently, which is off-putting, and I haven’t had many new ideas. I really do want to do the website stuff, but am constantly hitting my lack of knowledge: what hosting package do I recommend, what site?

It’s hard to get enthusiastic about stuff when most of it makes me feel like I don’t entirely know what I’m doing. And I hate that feeling! And yes, work is a big part of that: I don’t like what I’m doing, I’m facing interviews and newness, and things I’m not going to be very good at. I love learning, I do, but it’d be good to have something I was good at NOW, rather than the multitudes of learning and ‘to make progress with’.

Bizarrely, not long after creating this goal for myself, this morning I read a Psychologies article about that very thing! It suggests that while individual little habits – such as always sitting in the same chair to eat dinner – are benign, the whole ‘habitweb’ (good word!) is a state of being where you’re letting your life run itself in its own little rut, and not really thinking. Thus, by breaking just one tiny part of the web – perhaps leaving the TV switched off for a day – we can start to unravel the whole thing. In other words, if you’re struggling to diet or exercise, it might be that shifting your daily routine a bit creates enough momentum to help change the bigger stuff.

All in all, just a much clearer way of phrasing what I’d already intuited.

However, after being initially happy to have my vague thoughts ‘validated’ (by a magazine. Rah.), I’m left with this uneasy feeling that I’m not breaking out of my rut. Or rather, I just want the big changes NOW, and all these tiny ones are sounding frustrating.

I’m also a bit meh on the fact that getting into some routines is very necessary and yet just as hard as breaking out of others: studying NEEDS to happen regularly, consistently. Ditto exercise. And yet I’m still resistant to these things. Can having something different for lunch every day really help change that? I can but hope!

Today… I’m not entirely sure what I’ll do differently. Perhaps coming up with some ideas is the next step! But as they say, if you always do the same thing, you’ll always get the same result – and this morning I’ve done exactly the same things as I do pretty much every weekend morning – and I’m feeling exactly the same mehness.

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Okay, I should stop being so hard on myself. Here are some positive changes from recently/soon.

• Applying for a new job – tomorrow! :) That’s HUGE!
• Starting SparkPeople and committing to losing a part of me ;)
• New learning all the time – studying!
• New study technique: typing notes instead of handwriting. Quicker, less painful, and really did motivate me
• Setting up the ‘do something different’ goal
• Having a week of not pushing myself, for a change

I was anticipating that today would be a tough day motivation-wise (mysterious monthly chocolate cravings and all that!) so I wanted to be extra prepared to stay on top of things. Starting this morning, I’ve been going through some of my previous journal entries trying to restore some motivation – specifically looking for times when I felt ultra-positive about what I could potentially achieve with the BMI goal this year. I know thinking about those things, the goals I would like to reach and by when and how it will feel when I get there, really helps with motivation and I found that even just writing out some of those positive phrases again today helped pick up my mood, and I’ve had a much happier day for it.

Looking back over what I’d written last month I was also struck by how many of the things I was worried would happen didn’t. It was equally cool to be able to look back and think “well at least I don’t have to worry about that any more!”

This seems to follow on from the previous entry, which I didn’t know until I got here!

My life seems to be moving ing a subtly different way right now. Not a new path, but more… like I’m a step out of beat with my ‘norm’. I’ve been feeling a bit out of sorts, somehow: little things are winding me up no end, there are lots of things I’m not doing and not worrying about not doing. However, I think it’s a good thing, kind of!

I wonder if perhaps it’s all started with the underlying work-situation tension coming to a head. I suspect so. But it seems to be having the positive effect of making me far more focused on studying (obviously) but also fitness and eating.

What feels odd is that my creative stuff has fallen by the wayside totally. No cards, no reviews… part of me is bothered by that, but suddenly I also feel much more in control of the studying and the fitness, and maybe the food issues, a bit. Probably… just less on my plate, and even though it’s the sillier things that have gone I suddenly feel much more… driven.

I suspect I’m desperate to actually get somewhere, to achieve. Degree I can finish. Ideal weight can be reached. I can work up to being capable of running a half hour. Cards? Reviews? They aren’t ‘end-goal’ things, just hobbies.

What really surprises me about all this is that it just landed on me. Crept up, zero participation from consciousness. I am considering that it might be a healthier approach to life and goals – not that I want to give up creative outlets, but they can just happen as and when they will, right? Keep pushing on the stuff that I can attain.

That’s a bit of a waffle, and little point. I feel something huge is sitting there behind all this, and it’s exciting and strange and… I don’t know – let’s see!!

I’ve got an odd feeling this morning, and I’ve only just put my finger on it. My to-do list is filled with the usual bits and pieces, but the first day off after a hectic week, the first chance to go back to ‘me’ things – and a sunny day! – have left me with this feeling that today I should be doing Something Big. Today, a big goal should be achieved, or a big step made.

Instead, I have my list of little steps on year- or more long goals.

It’s… hmm. I guess in the meantime I can at least tick off as many ickler things as possible!?