devise a radical self-improvement plan

I joined it to help with the diet/fitness part of the plan. I saw sparkpeople on someone’s list here…you can find the coolest stuff on 43things. It is like a giant internet editor.

... so i decided I better get this done. (proofs in the photo) I don’t have the energy to re-type it out.

I like what Todd Gehman said on his entry about an amplified life. I need to include more. More things, more daring things, more fun things. That coupled with the self-improvement part and I think I can finally mark this as complete!

I have devised a great self improvement plan!!!! Now, what makes it radical? I can’t quite think what will make it radical. If radical wasn’t so important to this goal, it would be called devise a self improvement plan. Any suggestions?

I put this goal on my list ages ago because I liked the way it sounded. I have never given my thought to what it actually means to me. I think now is a good time to do that.

radical self improvement plan… why not just start radically improving by achieving goals?

2 days and not going so strong but going. I have to find more fun. Reading has become almost manic. What else? Probably the meditation thing.

Well I want to improve my self and it’s practically what much of my life is about… Taking steps forward to being more myself… and sure sometimes I take a step backwards but what makes the difference is that I’m getting there. I mean we improve ourselves everyday but think about if we had a plan – it would just give us such a sense of direction….

Next month is slated to include SCUBA diving certification, a hot air balloon ride, the Landmark Forum, the final project for color photo class, the first birthday party I’ve ever thrown for myself, and a trip to Europe. I expect it to be the most insane month I’ve ever lived, a kind of amplified life, and I reckon that means my self-development plan has officially kicked in. I certainly wouldn’t have attempted to have such an August two years ago, before 43 Things happened. There’s no end point to self-development, of course, so I’ll probably recalibrate with a new plan once per year. But it’s time to check this one off.

One obvious reason is that there are things that could and should be radically improved. But that might in theory be achieved smarter by ‘small steps’, ‘a smile a day’ or whatever.

Unfortunately I suck at this theory. There were a large number of intended improvements, preferably divided into not to painful steps, but somehow I handle small changes very badly. I tend to find reasons why the small step is so insignificant that I can easily postpone it till tomorrow.

If they work at all, things work better with zero tolerance. Some of the goals defined at 43thing follow that rule: lose 40 pounds, run a marathon. ‘Lose 10 pounds’ would not work, because it wouldn’t require drastic changes, ‘run regularly’ has not worked for years. The main problem seems to be that with any reasonable and balanced approach I still find ways to cheat myself out of it.

So far the success rate of radical self-improvements is not great. It’s actually rather depressing, but still better than the ‘step by step’ approach. So here it is again: Jump and fly. If you cannot fly, crash. Crash hard, whine some time, get up and jump again.