The obstacles that come in the way

The obstacles that come in the way

by | Tue/Apr/2023 | Lifestyle choice, Personal development

Since I have been tracking my habits on a daily base, I have become aware of a few obstacles that could stall my progress. The habits I am tracking are exercise, sleep, alcohol intake, just to name a few.

To be precise, these obstacles are examples of self sabotage that unfortunately stop me from getting ahead. By tracking all kinds of things in my daily life, I have become alarmingly aware of some of my ‘lesser’ thoughts and actions. They must have been around for most of my life and I see how they have affected many aspects of my life.

My worst obstacles in a list

1.The first BIG one is procrastination. I realised that tracking and making daily notes, helps to reduce procrastination. As soon as I do not track, whatever I plan for next week is on dangerous grounds. Whenever a more urgent matter pops up, it seems to get more priority. Even if I write my intentions down, it is sadly not a guarantee I will do it.

Once certain behaviours become a solid habit, I tend keep to them as I don’t want to break the chain. A relevant example is doing daily steps. I have now been doing a minimum of over 5000 steps per day since the beginning of February. It has become part of my day and I don’t like to see a day with only 2369 steps so I make an effort.

2. That bring us to the next one – priority. I probably don’t give enough priority to my dreams and as a result they remain just that – dreams. Typically, I plan around a few aspects of these dreams but I don’t seem to make real progress. To be honest I am still not really clear why I do this but it is a stubborn recurrent pattern.

I feel that I let everything that ‘seems’ more urgent, come in the way of my goals. As if I ‘found’ an excuse not to have to commit. I say ‘seems’ because as a matter of facts I can say no, but often I give in and don’t. This not only refers to external requests from other people and situations, it also concerns my own choices. Will I write a blog post tonight or watch Netflix? Will I do yoga or sit on the couch? Familiar patterns to all of us, I am damn sure!

3. Number three has to be ‘feeling overwhelmed‘. I obviously want to do too much and have not a clear oversight of what I want to achieve. Maybe I need a coach! That kind of bugs me as I am always coaching other people successfully so why would I need a coach for my own stuff? This has to be a flaw of many coaches and counsellors. After all, if you can help others you must be able to help yourself, right?

I wonder if that is really the case. I am in the middle of all my thoughts, plans, intentions and dreams and as a result I obviously lack overview as I am part of it. So how do you create sanity in this chaos that you are part of yourself? How do people do that?

So obstacles or not, here is a quick recap – I have made 2023 a year of planning and creating the ground work for a future online business. And here I am making a fuss about not being able to ‘see the light’ in March. Do I ever learn? No wonder it does not make sense

4. So that brings me to the next obstacle – impatience. There is a wonderful quote by Tony Roberts about this.

Most people overestimate what they can do in a year and underestimate what they can do in two or three decades.

Tony Roberts

Putting it in perspective

Instead of working steadily on this plan, I obviously imagined to have it ‘done and dusted’ by the end of March. That is quite ridiculous. So to put it in perspective, I have done a quarter of this year and so far I have worked on my health. I make sure I have a regular sleep pattern, minimise alcohol – in fact it is virtually zero at the moment. I do my daily steps and work my muscles, I meditate 4-5 times per week and I journal daily. All these things have become part of my daily routine and are no longer cut short by any obstacles. Not a single thought of procrastination in sight! An interesting take on how to beat procrastination is described by Mel Robbins. She reckons that the cause is avoiding stress.

If the above were the achievements from another person, I surely would applaud them. Yet, I don’t do this for myself and I wonder if how common this is…..

So to sum this up, I am in motion and I am making progress. Quarter 1 of 2023 was all about health and awareness of my physical condition. Now I have to plan what quarter 2 will be about – my gut says defining my NICHE.

See what April brings!

Marijke

being in motion, tracking, habits, identity, intentions, online business

How tracking my behaviour is getting results!

How tracking my behaviour is getting results!

by | Sun/Feb/2023 | Change, Personal development

During February I have been busy tracking a lot of my activities on a physical and mental level. My previous post was about habits and keeping track so I can find out what could do with a change.

I like to follow up with how that worked for me during February. The idea is to explore a few things in my life. One of them is how to become the type of person who is capable of setting up an online business by the end of 2023. I intend to reflect on that process once per month in a blog post. This is my first reflection.

The first thing I did!

One of the things that I implemented during February was tracking. I had my birthday in January and funnily two of my presents were tracking devices. To be precise, a Fit Bit and a really fancy planner called the Happiness Planner. Both of them are perfect to track a variety of things and that is exactly what I have done.

From a health perspective I tracked my sleep pattern, my heart beat, my water intake, my daily steps and exercise. It is quite cool to see what you can measure with such a thing. Furthermore I noticed something interesting.

While I was tracking my behaviour and my habits, I became more aware and motivated to do the behaviours I had chosen. For example, I decided to do every day 5000 steps as a minimum. Before I set the actual number as a minimum on my Fitbit, I did not achieve 5000 every day. Since I set the 5000, I make sure I walk that extra mile as I want to tick it off the list.

Tracking – does it work?

I love updating spread sheets and marking what has been done. Tracking steps, daily exercise and water intake seems to make me do what I need to do. It definitely helped me with measuring my progress and I did not want ‘to break the chain’. I wanted to show up and add to the chain. On top of it I really enjoyed doing it and was amazed how I managed to fit it all in.

Filling in the Happiness Planner is a similar activity. It asks me to think about intentions, habits and awareness to name a few. It also focusses on self love, gratitude and what to look forward to. I have noticed that I am natural good at tracking factual things such ‘to do’s and what to schedule.

When it asked me to reflect on ‘what I love about myself’ and ‘good things about today’, I have to dig a bit deeper. However, as such questions are asked on a daily base, I can’t do anything else than fill them in or at least have a go at it.

I am reading the well known book Atomic Habits and in there it says, that for a habit to stick, you have to feel successful even if it is in a very small way. I do have a feeling of achievement about last month – a sense of small wins. In reality not much has happened but I know now that I can walk every day 5000 steps. I make an effort to drink between 1-1.5 liters of water and my heart rate is behaving like it should.

Additionally, I have been doing a short meditation every morning after waking up, did the yoga sessions I scheduled and filled in my planner. I did this all before I started to work so getting up in time was crucial. Simply the act of tracking sparked my enthusiasm to continue doing the things I had set out to do.

All this has given me a sense of fulfilment. Above all it forces me to stay honest with myself as tracking acts as evidence of the progress I am making. To be honest, it is almost a bit addictive. And it means I have stuff to write in my planner.

On my list was the write a monthly blogpost about all of this and there you go! Here it is!

Feel free to let me know if you are the type of person that tracks! Even if it is just to see how you actually spend your time. There may be a dark side to the habit of tracking and that is that it becomes more important than the purpose of doing it. I surely keep that in mind!

See you next month!

Love Marijke

tracking, habits, identity, intentions, online business