Deliverable

Finished v .0.5 tonight:

44 or so more days to go before this thing is due. Yikes. At least I’ve moved up to the next size of binder.

It just occured to me that the wealth I seek is already out there. It’s waiting for me and it has my name on it.

It’s just a matter of claiming what’s already mine.

I’m a big fan of the 30 Day Challenge. It’s been helpful to have this tool to develop consistency around the things that have been holding me back.

One drawback is that some challenges don’t fit so neatly into the 30 day category. The 7 day yoga challenge was one. There’s also my two day “9 to 5 Day” challenge from earlier this month. It doesn’t make sense to do that type of challenge for thirty days, but it’s one that I’d like to eventually make a consistent part of my life.

Enter the 1-7 Day Challenge. It’s a way to crawl before you walk. The beauty of this type of challenge is that it more easily fits into a 5 day work week. Perhaps you’d like to make gettting up at a certain time a priority for the coming week, but want to be free to get up whenever you like on the weekend…

Create a 5 Day challenge for yourself:

• Evaluate your schedule and create a specific set of wake up times for the week.
• Put those wake up times in a “5 Day Challenge” format and post it online.
• Check-in on Friday morning.

This eliminates the feeling that you have to do this habit for the rest of your life. It’s something that you’re trying out. It’s something that wouldn’t even work to do for 30 days straight. It might be something that you’d like to do every once in a while. It’s a way to set goals for yourself that are believable, and thus achievable. It’s a way to gain strength slowly but steadily.

That’s the concept. We’ll see how it works out.

Serendipity is a strange thing. I had just finished updating my 30 day question, and was checking out the recent posts at Lifehack.org.

Here’s one that caught my eye:

How to Find What You Love to Do

I know there are so many people who ask themselves a question: “What do I really love to do?”. And trust me, this question is a million dollar question – and it is tough. Once you have this answer, you will be more satisfied with the work you have done and actually enjoyed it in the process. Brian Kim has shared his useful insight on getting this answer from your deep end of your heart:

…
Step 1: You WILL find the answer. No doubt.

You will find the answer. You will find it. No doubt.

Approach the question with this mentality and you are sure to find it. How long will it take? It doesn’t matter. Bottom line, you will find the answer.

By doing this, you automatically instill an anti quitting mechanism within yourself, because you know you will find the answer. If you know what you want to do, then you will do it.

For example, if you know you want to arrive in New York, you’ll find ways to get there. You’ll hop a train, bus, or plane going to New York and will arrive in New York.

If you don’t have the cash, you’ll borrow it, or get a job and save up, or get a job as a flight attendant to get there for free. It doesn’t matter how long it will take or what you need to do because you know you’re going to New York.

All your actions onward from the decision that you want to arrive in New York will revolve around getting to New York.

Read that last sentence again.

All your actions onward from the decision that you want to arrive in New York will revolve around getting to New York.

Finding what you love to do = Deciding to arrive in New York.
…
How to Find What You Love to Do – [Brian Kim]

I haven’t finished reading Brian Kim’s article yet, but what initially struck me about this was how closely alligned it was with my “Question Update” and the way my thinking has been evolving on this issue. The obvious next question after “How do I create a million dollars for myself doing the things I love to do?” is “What is it that I love to do?”. (Ok, it wasn’t so obvious initially… thanks M.!)

It’s nice to have the universe step in with further insights.

Thre are alot of open loops in my life right now. Things left unfinished. I made a list.

For the each of the next 30 days, I will close at least one open loop from that list.

Simple enough.

—
30 Day Challenge: Open Loops
Start date: Tuesday, 7/25/06
Next check-in date: Wednesday, 8/23/06

“When you truly desire something, all the
universe conspires to help you achieve it.”

This was in the signature of an email I received a while back. Not sure who it’s by, but it seemed like a good thing to focus on for the day.

How to make this work? The keys to the 30 day challenges are:

• Variety – The reason I’ve been successful exercising daily is that I have a large variety of exercises. In the beginning I decided that it was ok if I only did one of the exercises on my list. Walking a half mile is considered “exercising”.
• Did I mention, “Variety”? – With my 30 day practice challenge I have 5 instruments to choose from. So far I’ve been able to focus on a couple a day. When I feel like I’m burning out on one, I can easily shift to another the next day.
• Variety, oh wait… I covered that. I mean to say “Being prepared – I went into each of my 30 day challenges with my tools in place. I track my progress on the blog. I set up the exercises before I began. I made a list of my options, so I wouldn’t be caught wondering “What do I do today?”

This begs the question: What are the tools of the acting trade?

• Reading plays/scripts
• Attending plays/readings
• Watching movies (movies out, or DVD’s in)
• Watching the commentary or special features on a DVD
• Reading a biography of an actor or director
• Checking Backstage for leads
• Sending out headshots, or committing to a Headshot Thursday
• Researching theatre companies/directors online
• Researching / Developing contacts
• Working on my voice & speech
• Working on an accent
• Researching/finding monologues at bookstores
• Learning a monologue
• Auditioning
• Taking an acting class

That’s probably enough of a list to start with. I’ve been putting this off for some time now, mostly out of fear of not being able to pull it off or not being able to do it perfectly.

Screw it. I’m just going to do it, and see what happens.

For the next 30 days, I’ll spend a minimum of 20 minutes a day, doing one of the things on the list above.

I’ll add things to the list as they come to me, and check-in 30 days from now.

—
30 Day of Acting
Start date: Friday, 7/21/06
Next check-in date: Saturday, 8/19/06

The benefit of exercising every day in some form or fashion is that you’re essentially saying:

Having a healthy and fit body is not optional.

You’re making a concious decision to make exercise a daily part of your life. You’re saying that exercise is as vital to the body as food, air, or water. If don’t eat or drink, eventually I’ll die. You’re raising exercise to that level of importance.

The mistake that most people make when they begin an exercise program is that they try to do too much. They’ll go all out, hit the gym, work really hard… for about a week. Perhaps two. They begin they’re exercise program too quickly and usually burn out.

I’m approaching things differently. The idea is to make consistency your goal. You’re trying to develop a lifetime habit. You’ve decided that you want to exercise and be healthy 365 days a year. (Or as close to it as possible…).

Is it possible to do 2 hours of weight training 7 days a week, 365 days a year?

Of course not. You’d burn out and you’d hurt yourself.

So what’s the happy medium? How do you exercise daily and not burn out or hurt yourself? The way I figure it, a healthy exercise routine needs to meet the following criteria:

• It should have enough variety so that you don’t get bored
• It should be challenging (again so that you don’t get bored).
• It should develop both your strength and your cardio fitness.
• It should be flexible enough so you can exercise in some form or fashion everyday.
• It should have built in “down time” for each body part.
• It shouldn’t be too complicated.
• There should be lots of ways for you to succeed.

When I started my first 30 Day Exercise Challenge, I made it really easy for myself to succeed. Basically, if I did one of the things on my list of exercises each day I considered that a success. Some days I did more, some days I did just the one exercise. I did this for 60 days. What I found towards the end of the challenge was that apathy began to set in. I did alot of the minimum number of push-ups, those last couple of weeks… simply because it was easier. The challenge had grown a bit stale. Come to think of it, the daily things began to be abit blah soon after I finished my 7 Day Bikram Yoga Challenge. (There’s probably something to that…).

So, how do you make it more challenging without getting too rigid? (With the last challenge, if I had a really busy day, or was out of town with no access to anything but my own body weight, I could always walk, or do push-ups, or crunches.)

I think the answer is to increase the minimum amount of daily time I’ll spend exercising to 20 minutes a day. This will force me to choose more of the exercises off of my list to fill the time. I’ll also give myself the “out” of allowing myself to choose walking one of my routes as an accepted exercise for the day.

The rules:

I’ll check in 30 days from now.

—
New 30 Day Exercise Challenge
Start date: Friday, 7/21/06
Next check-in date: Saturday, 8/19/06

Today was the 60th day that I did some type of exercise each day. (Here’s the 30 day check-in, and the beginning of the challenge.)

While I think that this challenge has been valuable for me, I think this will be the last day of the challenge in it’s present state. I’ve found that I’ve become complacent over the last week or so in my exercise. I’ve still exercised everyday, but I need something that is going to challenge me to a new level of fitness.

I love the variety that I’ve created for myself, but the bar has become too easy to jump over. If I were to continue at this current level, I’d probably get bored and eventually just quit.

The challenge of my next “30 day fitness challenge” is going to be in answering this question:

“How do I create a workout that is more physically taxing, flexible enough for an active busy schedule, and yet still able to be done every day for 30 days?”

We’ll see how it goes.

Just finished watching a really good keynote speech by Guy Kawasaki.

It’s based on his book The Art of the Start. He’s an engaging speaker and has alot of good advice for the budding entrepeneur.