Balsquith

Week 1 (20th -26th March) 1. Get up my alarm (daily) – 7/7 This week went excellently, in part as I ensured that I was always giving myself the chance of 8 hours sleep, therefore no real justification to lie-in. 2. Run 3x week – 1/3 This didn’t really go well, but I give myself credit for feeling that my shin felt strange and deciding to give myself the necessary rest. I could almost count the afternoon spent running around with my nieces as a session (or 2!). 3. Daily German study – 2/7 This week I had one session with my tutor plus some time spent doing exercises, but it was still very inconsistent.

Week 0 (13th -19th March) 1. Get up my alarm (daily) – 6/7 This went very well, one slip near the start, but relatively minor with just the minimum number of burpees required. 2. Run 3x week – 1/3 This wasn’t as good as I had hoped, but was also not so bad. I went for 1 longer run and 2 additional very short ones (which I am not counting). I also bought myself some running shoes so that I have everything that I need. 3. Daily German study – 2/7 On the first 2 days I did some exercises from my book, but then I got out of the habit after that and didn’t do the tasks that I had planned to at the weekend. I responded to this lack of motivation and progress by researching German tutors in my area and arranging to meet one to move me forward in week 1.

Balsquith: Now or Never It has been a while now since I last took part in a 4-week challenge after my last attempt fizzled out in an ignominious fashion. This time around I have two actual challenges with fixed deadlines running until the weekend of 22/23 April, namely: 1. Run a leg for a relay team at the Vienna marathon on Sunday 23rd April (distance has yet to be finalised but anything between 9 and 15.5km) 2. Take a German exam on Saturday 22nd April I this way my challenge all but writes itself and will consist of the following goals: 1. Get up my alarm (daily) Snoozing in my life is basically saying that I don’t want to face the day; this doesn’t stop me doing it though. I want to get enough sleep, but once this is accomplished I want to get up and get on with things so that I start the day how I mean to go on. a. No set time for the alarm (prioritise getting 8 hours’ sleep when setting) b. Failure to get up to my alarm = automatic 5 burpees (+ 1 burpee for every minute snoozed over 5 minutes) 2. Run 3x week I am not quite sure why I agreed to run in a relay team as I haven’t been running for an age. Therefore, my plan is to start small (but regular) and try to build myself up sufficiently over the 5 weeks so that I can actually finish the distance without any negative consequences. 3. Daily German study I have had similar goals in the past and they have always been the first to fall by the wayside so I am hoping that having signed up for the exam and spent money on it, that I will be more motivated to see this through. I will make a plan and attempt to get myself into a daily routine of study. I toyed with the idea of having a 4th goal in some aspect of nutrition, but I think that it is better to focus on just 3 goals this time around. Note: I actually started this challenge last week and have suffered from inertia in actually writing it here. First report to follow.

In the middle of writing my comment I realised the same, but decided to plough on anyway as it was the way I was feeling about the situation, I'm glad that someone picked me up on it though (cheers Jarric). I am still a bit frustrated with how things are going as it feels like I am still actually at my baseline and I'm not actually pushing to do anymore. To answer the questions: 1. I am trying to learn German (unfortunately with very little emphasis on the 'actually doing' part) 2. Things that I have learned this challenge is that I need to be more in touch with my goals, have them somewhere that I can see them. Also that I do better when I am actually tracking my progress, this has fallen off badly this challenge. During my dragon slaying challenges I had nice colourful recording charts printed out for me which helped.

Thanks guy for trying to revive me, it is much appreciated. This challenge has not been going very well to be honest. I haven't gone on any runs (I managed to pull my calf muscle in the first week!). I have done some batch cooking and will be trying to get more organised to continue this. I have probably done some stretching every day but it hasn't been as focused as I intended it to be (it was indeed partly through GMB but also with some shoulder mobility/strengthening exercises that I have picked up elsewhere). I have not managed to consistently make time for learning in my day, but I have started taking an evening class twice a week. All in all I haven't been getting very much done while at the same time I have been feeling a bit out of control and overwhelmed by everything. Not really sure why this is.

Sorry to hear that the move was forced on you, but hopefully it will turn out to be a good thing, meeting some great new people, having some interesting new challenges and perspectives on things. Have you thought about how best to use your commuting time to your advantage?

Balsquith battles the passivity My last challenge did not go all that well. Or rather, it went well at times but as it was mostly just collecting information it felt like it was never going at all. This challenge I will actually utilise a little bit of the information collected in my goals: Goal 1: Nutrition – Batch cook 2x per week. I kept a food log briefly last challenge and the approximate findings were that: 1. I probably don’t eat enough generally 2. I make poor choices when I go food shopping at lunchtime Therefore this challenge I will be doing some batch cooking to prepare some breakfasts and some lunches. I don’t expect this to be perfect, but it will at least mean that on several days of the week I have a good (ish) food choice (I will be aiming to go vegetable-heavy) Goal 2: Exercise – Short run 2x per week. I used to enjoy playing Ultimate Frisbee but have kind of lost touch with this over the past few years. As I don’t run at all anymore I will be starting my road back to Frisbee with a couple of short runs a week. Goal 3: Injury rehab – Stretching daily I have become somewhat injury prone of late (or maybe I am just noticing it more) and am convince that this is due, in part at least, to overall poor mobility causing problems to arise in other areas of the body. I will be addressing this by some targeted stretching using GMB’s focused flexibility. Goal 4: Learning – 30 minutes (or more) daily I am not dedicating any time to improving myself, which is a poor showing given how easy it would be to carve 30 minutes out of my day to do this. I have a few things that I want to work on in this time, but the goal will be purely for freeing up the time to learn.

Challenge Wrap-up I think it is fair to say that this challenge was horrible for me, my head just wasn’t in the right place for the majority of the time and I spent most of the time not really getting anywhere. Cue week 3 when everything reached a real low, I got a bit of a wake-up call and I raised my game. Week 4 of the challenge wasn’t amazing, that would be a huge exaggeration, but it was a huge improvement on the previous 3 weeks. 1. Get up to alarm everyday = Week 4: 7/7, Overall: 9/28 2. Make a daily task list = Week 4: 7/7, Overall 18/28 3. Food logging daily = not recorded since week 1 4. Track expenditure daily = Week 4: 7/7, Overall 28/28 5. Practise German daily = Week 4: 4/7, Overall 14/28 6. Bad habits – record when tempted = Week 4: 6/7, Overall 24/28 As Darkfoxx noted, this challenge was too much ‘recording’ and not really enough actually doing, which allowed me to get bogged down and everything to fall apart. I need to keep the momentum of this last challenge week going by creating a new challenge that is actually based on some of the things I learned from this challenge, but includes a lot more action. Darkfoxx and Mike_d85 were my constant supporters throughout the challenge and really got me through the worse of it, so huge thanks to both of them.

Many thanks to the both of you for all the encouragement, it was really great to have during this challenge in particular. I have stalked both of your pages throughout this challenge to see how challenges should be done properly - I should probably make it a goal to actually write something in future.

Week 4 mid-week progress So far in week 4 I am at 100% compliance with all of my goals. They haven’t always been spectacular but I have at least completed the bare minimum in all of them and it has been great. Time for more of the same to finish off the challenge on a high. My next challenge will have to be a bit different as this one has somehow been terrible. 1. Get up to alarm everyday = 4/4 2. Make a daily task list = 3/3 3. Food logging daily = not recorded 4. Track expenditure daily = 3/3 5. Practise German daily = 3/3 6. Bad habits – record when tempted = 3/3

Week 3 summary Week 3 was the week where everything fell apart. I did get ill, but something else changed too and I completely lost the plot. I stopped getting up to my alarm, I went through the motions with making a daily task list (although this was better than nothing) and I let my bad habits wreck my week. I needed a wake-up call and I got one courtesy of darkfoxx, which was awesome. At the end of the week I reset myself, made some plans and got down to work – cue a much better (not perfect) end to the week and a great set-up for week 4 1. Get up to alarm everyday = 2/7 (overall 2/21) 2. Make a daily task list = 5/7 (overall 11/21) 3. Food logging daily = not recorded 4. Track expenditure daily = 7/7 (overall 21/21) 5. Practise German daily = 2/7 (overall 10/21) 6. Bad habits – record when tempted = 4/7 (overall 18/21)

Thanks for your help!

I would like to 'like' this multiple times as it exactly what I know, but also needed to hear. My 'terminal blahs' have taken hold this week and my internal motivator silenced. 'Suck it up, Buttercup!' is really very appropriate at this time and is what I will do for the remainder of this challenge. What I will do: 1. Focus on getting up to alarm (this goal has crashed and burned this week) - start well and things will fall into place. 2. Todays to do list contains: a. Make plan for German study. I will set aside time for a bit of German study every morning after I get up. b. Find one recipe for healthy food that can be made in bulk and taken to work (I can add additional recipes when I get this off the ground). 3. I will write my to-do list for the next day in the evening before I go to bed.

Thanks darkfoxx, you are right, but that also makes it more frustrating that I am not doing all the small things I talk about to actually move in that direction. The past couple of weeks have been oddly flat (being injured and then ill probably hasn't helped) and I need to inject some energy somehow. I know that getting a few smalls wins going will do this, but I need to get started.

Week 2 summary Week 2 was similar to week 1, still suffering from a lack of direction and focus. This lackadaisical spirit seems to be affecting everything that I do at the moment, so I will be focusing in week 3 on the positives and trying to build some motivation. 1. Get up to alarm everyday = 4/7 (overall 6/14) My excuse for this goal is that it has been badly affected in these first 2 weeks by external factors. This week started relatively well but I then developed a cold at the end of the week and took to lying in and allowing my body to get as much rest as it needed. This was probably a reasonable thing to do but I need to make sure that I get back on course as soon as I am feeling better. 2. Make a daily task list = 3/7 (overall 6/14) I got a bit better at setting goals this week but it was still a bit too laissez-faire and directionless. 3. Food logging daily = not recorded This goal went into a hiatus this week waiting for me to make a decision on how I am going to implement the knowledge gained from my week of food monitoring. Sadly I didn’t really make any progress here. 4. Track expenditure daily = 7/7 (overall 14/14) This week I set up a loose budget to stick to for the rest of the challenge, it went well but I think it would be better if I set up a stricter budget so I can spend money on the things I should be spending it on. 5. Practise German daily = 4/7 (overall 8/14) I didn’t write my plan as I had intended and I was once again lenient in how I graded myself on this one. 6. Bad habits – record when tempted = 7/7 (overall 14/14) This goal went very well. I was tempted but resisted well