First Wave of Goals for the New Guy

[shaolin_nerd542]

Good morning everyone,

 

I've been reading a lot of your posts and I am really impressed with what is happening here. I've decided to publicly take that next step and outline my set of goals for the next 4-6 weeks. I'll do my level best to update my progress as each week passes.  That way, I can peeps who can keep me accountable.

 

I view myself as a monk/druid type, and am very interested in martial arts and a plant-based, whole foods diet.  My efforts towards these goals will begin in earnest on 5/2, but I have been trying to have some success this week.  WIsh me luck.  Kick me in the rear if you need to.

 

Goal 1: Abstain from alcohol and smoking.  I have a long and sordid history with this problem.  I have made some serious headway, particularly with alcohol, towards ridding it from my life.  Now, I'm making this goal public. I feel it has to be number one because I can't complete the others without doing this.

 

Goal 2: Attend martial arts classes 3x/week.  I take classes in Chen style Tai Chi and Hong Fist Kung Fu.  This keeps my druid side and my monk side happy and gets me the exercise I need.  I am using the body weight training ideas I got from a book called Convict Conditioning to supplement this training.  Here is a typical schedule.

 

Monday: Tai Chi & Kung Fu

Tuesday: Push and pull body weight focus.

Wednesday: Tai Chi & Kung Fu

Thursday: Legs and abs body weight focus.

Friday: Kung Fu

Saturday: Handstand and bridge focus

Sunday: Rest day, seriously.

 

Goal 3: Maintain a plant-based, whole foods diet. No processed foods. The inspiration for this comes from the duo of viewing the documentary Forks over Knives and from the health problems that I have seen in my family.  The cookbooks that I use (I love cookbooks) will be the Thug Kitchen books, the Southern Vegetarian (love me some Southern food), and the Veganomicon.  I've been cooking for over fifteen years, so I'm not afraid to just dive right in.

 

Goal 4: Pay off my banjo. I play bluegrass. It's fun. I love my banjo. Unfortunately, I still owe $300 on it, and my wife is not too thrilled with me.  I've been slacking in paying it off.  It's a goal that will take 12 weeks to do, but I'm putting it in my list.

 

Goal 5: Create a pallet herb garden and a raised bed for vegetables. Dude, I live in a small town and people grow their own food.  How come I never learned this?  The time to remedy that is now.  I will build my own pallet herb garden and raised bed this month.  Hopefully, I can do it on the super cheap. That's where Pinterest comes in handy.

 

Goal 6: Want not. Buy only what I need.  With the exception of the banjo payments and the cost of the gardens, I will abstain from buying anything unnecessary.  I spend way too much money on frivolities, such as Magic cards (I am a nerd, after all).  I can just print proxies and save the money for the time being.

 

Anyway, these are my monk/druid/personal goals for the month of May.  Thanks for hearing me out.  Please give me any words of encouragement, advice, or tips that you find have helped you in the past.

 

Brian. 

[tinywonder]

OoO!  regarding Banjo payoff-  Do you perform with your banjo anywhere?  I used to have a running tally of money made from gigs that I would then spend on instruments/gear/etc.  Maybe you live in a city where you can busk?  If you are still learning the banjo it may not work as well, but sometimes it's nice to try to manifest a banjo payment... "I'm going to go play here for 2 hours with a tip jar and all that goes to banjo-fund."  It's sort of working in reverse from how I did it, but it's something.  It's good practice either way, and sometimes comes with bonus money.

 

I play accordion, the other super obnoxious instrument.

[Jack of Hearts]

Hey shaolin,

 

I love your goals. I want to be here to help whatever way I can. Good luck man. 

[shaolin_nerd542]

On 4/30/2016 at 1:58 PM, Jack of Hearts said:

Hey shaolin,

 

I love your goals. I want to be here to help whatever way I can. Good luck man. 

 

Cool. Thanks for the support.  I had a rocky beginning to the goals, but my head has leveled.  What do you do when your head game gets off kilter?  Here's to the first day of it.

 

[shaolin_nerd542]

On 4/29/2016 at 0:52 PM, tinywonder said:

OoO!  regarding Banjo payoff-  Do you perform with your banjo anywhere?  I used to have a running tally of money made from gigs that I would then spend on instruments/gear/etc.  Maybe you live in a city where you can busk?  If you are still learning the banjo it may not work as well, but sometimes it's nice to try to manifest a banjo payment... "I'm going to go play here for 2 hours with a tip jar and all that goes to banjo-fund."  It's sort of working in reverse from how I did it, but it's something.  It's good practice either way, and sometimes comes with bonus money.

 

I play accordion, the other super obnoxious instrument.

Great idea, man. I haven't thought of busking, but I bet that it would work in my town. 

[Jack of Hearts]

1 minute ago, shaolin_nerd542 said:

 

Cool. Thanks for the support.  I had a rocky beginning to the goals, but my head has leveled.  What do you do when your head game gets off kilter?  Here's to the first day of it.

 

I do one of two things usually. I crash and burn as hard as I can. I suffer from depression and I've been suffering long enough to recognize when the day is lost so that when it is I go to the movies or stay home and binge watch tv. There a twenty percent chance this will inspire me to do something productive at the end of my day. Any war flick seems to work well for this, especially WW2 stuff.

 

Plan B is diverting myself. When I'm working on my homework I usually have three or more projects at once and when I find one to hard and stressful I just bounce to another. I do this till they're all done and I do the same thing when I have other projects. If I don't feel like dealing with something I don't and work on something I do feel like dealing with and then I bounce back when I'm done. 

 

It's all about recognizing what your feeling and where your head is. If you can put things into perspective or distract and come at it from a different angle you'll probably do better. If my diet is sucking for a day I just focus harder on working out. I'm not giving up on my diet but I understand that somedays are harder than others and I focus on my progress. 

 

Hoped this help. Let me know what else I can help with. 

[shaolin_nerd542]

Well, guys, I made a concerted effort to write this post, and went on to screw up my first week. As of today (a Thursday), I am starting over anew.  I'll just pick up where I fell down.  

[shaolin_nerd542]

So this week has been an interesting one. I crashed on my wants not to goalnd purchased a magic deck. Other than that, it's been good so far. I've maintained my plant based diet for about 3 days, and, apart from getting sick, I've been to all of my Kung Fu classes. Last week was a puss poor week all around, so I'm inclined to act like it never happened and move on. I just got back from a speed running session with a running club that I run with. I got to do is just keep up. Hang in there you guys, and keep rooting for me.

[Kvedulf]

Welcome aboard! I'm pretty new here myself, but I'm loving this community.

On 11/05/2016 at 10:13 AM, shaolin_nerd542 said:

Last week was a puss poor week all around, so I'm inclined to act like it never happened and move on.

I know that feeling. My old boss used to say "Time to draw a line in the sand and start again" But for what it's worth, might not be a good idea to act like it never happened. Personally, I prefer to acknowledge when I f*** up and see what I can learn from my mistakes. Not judging though, I'm fully in your corner!

 

Also, I'm a keen gardener myself and my ears pricked up when you said pallet herb garden. Just a word of caution, be careful with pallets and using them in edible garden construction. A lot of pallets are used to cart nasty chemicals and/or just exposed to all sorts of toxins. If you can, get pallets that you can be sure of the origins and history of. Just don't want you to put in the effort of building a herb garden to have the nasties leech into the potting mix/soil.

 

Sorry if this came across as a very negative post. It wasn't meant to be, more just unlooked for advice

 

TIME TO KICK THE TYRES AND LIGHT THE FIRES!