Soular

Thank you! I'm trying my best. That's kinda how it's been for the past few days, actually. It's Day 10. I'll start out with the positives, because they're the only thing that matters. I haven't skipped a day of gym, I've walked my dog before every school day, I've been using social media for positive content (currently looking through Woodysgamertag's life story and Garyvee's podcast), and I've meditated for most if not all of my days. My family life is still stressful (parents arguing, my mom has health problems and I've gotta help her manage herself and the 4 dogs we have). School is okay, but I don't exactly feel on top of things, especially in Calculus today. I have this reoccurring problem where I overstress about material I don't know just to end up doing fine in the class, but right now I genuinely don't know what the professor is teaching and it's my first honors class so he's moving real fast. I should probably go to office hours. I'm trying to upgrade my mindset with this whole thing--embrace struggle, deploy patience, empathy, n gratitude, all that good stuff. That's the whole point of all this. And I genuinely do enjoy finding serenity, whether it be in playing rain in my headphones to relax me or listing what I'm grateful for at the end of the day. I'm constantly questioning if I'm working toward anything tangible in the long run, or if I'm just gonna end up trying and kinda doing some mediocre things that don't amount to much. Thing is, I don't think I should care about the magnitude of my achievements. Why should I care about getting recognition? I need to clearly define success for myself, and it's hard when there's so many things I could judge it by. At least in terms of this challenge, I think I'm succeeding pretty well.

Day 4. Holy shit today was really rough. I'm glad I could say that guilt-free though, because before I was teetering between breaking down and admitting "today was bad" or soldiering on with a "I can do this" attitude. Turns out I got the catharsis of the former with the hope of the latter, so that's a win-win! Long story short, college was pretty much what I expected: not super fun, just classes and commuting, some small talk and meeting people here and there. Challenge-wise I meditated, walked the dog, and spoke well about myself all before I commuted back home, so things were alright! ...until I got home. My door was left open so Lakota absolutely trashed the room, destroying bedroom items from contact lens cases to my maala (prayer beads) and digging through the trash can. It was bad. Cleaned up what I could, then mom asks me to take her to someone's house to pick up something she got off Facebook marketplace. Sure. I cause a fucking car accident on the way there. I leave a stop sign too early, dude swerves to avoid me, someone ends up rear-ended. Thank God everyone involved was unharmed and vehicle-wise it's just someone's bumper a little messed up and maybe a dent or two. After calling 911 while still in shock, getting verbally shit on by the dude who got rear ended because "fuck you this is all your fault don't say sorry god damn you," I leave with an $85 fine and decide to just try to get through the rest of the day thankful for what I've got. I come back home and my door was left open again. This time Lakota relieved himself on my bed. At this point I'm losing it and just trying not to break down completely, which fails. But, after leveling with my parents, cheering myself up with the company of my sister, and yes, crying multiple times, I think I'm finally actually over it. I meditated, walked my dog, and complimented myself before my whole day went to shit, and even if I forgot the "no social media" rule for one day, I can forgive myself. There's no telling why certain things happen and as preventable as all of this mess was, there's no use beating myself up over it. I'm writing this out because that last sentence is something I have a really hard time realizing--in fact, I beat myself up a LOT. That's kinda why I started this challenge in the first place. So, onwards and upwards. I think things'll get better from here, and if they don't, I'll just try my best until I can bounce back. Hope all of you are doing alright.

Day 3. I've been meditating, walking my dog twice a day, giving myself compliments, staying off of social media before bed, and I've gone to the gym twice now! I'm glad I can be excited about it here because day to day, it feels a lot less glorious and a lot more "oh this reminder is on my calendar. Better follow it." But I am genuinely happy that I've been talking more positively to myself. When things get rough I'm starting to catch myself and just blindly repeat "I can do this, I've got this, I'm capable" until things pass or the task at hand is complete. I still get frustrated over mistakes and annoyances, but I can cultivate patience as well. And this is the kind of mindset that I aspire to have. The blind faith in myself. The "put my head down and do what I gotta do" mindset. That's a takeaway that I really hope I can get at the end of this month. Because when I'm listening to music or watching videos, I'm thinking about the people who made that content. I'm thinking about how I can be more like them. This would be an amazing first step. Hope you guys are doing well.

Day 1. I meditated, Lakota was walked before and after school, I'm staying off social media, and I pretty much hyped myself all day whenever I felt down. So we're doing pretty well on all fronts challenge-wise! Hell, I even went to the gym and kinda enjoyed working out, despite not really knowing what I was doing. Despite all this good stuff, I'm still feeling kind of uneasy about the semester. Honestly it's a mix of my parents arguing and me not really doing this Computer Engineering degree for any other reason then "I'm good at STEM and like computers and the jobs probably pay well." Basically, my happiness has to come from outside of my main stuff for the degree, like the Recording Arts Certificate I'm pursuing or songs I make in my free time. Oh my God so as I was writing this my mom asked me to help her with a" job interview" so she could get some spending money, it's a work-from-home company called wabaat and after a quick Google search I found out they ran IDENTITY FRAUD SCAMS. So I had to explain it to my mom and just ugh. This is the stuff that gets me all wound up and uneasy. I don't like the idea of needing to be the responsible person or bad things happening, but I guess that's just part of growing up. Phew. Ok. Sorry for that TMI-flavored rant. I'm doing well on the challenges and if I can declutter my mind and just focus on myself and what I need to do, things'll work out. Hope everyone's day was alright, too.

Welcome! It's great to have you here. I'm not familiar with the term "PRT, " a quick search told me it was Physical Readiness Test but I wanna double check with ya. One of my goals is to meditate every day; one thing that helped me out was specifying a time of day to meditate (for me, it's immediately after I wake up). Looking forward to seeing your progress! Best of luck!

Day 0. Well, it's really the night before, but here we are. School's starting tomorrow, and I'm in bed. On my phone, but I'm avoiding social media and journaling my thoughts into this post, so I'd say this is valid. Meditation? Check. Dog walking? Check. Three compliments? Uhhh. 1. I was responsible enough to pack my stuff and meal prep for the first week of sophomore year, despite the hectic day and thrown-off schedule. 2. I was the bigger person in an online dispute involving a diss track (yes, an actual diss track about me. Life is really a roller coaster when you post raps on the internet.) 3. Fuck it I've been sitting here with the cursor blinking trying to come up with something. I'm an extremely creative person and I'm going to find goals to focus on that'll make me happy and then achieve them. That's a thing. I've been having trouble finding a big overarching goal to achieve. Looking back at this thread, I definitely still want to change the way I see myself. So that's the goal for now--at least, it's the closest thing to "a goal you burn for" that I've got right now. Tomorrow, the challenge begins. I'm hoping for the best. Honestly, I'm not sure what I expect the end result of this challenge to look like. Last year I expected college to transform me into a completely different person and was underwhelmed, to say the least. Now, I'm trying to take that transformation into my own hands and accept the change as the slow, real process it actually is. That's self-development for ya. Hey. That's a pretty good goal. (gosh I've got to stop making my goals about having goals. How annoyingly meta.)

Yup, you've pretty much got me pegged with those italics. "...great minds think alike?" But it's Day -1 and I'm determined to see this challenge through, so we'll move forward! I think journaling sounds like a good idea; I feel like it'll help me connect my thoughts to a creative output (which is one of my goals as a person, so it's a win-win!). The importance of morning/nighttime routines cannot be overstated for me; of that, I'm sure. Putting my phone in a separate place is a must; I'll probably turn it off and put it across the room from the bed. Still far enough so that it's not disturbing my routine! I've been doing this before-bed yoga routine in on-and-off spurts, so it seems like this could probably round out the routine: (wow this is a really big video in the post editor. idk how to reduce the size tho.) It's been interesting practicing the 4 goals before school starts. Remembering to compliment myself is honestly a lot of fun, although I do get kind of panicked when I realize I'm blanking on things to say. It's usually stuff like hey you look fine as hell or hey look! You did a thing! That's super productive, good job! so other compliment types could probably help out. At least those two kinda spotlight the big insecurities, I guess. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Meditating's been pretty easy, although I feel a bit less focused on breathing than usual. It's a lot more of my mind going on random tangents, but the whole point of meditation is to notice what I'm thinking about and gently bring myself back to focusing on breathing, so I won't beat myself up too much over it. Turning off my phone before bedtime makes things MUCH easier, and I'm trying to replace my phone time with watching uplifting content like seeing role models do their thing (mainly Markiplier and GaryVee). Walking my dog earlier in the morning (in this case, right after breakfast) is proving well when I remember to do it. I just hope I've scheduled enough time to keep my mornings worry-free, and that I can cope with whatever workload this semester has in store for me. But, that's in the future. For now, I'm just thankful I can set these goals and work towards them. Hope you guys are doing well on your journeys as well!

Heyo, happy to have you here! Just did a quick search of Vipassana, and it intrigues me. I might have to find a way to practice it myself! I like the substitution of greens into the diet; it sounds like a pretty effective way to cut down on unhealthy calories without just eating less overall. The "not using food as a reward" goal is also really smart. Have you thought of what else you could use as a reward? I'm looking forward to seeing how your challenge goes!

Hey, just wanted to say thank you, too! Your challenge was actually what got me to jump the fence and finally make an account to get started on this whole thing.

Phew. It's been quite the Tuesday. I'm currently sitting in bed knowing full well that I still have to brush my teeth but wanting to just lay down and also still scrolling through my phone at the same time--what a mess. I'm feeling restless and scrolling through social media, and I'm realizing that a lot of my feelings of malaise and apathy come from thinking that I'm not doing anything "worthwhile." Like, I just wrote down 4 SMART goals for this challenge and looked at them like, "huh, this is really the start of changing my life for the better? This?" That's not how I should feel, and it's a direct result of my perspective on things after overloading my brain with too much Internet garbage. So literally as I'm writing this sentence, I'm changing one of my goals from going to the gym 3 times a week (which I already have scheduled and feel pretty likely to follow) to "no social media 1 hour before bedtime." I'm debating between 30 minutes vs 1 hour, so the time span might change. But the goal is still to shift my night routine to something that'll leave me happier. Not sure what that is yet, so please leave a suggestion on what to do to wind down! So. Officially 1 week before school (and my challenge) starts, here are my four goals: Say (at least) 3 good things about myself each day No social media 1 hour before bedtime Meditate for 10-20 mins each day Walk dog every day before school I'm realizing that 3 of these are about my mental health and the final one is about my dog, which is really interesting to me. I thought I'd be pushing for physical and creative goals, but I guess I'm just realizing that at the end of the day, I want to be happy. And if I like myself, I'll already be pushing to get better at all the creative/physical goals. So I guess my mental health comes first. Wow. I'm actually pretty proud of my goals now. Hope you guys have a good night--or whatever time of day it is while you're reading this. ✨

Thank you both for following this journey! Happy Day -9. Ooh. Scary to think about how fast the challenge approaches, especially if I'm not actively focusing on it. But learning to focus'll be just one of the benefits of this challenge, so I'm looking forward to the process! I took your advice and used the planning worksheets to get from a list of big goals down to some broken down steps. I'm just one level away from having some SMART goals ready to aim at for the next month! In true documentary fashion, here's the lists from BIG DREAM GOALS down to brainstorming steps: For the big goals, my priorities of having creative freedom/success and healthy daily routines stood out to me, so that's what I focused in on for my chosen goals: I trimmed the fat on my big goals. I want these things done because they'll make my life stable and manageable, which'll spill out into some of my more artsy pursuits. If you're wondering where I got the table for those exercise weight goals, it's listed on the StrongLifts page. I swear, this dude Mehdi talks about StrongLifts like it ended world hunger and created an era of peace and prosperity. What a salesman. No, not that salesman, Suraj. Finally, I elaborated on the quests I chose, brainstorming ideas to flesh out those processes into things I could do on the daily: I left #3 on "Dog Training" blank because...well, I just feel like I could do more on that front. I'm really concerned about my family having a hard time with Lakota. Like, I know in the long run it'll be okay, but he's my dog and when I'm independent I wanna make sure that I never think of him as a nuisance or lose my head over him. 'Cause when I get frustrated with him nowadays I feel awful about it, and I don't wanna be so stuck in my feelings that I miss doing the stuff to just get it right and enjoy having him with me. Okay. Pity party over. My homework now is to convert these brainstormed ideas into SMART goals to really hit the ground running. Phew, it feels good to update this thread.

Heyo, joined the thread to say congrats on the progress! It's a smart move to give yourself a day of leeway when it comes to dieting (or any habit). In the long run, your results are what you do consistently, and 1 day a week of loosening up the diet helps the mind relax a bit, too! What are you planning in terms of diet, if I might ask? I'm trying for a meal prep solution to keep things convenient.

So, day -1? I'm not sure if there's a numbering system that makes sense to me for preseason. I'm both excited an nervous about actually counting down the days, but a quick glance at my calendar tells me that if I wanna include a day zero and make September 4th "Day 1," that would make today Day -13. Yikes. I think that gives you an idea as to how distracted my thought process feels when I'm setting goals like this. Some excerpts from my journal: What I Want (Goals) Purpose - clear, defined goals that feed into something more than myself (S.M.A.R.T., anyone?) Social Health - Clarity of my thoughts, establishing kind relationships and open communication Physical Health - I want to be able to match my mental ambition with physical action. Mental Health - I want to be thankful, content, and stable on my worst days. I want confidence -- faith that I can reach higher and create reality from my thoughts. These all seem pretty general, but if I could organize them I'd put it as Mental, then Physical, then Social Health, with Purpose arching over everything. I want to channel these broader areas into goals for my creative/personal life. Current areas I need to work on are: Dog Training: I take Lakota to a training class once a week, but to be honest, things are still a mess. A few major areas of improvement are getting him to reliably come to me when called, consistent potty training, and not jumping on people/furniture when he wants something from either of them. Quick Note: my mom just called me in the middle of me writing this to say he's misbehaving and chasing after the other 3 dogs we have in the house. So maybe this one's a bit more urgent of a problem than the others. It's pretty rough on me to know that he's such a problem for my family and I to take care of, and with school I don't know how I'm going to take care of him (I commute, so I'll be with him in mornings and evenings, but idk what to do otherwise). Music: I want to create as many songs as possible and release them to Spotify. Currently a clearer goal would be to learn/apply some keyboard skills to help with the process. Strength Training: I mentioned StrongLifts 5x5, and I want to make a habit of sticking to that program for 3 days a week during September. Videos: Ideally, I'd want to document this whole process. Just starting a vlog series to keep me accountable, anywhere from daily to weekly would just be great to look back on and know I've done something.

Hope your first full week of this challenge has gone well! I'm following to root for a fellow engineering student--and I feel you about using the gym to get the most out of those tuition fees.

Sounds to me like you're making decent progress, especially for a bonus goal! Don't be too hard on yourself about it--if anything, you could probably lower the time a bit to say 15 minutes a day unpacking, just to make it more manageable. And you're killing it with goals 1-4, too!