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So, I've been having a tough time getting back in the saddle. It's not that I haven't been active. I'm still doing parkour class at least once/week, and I've been walking a lot. But, I've had a ton of adulting to handle in the last many months, and I've really found it difficult to set aside any time for real workouts. The plan for this challenge is to do a few small things every day, just to get back into having good habits. I've also been stuck in that unfortunate place where I've hit a huge plateau in parkour and don't feel like I'm improving, so my motivation is low. But the low motivation is causing me to work out much less, which is in turn really counterproductive for breaking through that plateau. 1. Put on workout clothes every day.... and then do something. Yeah, it sounds like a dumb goal, but one of my problems is that I often feel like workout clothes = need to do a full workout when I just don't have time. But then I feel like I can't do a quick yoga session or hand balancing, or whatever in my "normal clothes." So, I end up just taking a walk and not doing anything else. 2. Make a to-do list every day. It just helps me stay much more organized and productive. 3. At least spend a tiny amount of time researching how to teach piano lessons and vacation stuff every day. I've played since I was 7, but I know nothing about teaching. Lessons out here cost like $40 per half hour, so I'd rather try to teach my own kids than pay for lessons. Also, I'm the person in charge of planning our vacation in late July, so I have to get cracking on that. 4. Tea + reading every evening. No alcohol in the evening. No screen time after 10. My sleep has been exceptionally shitty lately. Before I see a doctor about this or try drugging myself, I really need to fix these horrible evening habits. 5. Post something somewhere on NF at least every day. I need the motivation boost from being here, so I really need to stick around this challenge!

Journal 1 out of 29 I was doing so good, then I crashed and burned when just school "prep" took the life out of me. And reason why I didn't just move on to a new challenge, I had the worries and anxiety of starting or continuing goals I broke. So my plan here, is just to journal daily. Anything really. My goal is to try to do every single day on here or in one of my real life journals. Just to give me an idea where I'm at for the next 29 days. So yeah, I finally wrote it.

Last time I tried something new, and it went fairly well. It was just all the same ol', same ol' stuff I had trouble with... After a month of not getting enough sleep, and suffering the consequences, redeveloping my sleep habits will be my main focus this time 'round. My new job is shift work, and with 2 on-call nights/week (essentially means I'm 'working' for 25+ hours straight twice/week) and keeping a couple of shifts/week at my old job, I really feel like sleep is the key to my happiness, my sanity, and my success. For reference, my weekly schedule looks (more or less) like this: Sunday - work 12-8, on call overnight Monday - work 8-4, then 5:30-9 (?) Tuesday - work 3-11, on call overnight Wednesday - work 8-4, then 5:30-9 Thursday - work 10-6 Friday - off Saturday - off I've arranged to have my shifts at job #2 on the days after my on call shifts, mainly because I'm so exhausted by the end of the 'work late-on call-work early' cycle that I'm not going to do any exercise anyway, so instead of lazing around being disappointment at myself, I might as well make a bit of extra money at a job where being half asleep is not a major detriment. That leaves 5 days/week in which to exercise, and the plan is to alternate running and Stronglifts, such that one week I'll run 3x, lift 2x, and the following week I'll run 2x, lift 3x. Also note, in July, I'm actually only working on Wednesdays, not on Mondays, so for the first two weeks I think I'll use Mondays as rest-ish days. If, by some miracle, I have energy after work, I can do a workout if I want to, but it doesn't count against me if I don't. I have a feeling I'm going to find this plan to be a little grueling, so that might be a nice 'ease-in' period. Or something... I'd also like to take one of my 'weekends' to go to the cottage, I'd leave after work on Thursday and then come home in the evening on Saturday. I don't know if or when this will happen, I tend to decide these things last minute, but if it does happen, I'll still consider it a success if I do a Stronglifts workout on the Thursday, then run both days at the cottage, since I don't have access to a gym up there. That might change The Count (see below) a little, but I'll just adjust as necessary. Goal 1 ~ Sleep the Good Sleep I've had success by maintaining good sleep habits in the past, and I've never really been able to pin down why I let them slip sometimes. I've definitely noticed that when my mood dips down, it's more likely for me to fall out of that habit, which makes my mood worse, and on and on. My mood's been pretty good over the last while, but I've still been having trouble with bedtimes and get-up times. So, my goal is 11pm bedtime every night except the one on which I work 3-11, in which case I'll be in bed by midnight, barring an emergency I have to attend to. And then up with my alarm every morning, no lazing around on work days. I will allow myself to beditate on one of my off days, but I'll do it by setting my alarm for later than my natural wake-up time (usually around 9:30am), so I can wake up naturally but still have a deadline to get out of bed (ie. on off days, if I wake up on my own, I'm allowed to stay in bed until my alarm goes off, but if I sleep until my alarm goes off, I have to get up right away). Goal 2 ~ Jog My Memory I gotta get my running mojo back. And by 'running mojo' I mean I need to buckle down, I've never really had any real 'mojo' in this area... My life plan is such that I won't have to redo the police physical for some time yet, but if I coast until a month before my test and then try to get my cardio back last minute, I'm not going to pass (I might've been able to pass before, but they've made it harder...) My plan is to run every other non-2-job day. I'm anticipating this being a slog with no full days off of all responsibilities, but it's only for 4 weeks. I actually don't mind intervals, but I think all intervals all the time would be a bit much, so I'd like to try one interval workout for every 3 runs (if that makes sense, I can't really say 'per week' because I'm not on a 'per week' schedule). The point is to run, though, so if it's a run day and I just don't have an interval workout in me, that's fine, but I still have to go around the block. Goal 3 ~ Semper Gumby Just simply to stretch most things daily. And I should probably do wrist mobility 3x/week, they're a bit cranky with all the extra typing I've been doing with my new job. Goal 4 ~ Cleaning House I had some success a few challenges ago with a 'weekly tidying' goal, whereby I fully cleaned my room in zero week, then tidied once per week to keep it that way. This involves, putting away clean laundry, straightening magazine piles and putting away ones I've read, vacuuming and dusting. I already have a plan to deep clean on the Saturday before the challenge starts for real, so this shouldn't be too hard. This will mostly likely happen on Fridays or Saturdays. Goal 4 ~ Stronglifts I surprised myself in the last challenge by really taking to this lifting thing, so this is a little further down the list because it was the one thing I stuck with last time, so I feel like I can stick with it again. My goal is simply to do the prescribed workout every other non-2-job day, and continue to be mindful of my form so as to avoid injury (ie. don't progress just because the app says I can, but don't be afraid to challenge myself either). Goal 5 ~ Reward Myself Not really a goal, per se, but to go along with the sentiment of 'it's only 4 weeks' expressed in my running goal, and based on the success others have had with promising themselves a reward for reaching some goal, and my own feeling that some sort of reward would be fairly motivating for me, I'm going to try this to help my willpower along this time. My paychques are a bit bigger than they used to be, even when I don't count the extra money from job #2, so I can afford to promise myself a little something if I succeed. I have no idea what, though, I'll have to think on it. I want it to be something I really want and something I'll really use, but also something I wouldn't otherwise be able to justify spending money on. It doesn't necessarily have to be expensive, just something I wouldn't buy 'just because'. With that said, I'm not forcing myself to come up with something, if I can't come up with something I would really like to have (that I can also afford, a trip to Iceland would motivate me to do just about anything but that's out of reach right now), rather than something I just kinda want, then I'll just do my best regardless. To earn whatever reward I come up with, I have to be 100% in this challenge. I'm feeling like I need to kick myself in the ass a bit right now, so there's no wiggle room on this. The challenge can still be a success without it being 100%, but I don't get my reward for anything less. The Count Run ~ 0/10 Stronglifts ~ 0/10 Tidy ~ 0/4 Bedtime ~ 0/28 Get-up Time ~ 0/28 Stretching ~ 0/28 Wrists ~ 0/12

My last challenge went better than many of my other recent ones, but improvement can still be had! This challenge will be more of the same, with some focus put on not cramming at the end of the week to get all the things in (this is a hard one for me, it's easy for me to choose instant gratification over long term gratification...) I will also focus on keeping up with The Count, to help me keep better track of my progress. My inspiration for this one is Wall-E, for no other reason than that I love Wall-E. I apologize in advance for the giant videos taking up space, but I have no idea how to make them smaller, or if it's even possible... Goal 1 - Do the Work (That's dedication) Wall-E goes to work every day and does his job. I go to work every day and do my job too, but when I get home, I don't always do my other 'work', which leaves me either needing to cram in a bunch of double-up days at the end of the week, or admit that I missed some of the things I should be doing. Like last time, I will post my weekly schedule on the Saturday before the week starts, to arrange my schedule according to what I've got going on. I will do 3 runs per week, and 3 strength workouts per week. It's ok for me to double up if Life Stuff gets in the way, but I'm focusing on not doubling up just because I was too lazy to do the thing I should have on a day earlier in the week. I'll be trying out a few new things with my runs, but I aim for 20-30 minutes of cardio-type exercise. I will sometimes just run my 4k hilly route, I will sometimes do the long intervals I tried out a while back and didn't hate, and will attempt to do an interval-only workout at a track once per week (probably on weekends). Strength stuff consists of the following: pushups, dead bugs, something like a bridge hold (but this one's getting boring so I'm looking for alternatives), body weight rows, bulgarian split squats. R = runs (0/12) S = strength (0/12) Goal 2 - Sleep-Wake (I feel ya man... I feel ya) In the last challenge I had a goal to go to bed on time (11pm) and get up with my alarm (8:15am, no lazing), and this went surprisingly well (I did better with the get-ups than the bedtimes, but still much better than I was expecting overall). It was feeling a bit habit-like, but this Zero Week has shown me that that's not exactly the case... So, same goals as before, though I'm allowing my Friday and Saturday bedtimes to be midnight, and my Saturday and Sunday get-ups to be 9:15. N = TV off at 11pm/midnight G = get up at 8:15/9:15am Goal 3 - Domestic Rangering (Sorry this one's a little long, but the last bit always makes me smile, and M-O is one of my favourite characters) This slipped a little towards the end of the challenge, and definitely over Zero Week (the floordrobe has begun to reform...) The goal is basically to get my room tidy, then keep it that way. This means putting away all my clean laundry (my least favourite task), vacuuming and dusting once per week (dusting doesn't really need to be done that often, but I think it'll be easier for me to remember to do every week), and keeping my magazine pile more stack-like and less sprawl-like, and putting away the ones I'm done with in the basket thingy. T = laundry away, dusting and vacuuming done (0/4) Goal 4 - Stretch Dem Things (Another long one, and it has nothing to do with stretching, but I couldn't find anything stretching-related, and it's my favourite part of the whole movie, and this is my challenge, and you can't stop me) I had some good success with stretching in the last challenge (though I definitely didn't do it every day as I should have). I had less success with my mobility and physio. So this time I'm going to set a goal for stretching every day, and mobility/physio 3x/week. S = stretch most things (0/28) M = mobility/physio (0/12) Other Things Learning Forum once per week. Crow pose practice 3x/week. L = learning forum video/quiz (0/4) C = 5 minutes of crow pose practice (0/12) The Count (reposting it here for easy copy/pasting) R = runs (0/12) S = strength (0/12) N = lights off at 11pm/midnight G = get up at 8:15/9:15am T = laundry away, dusting and vacuuming done (0/4) S = stretch most things (0/28) M = mobility/physio (0/12) L = learning forum video/quiz (0/4) C = 5 minutes of crow post practice (0/12)