Mad Hatter and the Swamp Creatures

[Mad Hatter]

Happy new year peeps!

 

Before jumping into the first challenge of the year (squee!) here are some quick thoughts about 2018 and moving forward.

Spoiler

2018 wasn't the most exciting of years.

The only really new thing was my solo hiking adventures to the Peak district and the Faroes.  Turns out the great outdoors is growing on me!

 

Other than that it's honestly been a pretty stagnant year with a not great ending. But there have been some glacial slow shifts happening to my mindset. The results are still far off, but I think I'm beginning to have a much better idea of what to tackle and how, rather than badly chasing shinies until I break. Or catching them and inevitably losing them.

 

Some mindset shifts that need to be put into action:

 

Rejecting diet mentality and switching to intuitive eating.

Treating my body better rather than running it into the ground. This means more consistency, more recovery, and also including softer movements and movement variability into my training.

Learning to be ok with being a beginner again. And that doing something is better than doing nothing.

Realising that no matter my enthusiasm any plans will fail unless the basics are in order.

 

A clean environment

Regular sleep

Eating plenty of food with enough variety

Screen free time

Dealing with life on time without procrastinating too much

Outdoor time

 

When these things are in place I usually find I have enough mental and physical space that I automatically want to do all the fun things!

Tl;dr 2018 was kinda boring, but by focusing on basic habits, mindset shifts and tiny goals, rather than on chasing shinies, this year hopefully won't be!

 

Enough rambling, here's the first set of unsexy goals presented by the swamp creatures for no good reason except they're adorable.

 

Move: Do my basic warm up protocol in the morning. Eventually I want to do full sessions every morning, but tiny steps.

 

Sleep: Wake up between 6 and 6:30 am on weekdays. 

 

Food: Eat breakfast within an hour of waking up so that I don't tank before the day has even started!

 

Environment: Keep my phone in a different room unless I'm actively using it, make content blockers more strict

 

Additionally I'm going to track any actions that contribute to making my life a little bit better, however small, a la @zenLara. No scoring, but to see trends and to make sure that I start keep moving in the right direction.  

[Tobbe]

Following!

 

Wasn't here for your solo hikes in 2018, but hope to see more of those in 2019!

[RogueLibrarian]

#TeamHatter

 

[annyshay]

wooooot

[Mike Wazowski]

Here as always! Here's to saying so long to a mediocre year and moving on to bigger and better things!

[Arkania]

#helloagain and happy new year!

[KB Girl]

Love your description of the mindset shifts, I was reading and going "yes! yes! yes exactly!" in my head

Thank you for those! 

I'm also curious about the tracking idea, it sounds good. 

[SymphonicDan]

Interesting how a lot of people I follow on NF (and myself) are in the same kind of general plateau/acceptance zone when it comes to fitness. I still have goals to do backflips and insane strength feats and hopak dancing etc., but have to manage the realization that these have all slid very much into long-term goals or merely fantasies.

 

You're intelligent and looks like you have quite an established set of goals to keep yourself where you want to be, so I'll be taking inspiration from you

 

Happy new year and hopefully you'll have lots of good memories to look back on in 52 weeks' time

[WhiteGhost]

Here to watch you rock 2019  

[@mu]

IN!

 

13 hours ago, Mad Hatter said:

The only really new thing was my solo hiking adventures to the Peak district and the Faroes.  Turns out the great outdoors is growing on me!

 

That and your little morning swims!

 

Happy NY! Are you back in Finland?

[Mad Hatter]

14 hours ago, Tobbe said:

Following!

 

Wasn't here for your solo hikes in 2018, but hope to see more of those in 2019!

 

Until then here are some last year puffins that you missed out on!  

 

13 hours ago, RogueLibrarian said:

#TeamHatter

 

GO TEAM!

 

11 hours ago, annyshay said:

wooooot

 

 

11 hours ago, Mike Wazowski said:

Here as always! Here's to saying so long to a mediocre year and moving on to bigger and better things!

YAS!

 

11 hours ago, Arkania said:

#helloagain and happy new year!

Happy new year!

 

8 hours ago, KB Girl said:

Love your description of the mindset shifts, I was reading and going "yes! yes! yes exactly!" in my head

Thank you for those! 

I'm also curious about the tracking idea, it sounds good. 

Now it's time to make my actions match my mindset a little more.   

 

3 hours ago, SymphonicDan said:

Interesting how a lot of people I follow on NF (and myself) are in the same kind of general plateau/acceptance zone when it comes to fitness. I still have goals to do backflips and insane strength feats and hopak dancing etc., but have to manage the realization that these have all slid very much into long-term goals or merely fantasies.

 

You're intelligent and looks like you have quite an established set of goals to keep yourself where you want to be, so I'll be taking inspiration from you

 

Happy new year and hopefully you'll have lots of good memories to look back on in 52 weeks' time

I've noticed that too, it's really quite interesting. And I still want to learn awesome things, but if there's anything that gets repeated over and over again it's that consistent habits come first. 

 

Shame I can't use intelligence to outbrain habits.  But I'm going to try this time around.  

 

To you too! 

 

2 hours ago, WhiteGhost said:

Here to watch you rock 2019  

Woot!

 

1 hour ago, @mu said:

IN!

 

 

That and your little morning swims!

  

Happy NY! Are you back in Finland?

Yes, my morning swims! <3 They feel so far off now, but I loved them. Only 4 months to go?  

 

Thanks, you too! Yes I'm back in Finland, and going back to work today.

[Mad Hatter]

Yesterday's positive actions

• Meditated
• Forest walk - Amazing except for the ice skating rinks 
• Cooked food
• Tidied kitchen

Current stats

• Eat 2/6
• Sleep 1/3 
• Move 2/6

[Tobbe]

Off to a great start! Yay!

[WhiteGhost]

1 hour ago, Mad Hatter said:

Amazing except for the ice skating rinks 

Was it because the ice skating rinks were disappointing or because it was disappointing that there were ice skating rinks there at all?

[Tobbe]

5 minutes ago, WhiteGhost said:

Was it because the ice skating rinks were disappointing or because it was disappointing that there were ice skating rinks there at all?

And also, why are there rinks in the forest?

[Mad Hatter]

7 minutes ago, Tobbe said:

Off to a great start! Yay!

Slow start, but you know - new year's day. The day where are new year's resolution go to die.  

 

1 minute ago, WhiteGhost said:

Was it because the ice skating rinks were disappointing or because it was disappointing that there were ice skating rinks there at all?

Umm figurative ice rinks.  Some of the paths are treacherously slippery and you have to be super careful. Especially in the spots where you think it's going to be fine and then surprise! That snow pile is actually a lump of ice.

[WhiteGhost]

1 minute ago, Mad Hatter said:

Umm figurative ice rinks.

Haha, that was my initial reaction, but then I started thinking that maybe in Finland they just have ice skating rinks out in the forest  

[Tobbe]

Nothing like a light dusting of snow on a patch of ice to throw you on your ass!

[Mad Hatter]

Just now, WhiteGhost said:

Haha, that was my initial reaction, but then I started thinking that maybe in Finland they just have ice skating rinks out in the forest  

Haha fair point.  Not quite in the forest where I live, but there are definitely lakes in forests that people skate on when it freezes over. Some of them are maintained too to make them nice to skate on. Not where I live but further north. Here they turn some public spaces into ice rinks, there's for example a small football field close to my house that gets turned into an ice rink for kids.

[Mad Hatter]

1 minute ago, Tobbe said:

Nothing like a light dusting of snow on a patch of ice to throw you on your ass!

Good times.  

[Mad Hatter]

I'M SO EXCITED - we're getting a lifting gym to the office. Squat rack + bench +  yoga mats for my handstand corner.  Guess I'll be picking up powerlifting? (Because I really need more hobbies. )

[@mu]

2 minutes ago, Mad Hatter said:

I'M SO EXCITED - we're getting a lifting gym to the office. Squat rack + bench +  yoga mats for my handstand corner.  Guess I'll be picking up powerlifting? (Because I really need more hobbies. )

 

Lords of Kobol! That's awesome!!! 

[KB Girl]

Don't bench, it's bad for your overhead  

But squats <3 

[WhiteGhost]

34 minutes ago, Mad Hatter said:

I'M SO EXCITED - we're getting a lifting gym to the office. Squat rack + bench +  yoga mats for my handstand corner.  Guess I'll be picking up powerlifting? (Because I really need more hobbies. )

Wow, that sounds awesome!  Maybe a good thing you didn't bail on the company just yet?

 

21 minutes ago, KB Girl said:

Don't bench, it's bad for your overhead

I don't understand this  

[Mad Hatter]

22 minutes ago, KB Girl said:

Don't bench, it's bad for your overhead  

 But squats <3 

I actually think a little bit of pressing would be good for me. I'm really, really bad at pushing. 

 

Btw could you perchance give me a pointer on how to make a very minimal program that won't suck all my energy but that's still kinda fun and useful?  

 

1 minute ago, WhiteGhost said:

Wow, that sounds awesome!  Maybe a good thing you didn't bail on the company just yet?

Haha indeed.