squeakyvalkyrie reporting for duty

[squeakyvalkyrie]

Hello! I am squeakyvalkyrie! I am a longtime reader of NF and I joined the Academy last fall. But life and moving and the holidays happened and I never really did much with it. So now I am starting fresh. I am an adventurer, focused on hiking and moving, parkour especially. I want to be fit enough that I can do whatever I have the opportunity to without worrying about if my body can take it. I'm starting with 2.5 mile hikes twice a week, and bodweight exercises three times a week. I am at level 5 on the NF diet. Thanks for reading!

[BlackCatMagic]

Welcome, squeakvalkyrie!  I am totally new here, though not new to fitness.  Pleased to make your acquaintance!

[Guzzi]

Hey!  Welcome to the forum!  Are you still a member of the Academy?  I’ve never looked into that so I don’t really know how it all works, but if you need a hand finding your way around the forums here, or advice on the 4 week challenges etc the I’m your man!  Errrrr....make that woman.  

[squeakyvalkyrie]

1 minute ago, Guzzi said:

Hey!  Welcome to the forum!  Are you still a member of the Academy?  I’ve never looked into that so I don’t really know how it all works, but if you need a hand finding your way around the forums here, or advice on the 4 week challenges etc the I’m your man!  Errrrr....make that woman.  

I am part of the Academy, once you buy it you have it for life. I am excited to try the challenges, I need someway to track what I'm working on.

[Guzzi]

There’s actually a new challenge just about to start, you will find the forum Here.  You will see all the different Guilds but as it’s your first time you should post in the Level 1 forum although you can add a tag for Adventurers so that the guild leaders can find you easily and offer help/support if you need it.  

 

My two top tips for new members are:

1. Make your goals smaller/easier to achieve than you think they should be.  The biggest mistake people make is that they try to change too much and although it might go ok for a couple of weeks, it will eventually get too much and you will crash and burn.  

2.  Allow yourself some wriggle room.  If you make it so that anything less than 100% is failure then you will fail.  Allow for the fact that you will have issues and don’t get discouraged by not being able to do everything.  I use a grading system (from A to D) to evaluate my challenges and that works for me, other people create a character and award stat points for achieving different goals.   Some people pick out rewards they will allow themselves if they achieve certain levels, eg if I go to the pool 4 days a week each week I can buy myself a new swimsuit.  Think about what motivates you and try to use it. 

3.  Remember, even if you fail, it was still worth doing because now you know more about what works/doesn’t work for you, even failure is useful.  Think about why you failed. Did you take on too much, were your goals realistic, did you have the right support in place etc. 

4.  Update often!  Don’t wait until the end of the week to update, it’s too easy to let it slide and lose interest.  Post on other people’s threads and reply to posts on yours.  

 

There’s a great article explaining the challenges Here although it’s from back in the day when they were 6 weeks long, not 4 weeks.   

[BlackCatMagic]

I'm in!  So excited to get started!

[squeakyvalkyrie]

5 hours ago, Guzzi said:

There’s actually a new challenge just about to start, you will find the forum Here.  You will see all the different Guilds but as it’s your first time you should post in the Level 1 forum although you can add a tag for Adventurers so that the guild leaders can find you easily and offer help/support if you need it.  

 

My two top tips for new members are:

1. Make your goals smaller/easier to achieve than you think they should be.  The biggest mistake people make is that they try to change too much and although it might go ok for a couple of weeks, it will eventually get too much and you will crash and burn.  

2.  Allow yourself some wriggle room.  If you make it so that anything less than 100% is failure then you will fail.  Allow for the fact that you will have issues and don’t get discouraged by not being able to do everything.  I use a grading system (from A to D) to evaluate my challenges and that works for me, other people create a character and award stat points for achieving different goals.   Some people pick out rewards they will allow themselves if they achieve certain levels, eg if I go to the pool 4 days a week each week I can buy myself a new swimsuit.  Think about what motivates you and try to use it. 

3.  Remember, even if you fail, it was still worth doing because now you know more about what works/doesn’t work for you, even failure is useful.  Think about why you failed. Did you take on too much, were your goals realistic, did you have the right support in place etc. 

4.  Update often!  Don’t wait until the end of the week to update, it’s too easy to let it slide and lose interest.  Post on other people’s threads and reply to posts on yours.  

 

There’s a great article explaining the challenges Here although it’s from back in the day when they were 6 weeks long, not 4 weeks.   

 

Thank you for the breakdown and encouragement! I created my first challenge, I'm practicing it this week and will start tracking and posting about it next week.

[BlackCatMagic]

I have also created my first challenge.  Excited to get started!

[WhiteGhost]

On 3/14/2019 at 11:25 PM, squeakyvalkyrie said:

I am an adventurer, focused on hiking and moving, parkour especially

Oooh, parkour     Fun stuff!