Building On Small Successes

So now that you're starting to move a little bit or are at least thinking about it more than you may have been, I am reminded of something a lot of geek folks deal with... we tend to want to be perfect straight out of the chute.

Well, here's the deal: it doesn't work that way. Yeah, we tend to learn fast and that's probably our ticket to stardom, but you've still got to start somewhere when it comes to something new. This is especially true when it comes to physical activity when you may not have had much focus on that in the past. (Any?)

You can get this message many places and the concept is applicable to all aspects of life and work.

The first time I ran across it and noticed it for the good advice that it really is was in a book called The Runner's Handbook by Bob Glover. He writes about his Run Easy program where the amount of running (or even walking, depending on the level of fitness you're starting with) he advocates in the beginning is so small as to be downright embarrassing. At least that tends to be true for those of us Type-A folks whose natural inclination is to "get in there and do it right if we're going to bother to get in there and do it at all. The trouble with the Type-A approach is that it just isn't sustainable.

FlyLady knows that starting small and building up from there is where it's at too. I'm sure you're sniggering now - or will be as soon as you visit the site. One of smartest geeks I know, though, is out there shining his sink and doing the 27-fling boogie on a regular basis.

Many of the Eastern philosophies dwell deeply on the subject too. Don't beat yourself up if you're not "there" yet - work on where you are instead and begin stretching out from there when you're ready. If it sounds like yoga, you're not far off, given that it's where I heard the message most recently myself. Added bonus for the male-dominated field of tech-geeks: group yoga classes can be a great place to pick up babes.

On a related, but less physical note, there's even a book called Start Where You Are that takes the reader through at least some of the how of giving into what is happening with us right now and learning to accept and even use it to make improvements.

What stands in your way? What do you do to overcome that? Send your thoughts to me at techsurvivor@soaringmountain.com and we'll discuss it.

For now, what is one small step you can take toward your goal? Are you willing to make that step?

Get a Move On!

Have you moved yet today?

I don't mean from bed to car to desk to car to couch. I mean getting fresh oxygen into your lungs and getting your blood circulating. If your idea of a break and some fresh air is to step outside (only because that's what's expected) for a smoke, then this goes double for you.

Lack of time is one of the biggest reasons I hear people don't do anything to get (and stay) fit. The real reason (and the second most likely cited) is lack of motivation. Why is that? For many of us, it's because we've thought of ourselves as a brain that just happens to be associated with a body for so long we've forgotten that the two do actually come as a matched set. For others, maybe the desire to play video games the 20 hours a day we don't sleep is more enticing.

In truth, though, just about anything else that we do and enjoy can be made better by paying at least some attention to our bodies by looking after them and caring for them to some degree. That is even true if we give it just 10 minutes at a time.

When we get regular cardiovascular exercise of some kind, we live longer, feel better, enjoy food more, get to eat more food (or don't have to cut out quite as much), and have more stamina to do the other things we like to do. Yes, even THAT.

Let's pretend that you decide you really are motivated to get with this fitness thing. You're not angling to become the next governor of California or anything, you just want to be able to walk around the block without getting out of breath. There's that time factor of course, so how do you deal with that? Well, how about starting with just ten minutes at a time. Take a walk instead of having a smoke. Or find something else you enjoy doing - a quick bike ride, shoot some hoops, go for a run, or even yoga (don't laugh - have you tried it?). If you belong to a gym, you probably have even more options available to you. Swimming is one of my favorites. I can get a full body workout in a short period of time and I usually don't spend the next half hour sweating.

One great way to ease your way into this moving thing without having to dive right into a big commitment is to focus on the 10,000 Steps advocated by the Surgeon General. Don't try to DO 10,000 steps just yet. Just track with a pedometer (this one I won't link out to - there are too many to try to indicate a preference) and make a note of how many steps you're walking each day. After doing that for a while, start increasing it, just a little each week. While you're at it, take note of how you're feeling. If you're increasing your activity slowly enough, you'll probably be feeling better in all sorts of ways you may not have even thought about before. And THAT can help provide some of the motivation you may have been lacking up until this point to get out and move.

Oh, and do us all a favor - consult with a doctor before making any serious changes to your level of activity. The presumption here is that you do have a brain attached to that body you're thinking of taking better care of.

What's your favorite activity for attaining/maintaining some level of fitness? What kind of results have you noticed? What are your favorite excuses for not being more fit? If you have of any of these or any helpful advice to share with others, send them to me at techsurvivor@soaringmountain.com.

Just remember, "Everything in moderation - including moderation". The idea is to enjoy life!

Letting Go...

Today it's raining. Big surprise given that I live in Seattle, if you believe the stereotype but that's beside the point. What I've noticed today, is that after having a truly superb summer (assuming it's not a part of the whole global warming trend that folks are concerned about), it's finally feeling like fall is really setting in. The weather has definitely changed and everything feels different now.

Some people are whining about it but you already know I don't go for whining, right? The rest of us are thinking about what else we can do with the time that's productive.

Personally, I like taking my cue from the seasons. Summer is a great time to be out there doing things, having fun and making things happen. The whole world is active and it feels right to participate in that activity. Then, late summer and early fall is harvest time in nature and I start thinking about paying attention to the successes I've had. It's usually good timing too because it's not too unusual that this is when I'm asked to write something up about my performance during the previous year.

Then October comes and by the middle of the month, the leaves are starting to color and fall off in earnest. It's time to let go of stuff.

What can I clean off my desk? What stuff at home can I bag up to give away to charities or sell on eBay? If I get enough junk tossed, I find I can even begin to think about what mental clutter I could be ditching too.

For me, mental clutter is outmoded assumptions, beliefs that don't help me get where I want, and any negative thoughts that I have to keep navigating around just to get through the day. Imagine piles of newspapers around that have to be stepped over or through just to get anywhere. Eventually I get tired of it and it just has to go... my thought processes are no different in that respect than the physical space around me.

So what about you? What thoughts or beliefs are keeping you from whatever it is you want? Are you ready to let go of any of that yet? If not, what would it take to be ready? I think it would be cool to hear what you're letting go of... and even more cool to hear what happens afterward. Send me an email at techsurvivor@soaringmountain.com and let me know what you're up to.

Learning to let go is a powerful way of making room for something even better.

Cool Defined

What's your definition of cool? If it includes the notion that the thing or idea has to have some useful purpose in conjunction with the other factors that elevate its stature to the level of "cool" then we have at least one thing in common. Wanna know something cool - something you may have noticed already but might not have known you can put to good use?

Let's say you have a friend who buys a new car (okay, I realize for some folks, this may be a bit of a stretch, but hey, is it more or less of a stretch to imagine you have a friend or that YOU would be the one to buy a new car?). Done snorting your Mountain Dew? Good. Now let's say it's a car you hadn't noticed much previously on the street. Now you're seeing it everywhere!

You've had something like this happen, right? Not suprisingly (once you think about it, anyway, something I never did till recently), there's a name for this. It's called the Reticular Activating System (RAS) and it explains how what we see and hear and how we interpret that information is closely intertwined with what we think is important. It's related to a lot of other things too but the impact of our underlying thinking on the filtering system that determines what we are able to notice in our lives is the part that is truly cool.

Have you figured out how to use this knowledge yet?

If there is something you want, the trick to getting it is to program your RAS to recognize anything having to do with this new interest as "important" so that it will include it when selecting what information to pass along to your cerebral cortex. You can do this by talking about it to yourself and other people and you can also do it by writing it down. In fact, the more senses you can use and the more often you use them, the stronger the programming will be.

Try this - write out a goal that you have. Now say it out loud at least once a day; more is better. Chances are pretty good that if you do this enough, you'll start noticing a lot more conversations, web articles, TV shows, course offerings, books, etc. related to your goal than you ever have before. If you're like many people, you'll even start running across new opportunities related to your goal. Why does it seem like these things are suddenly appearing out of nowhere? Unless you are using Arthur C. Clarke's definition, it's not magic, it's just that your attention has been newly drawn to information and experiences that quite likely have always been there because of successful programming of your RAS.

If you want to see this brain functioning at work in a different way, try visiting www.tolerance.org, where you can take any of a series of tests designed by researchers at Yale and the University of Washington to measure unconscious bias using this same basic premise.

If you try this, I think it would be cool (interesting AND useful) to mention some of the results here, so let me know what your experience is by sending a message to techsurvivor@soaringmountain.com.

If it's true that our brains are hardwired to provide us with supporting evidence for whatever it is we believe, what will YOU choose to believe?

Accept No Substitute!

Okay, so I like to tell rambling stories I think will make a useful point. If you've got a problem with that, go find another blog.

If you're looking for work and are willing to stretch an analogy a bit, read on.

I once lived in a studio apartment in the city. I was tending bar at the time so was getting home very late, long after all of the other car-driving city-dwellers had parked for the night. As a result, finding a space for my own vehicle tended to be a rather dicey proposition.

One night, I started the usual routine of checking out the most likely spots for parking near my apartment. Nothing doing, so I expanded the circle a bit and continued cruising for a space. Still nothing, so I expanded further.

Twenty minutes later, dog-tired from a night of pouring drinks for other people, I was starting to feel a bit desperate. I was now looking for parking four and five blocks away from my domicile - farther than I'd ever looked before. Although it was not a part of town where people generally cared to come visit of their own volition, safety wasn't really an issue. I just didn't feel like walking that far. When the search pattern had expanded to six blocks, though, I started getting angry.

At forty minutes into the process, somewhere around seven or eight blocks, a huge calm washed over me. The scene had become downright ludicrous. This far away, I was now practically in another part of town, one I probably wouldn't even choose to drive through under normal circumstances. There simply was no way I was going to park there. Whatever other choices I felt I had or did not have, parking this far out (especially in that area) was no longer under consideration. I crossed it off my mental list.

Once I was clear on that, I started back in closer to my apartment. I made up my mind that, however it had seemed earlier, I simply would not even look beyond a two-block radius of my home for parking. It wasn't worth it to me and I had become convinced that getting desperate enough to tolerate something that was otherwise unacceptable to me had not helped. From that point forward, I was determined that I would accept only what I really wanted in terms of a parking place - two blocks from home, no farther.

Under the circumstances, this can seem a terribly foolish demand to make. Did I think the parking fairy was going to come grant my wish every night at 3:30am? Maybe I thought some of the nicer neighbors would save me a spot. Yeah, right.

I won't say it was always easy. There were times when my resolve was sorely tested. Even so, I never went more than 20 minutes after that looking for a place to park. And I always found one inside that two-block radius I insisted on.

I can't say I really know how it worked but clearly it did. I lived there for about a year and the process never failed me, not even once, in all that whole time. I do think I know now what it took to work though, so I'll share that - I'm certain the concept is transferable to just about anything else related to a search, whether you're talking about parking, a place to live, a job, or a spouse.

1. Absolute clarity - if you don't know exactly what you want, it's tough to know what's acceptable and what's not.
   
2. Laser focus - if something doesn't meet your criteria, don't waste your time on it; it's not worth it.
   
3. Patience - when it doesn't happen the way you want right away, it's fair to look again at your criteria and change that if it doesn't suit you. Do not, however, be tempted into giving up #2 just because it's taking some time.
   
4. Go ahead and believe in magic. Okay, this one is gratuitous. Sometimes, though, the unexplainable happens and it's simpler just to call it magic until it can be explained; if you're at least open to the possibility, it increases your awareness so that it's easier to see things you might have missed otherwise.

When you really want something, what works for you? Send your ideas or your questions to techsurvivor@soaringmountain.com so I can share or respond.

Make a choice to accept only what you truly want in life. Don't waste your time in tolerating anything less.

Good For a Laugh

A while back I mentioned mechanisms for coping with change. Humor is always one of my favorites. Although I'm a big fan of the darkest black gallows humor, I find that it is easy to get too much of it. Or addicted to it.

And you can just plain forget the nasty caustic humor us geek types so often fall back on. Tearing down someone else for our own amusement isn't funny for long, if at all and the Us vs. Them mentality it fosters just doesn't equal progress in my book. Besides, it's bad karma, eh?

So that leaves just the stupid, wimpy humor, right? Where's the fun in that? Finding the in-between can take some effort but the pay-off is big when we can find it.

There's the good ol' Dilbert standby of course. And while he does poke fun, the geeks get ribbed as much for their foibles as do the managers, marketing-types, and vendors.

One of the best curtain-pullers I know right now is Jon Stewart and the rest of the Daily Show crew. They've gotten so good at seeing the crazy truth behind what passes for current events these days that I find it the most watchable (and often the most informative) news source I can bother to tune into anymore.

I've recently also started paying attention to a couple of relative new-comer's on the comic strip scene. They don't always have me totally on the floor busting a gut... but they're amusing and often very pointed in their humor. When you need a good laugh, check these guys out:

Geek Salad - Because salad is good for you!
User Friendly the Comic Strip

What makes you laugh? For real and really makes you feel good enough to keep going when the going starts getting tough? Let's get a collection of geek humor going - send your favorite links to me at techsurvivor@soaringmountain.com.

Go for the laughs - the real ones - it's a great endorphin rush, spurs creativity and burns calories. Honest!