I have never ever ever ever ever tracked and reviewed what I do so deeply as I do now.
Short post – I am making serious progress in my “days of massive action” quest.
Longer Post
It hurts when I miss something, fuck something up, feel shit, get low on energy, low on money, low on motivation and many other things.
It hurts for a few seconds and then I know what to do. Mainly “what to do” is to keep moving, keep momentum and part of that means sitting still and meditating everyday.
Making time for doing absolutely nothing has been the best way to get more done. I actively avoid movies, TV, radio, newspapers and Netflix (apart from House of Cards and Community of course….)
I walk around as much as I can “allow myself to think” – I can’t tell you how I worked all this out, it suddenly seems to have started flowing and happening in the last few weeks.
I also have acquired large chunks of time in my day because my anxiety level has dropped like a bus full of elephants off a skyscraper. I just can’t get over how much time I spent worrying, fretting, panicking, melting, fantasising, avoiding, procrastinating, mind mashing, boiling, drilling, sieving, dramatising, distressing, puking, whining, shaming, over thinking and under thinking.
Now all that has gone and have my glow back. Again I’d love to tell you how to do this, but it seems to have just “happened” – odd as that sounds.
My answer this week is still diet and time. For most of 2015 I have quit / avoided ALL sugar (even fruit), processed food, bread, gluten and dairy and caffeine. I eat mostly vegetables, fish and occasional good beef or lamb. I have been guzzling decaf “bulletproof” coffee as well – this works to me – but I think the dramatic change over the year has been the food and most of all quitting sugar.
The other genre I gorge with on Netflix alongside House of Cards are countless movies on food production, corporations and nutrition. It is mind boggling how much of what we get in the supermarket is chemical based Frankenstein food that is void of real nutritional value.
What do you eat Bernie?
People really do often ask me “what do you eat then?” The thought of eating something without a barcode or e-numbers on the side confuses people – it used to confuse me.
I really worry about sounding like David Ike or a possessed evangelist – but eating real food has massively impacted my mental well-being and as a bonus my waistline is less too.
Pizza and sausages are amazing so that is not my issue. For me the issue is the food label, the packaging and the pricing. Then the impact of shit food production on the environment and our health.
The meat industry contributes more to global warming than the car industry. But you knew that.
The other thing that is bothering me….
When the word “coach” comes up in conversation I look for the nearest exit or something sharp to defend myself.
I am totally up for self improvement, self awareness and courage – these areas I consider vital for living an awake life.
What I need something sharp for is to stab the people who watched the movie “The Secret” and could instruct fellow human beings on manifesting their dreams and using social media.
So you can imagine my distress when I started using an app called coach.me and quick developed 41 small actions I take every week, at least half of these are everyday – 750words, drink more water, don’t leave #babybernie on the the bus, record a podcast, don’t be an asshole.
I have now checked in over 1500 times by way of a little swipe on my phone to track my day. I am failing at things like practice Spanish, use YNAB to track money and post a video to You Tube and of course ‘don’t be an asshole’.
It is not the end of the world I don’t do these things, the awareness that I am missing them out enables me to realign my commitment and work out where to fit them in, of if I need to do them at all.
The Spanish goal I’ll focus on this over Christmas when our brother in law comes from Spain. Of course I have a zillion lame reasons why I have not learnt Spanish after a decade of be married to a Spanish speaker, but let’s not talk about that.
Falling towards Argentina
I can’t wait to move to Argentina next year and be thrown in at the deep end. Looking back over the last 10 years all I could hear was “you need to know Spanish to get a job in Argentina” really all I needed was an Internet connection and I would have been away AND would be fluent in Spanish by now.
It was my fault, I should have come clean about not wanting a job and being completely unemployable, but hey – I always knew life was what happens when you are making plans.
Now where is that to do list?
