Thinking About Life Goals

In my last post, I talked about my desire to get to doing things. One of the reasons for that is to get past the “planning and preparation” stages that I so often eagerly jump into but just as often don’t progress beyond. Now, the reason for that is partly because I’m just that way and planning things is enough for me… I like to do that kind of thing! But the main reason why is because I get so caught up in my head, overthinking things or waiting until things or I myself am “the most ready” for whatever.

This causes inaction. Or at the very least just a lot of planning and talk but very little follow-through. Which is quite annoying for me, and I’m sure for those involved in my daily life.

Which is why I’m having a difficult time right now!

The Problem

How would I deal with this? By reading all of Marie Kondo’s books and using the MariKondo method for tidying my things and my apartment.

My “restart plan” essentially outlined what my current major goal is: To do more with each of my days by stop letting clutter get in my way.

My progress so far? Not as… progressed as I would like.

To be fair, Marie said in one of the books that the process can take a long time, sometimes even 6 months. While I don’t think I’ll be working on the tidying part of things for that long, I know that figuring out how to live my life in balance with my things and space will be an ever-changing pursuit as I learn and grow through life.

BUT while I’m going through the process of tidying, cleaning, organizing, and whatnot… I feel like I’m doing the whole, “I’m doing the thing! I’m doing the thing!! I’m going to engage with life again, BUT FIRST I just need to tidy things up and get ready. Then I can start with things again!” thing again. Yanno?

And while there’s a certain amount of time I’m going to have to devote to tidying before I can start to engage with new things, I can’t get stuck here for too long. I can’t afford to keep prepping for what I want and not actually go for the things that I want.

What To Do

Instead of focusing exclusively on getting by with daily life, work, and tidying while sort of “kicking the can” for the real things that I want to focus on down the road, I need to set some other goals for myself. I need to look at myself in a hypothetical future, picture what I’d like to see that look like, then use that to figure out what I’d like to do with my life.

I never really did have a solid, “I wanna do this big epic specific job when I grow up” over my growing up years. Well, I did say that many times, but the career options kept changing with my interests. And I’ve done so many different things over the years that I don’t really have one thing that’s been more important to me than anything else. Well, for the most part.

So, with that in mind, and while still devoting plenty of time to my mental and physical well-being, I’m going to be giving this topic some serious thought over the next several days. It’s an interesting question, the answer to which I’m quite interested to see. What do I want to do when I grow up?

Four things to encourage a healthy mind.

I struggle with fatigue, pain, motivation, and bunch of other things on most days—a lot of which is related to my Crohn’s disease. Over the past couple of years I’ve discovered and developed different tools and methods to keep my mind in a good place. It’s not easy, but it is doable!

One of those tools is to have a handful of things that I try to do every day, however good or bad I’m feeling. I once made a list of those things, but I kept adding to it until it became too much. Your everyday self care list shouldn’t contain everything—you can’t do everything all the time.

After some time, I came up with four main things to do every single day, especially when I’m not feeling so great. These are some of the most basic things that you need to focus on so you can feel better. Using this list as a starting point, you can develop habits and find simple ways to help yourself actually take care of you.

Here are my top four tips to help maintain a healthy mindset!

1. Move your body!

Fun fact! Your body needs to move—a lot. That’s what keeps you in working condition. If you don’t move, then you’re body isn’t going to work properly.

I’m not sure where, but I remember reading about some research that suggested your body can’t keep completely still for very long. Some part of your body needs to move at least every minute, even if it’s a simple blink, twitch, or breath. If you don’t move, your body will try to make you! Otherwise, you’ll die…which isn’t good. 🙁

So get moving! It’s not always easy, I know. But once you start moving, you tend to keep moving. The trick is to take small steps and move your body in smaller ways. If you’re not feeling great you don’t want to add pressure. So start small; get out of bed. It’s as simple as that!

If you do have the energy and drive, then do more! Take a shower, go for a walk, play Just Dance! Everyone needs a workout of some sort. Your workout can be anything you’d like! Just get moving! Let go, and your body will do the rest.

2. Go outside!

The inside is nice, I get it. Most days I don’t want to even peek my head outside let alone go for a walk or get that ingredient I need from the market. The thing is that you need a stimulating environment to get your mind going. Every one of your senses need to be activated. That’s not gonna happen if you stay inside!

You want to feel the movement of air around your skin, take in the warm rays of the sun, look at the colours of things around you… Maybe even interact with some people! Who knows? Just get yourself outside somehow.

If you don’t have the energy to actually go outside, then you can open a window or sit on the porch. Even opening the door and stepping outside for a minute to see what the weather is up to is better than nothing.

3. Engage your mind!

You need to do something that takes some sort of thought or requires your creative thinking. Something to express yourself or be passionate about. Your mind is a powerful system and needs to be stimulated and engaged so it can do its thing.

Maybe you call a friend to talk about you lives, or put together a puzzle that you have on the shelf. Mayhaps you pull out the finger paints! Whatever you do, get obsessed with it and really get into it.

Engaging your mind will help focus your thoughts. It’ll give your brain time to process things. You’re looking for points of disconnect where you’re not just letting your mind veg. You want your mind to actively wander while you focus on completing some sort of task. (If that makes sense… 🧐)

4. Eat flavourful, whole food!

None of that processed stuff…just good, whole food to wake up your taste buds. That could be as simple as having a banana, apple, or other ready-to-eat fruit. Dried fruits are especially good and just like candy!

Eating anything is good because your body needs energy and nutrition. So if you can’t get the best, most fresh foods, that’s okay. You need to eat something at the very least. But try to have at least one meal item that’s not just a packaged edible food-like substance.

Make banana bread, or fry up an egg. Make oatmeal and top it with PB&J! Get creative and try new combos. And when all else fails, just grab a jar of pickles. Nothing wrong with that. Eat!

Anything else?

The best part about these tips is you can combine a lot of them. Put your mental focus into making a little picnic for yourself, then take a short walk to the park and enjoy the outdoors. If you’re having a good day with lots of energy, that might be the perfect solution! If it’s a harder day and you just can’t muster up anything, that’s fine. Do what you can. Maybe just take a shower, doodle in your notebook, grab a slice of bread, and open a window. That’s all you need to do.

While there’s a lot of things that you have to do to take care of yourself every day, these four things are some of the most important areas to cover. But that’s just my advice… What are some of your own tips for taking care of your mind when life is challenging? Do you have your own priority list for self-care? Let me know in the comments! 🙂

Weekly, not daily!

I’m gonna start blogging again. However, instead of writing a new post every single day, I’ll be posting once a week. Unless I feel like there’s more to say, but my weekly minimum post count shall be one.

Over the past few weeks I’ve been clicking through my blog and rediscovering some aspects of my recent history that have helped me to gain a greater sense of place and progress. Some of the posts have also reminded me for what I used to hope and strive. It’s a good exercise, and exactly the point of my *formerly* daily blog.

I hope that by resuming my blog, I’ll exercise my creative mind and aspire to put fingers to plastic in my never ending pursuit of doing stuff. Also, I hope to be more accountable to myself and continue documenting what I’m thinking for future Matthew to reflect upon.

Until next post! 😸

The Canada 150 Play List

On July 1st, 2017, Canada will be celebrating 150 years since confederation and Canadian history in general. Because of this, all of 2017 is being filled with Canada 150 activities, including free admission to Canada’s national parks, many special events, projects, and general celebration!

ParticipACTION, a national organization promoting physical activity in Canada, is getting in on the action by challenging Canadians to complete activities from their Canada 150 Play List. Last fall, they asked Canadians what activities and sports they enjoyed and used the feedback to create this list. People can now complete those activities as individuals or as part of a group and mark their progress online and even win prizes! So basically, the more activities you complete from the play list, the more entries you get in the contest. Fun, right? I thought so!

I’ve been following this campaign from the beginning and submitted several activities for inclusion in the play list. In January, I decided that I was going to complete every item on the Canada 150 Play List in 2017! It’s one of my 2017 goals.

That’s right! By the end of the year, I want to point to this list and say that I’ve done it all. But that’s a big goal, right? It averages out to one new activity completed every 2.3 ish days, which isn’t too bad since some of the activities are very accessible. What’s gonna be hard is doing things like sledge hockey, dragon boating, horseback riding, waterskiing, etc since they require special equipment. It’s completely doable, though! And it will be done! 😀

What I’m looking forward to the most is sharing these experiences with friends and family, and maybe even make new friends too. Who knows where the play list will take me – there are some pretty crazy things on there! In the past several months, I’ve already completed several of the activities with a bunch of friends and family, including camping, hiking, snowball fighting, igloo building, walking, snowman building, gardening, tree climbing, car washing, geocaching, dancing and more. It’s been a total blast! But even if I’m completing items from the play list by myself, it’s progress. The big idea here is that I’m gonna keep active this year. And so far I’m doing pretty well!

Note to self: Don’t stay still! Move every day!

Watch out, Canada 150 Play List! I’m coming for you.

A new week!

So last week went fairly well. Especially goal-wise! Huzzah and Wooton!!

And now for my report card on how I did this past week. I’ll try to not be too hard on myself (after all, these are goals to push myself forward), but still make an honest assessment.

Last week’s ‘getting back on track’ goals.

1. No technology after 10:00 pm – B-

I did not too bad… at first. On the weekend I slid a little bit, but that was partially due to not feeling great and having a hard time sleeping. But I feel great with how I did and especially with the results of cutting back on night-time technology use. I found that it really helped me get ready for bed way earlier than I usually do.

2. Walk the dogs daily – A+

The muppies were so excited about getting daily walks again! Well, more like beyond excited. Especially once they figured out that there was a pattern developing. They wouldn’t have let me forget about this goal even if I wanted to. I really enjoyed the time outside in the dark night. Even if it was -30° C for a couple of days.

3. Keep a positive attitude – A+

I excelled at this one, as expected! 😛 Now I’m using it to artificially inflate my overall score for this week, thus making me feel better about my goal-setting and achieving powers.

Overall score: A

Yay for new goals!

1. No technology after 10:00 pm

I’m gonna stick this one in here again and probably keep it around until it becomes more of a habit.

2. Work on plans for the fall

I had intended to use February as a planning month to figure out what I will be doing after Paddlefest and my summer trip. I have made almost no progress on doing this, and so with the last week of February upon me (eek!), I decided to make this one of my goals.

3. Finish editing and release podcast

I started editing The Cowmoonity Fancast on Saturday, but I didn’t get to finish it over the weekend for various reasons. It needs to be done this week for sure, so to the list it is added!

4. Eat more often

I have been having tummy problems the past few days. Recently when that happens, I’m finding myself eating very little. This isn’t good, especially for my energy levels. But when I am having tummy issues, I find that it’s better to eat smaller amounts of simpler foods more frequently throughout the day. That is what I need to start doing again.

5. Bonus! Write at least two blog posts

I’m not going to require myself to complete this goal this week, especially since the other goals are more important. But I wanted to add this one as a little bonus thing for myself.

And there we go! I was thinking of adding the dog walking in again, but I feel like that’s quickly becoming a habit that I will keep up.

Wow, five goals this week. Until I sat down to think about my goals, I had no clue that was going to happen. But, onward and upward!

Getting back on track

I used to set goals for myself on a weekly basis, especially during and immediately after my big illness. I keep trying to get back to those habits and systems that helped me to feel healthy and be productive, but it’s tough.

For the past several weeks, I’ve been following Kelli Taylor’s blog (Kelli from Blimey Cow). Each Monday she posts a new set of goals for the week along with a follow-up report card from the previous week’s goals. Since I’ve been having such a hard time sticking to my systems and such, I’m gonna borrow this idea for myself. (Hope that’s okay, Kelli!) Just another system to help keep me on track.

1. No technology after 10:00 pm.

In an effort to get myself prepared for and into bed (to actually sleep) sooner, I’ve decided to bring back an old goal that I used to keep on a regular basis. So unless there’s some actual good reason, I’m not going to use any technology after 10:00 pm. The only exceptions being my CD player for some sleepy-time Odyssey or music, and Game of Thrones watching parties on the weekend. 🙂

2. Walk the dogs daily.

I used to take the muppies for walks on a regular basis. This past weekend, I was dog/house sitting and took this other dog for walks each day. During one of those walks, I thought to myself, “Why don’t I take my dogs for walks anymore? I love taking walks with them.” And so, this has become my second goal for this week. Not only will the dogs really enjoy the time outside, it will keep me moving. Which is something I need more of, especially with a lack of motivation and cold temperatures.

3. Keep a positive attitude.

As most of my friends know, I’m super positive. But I’m including this as a goal because as I get started with these other goals, I need to remember to stay positive. I might fail with some things, but I’ll get there eventually. Though I’m purposely keeping these goals fairly simple.

Anywho, there you have it. I’ll follow-up next Monday with a report on how I did.