100 Day Challenge: Day 66
Kicking back at Mom and Dad's on what is now technically the day before Christmas.
It is amazing how much a change of setting can help clear your mind. I have nothing to worry about right now. Talking to my mom she helped me see where I've pulled myself into a spiral of worry. I keep telling myself to relax but I never seem to really be able to. As my mom pointed out, I worry about how I'm relaxing. Strange when I think about it, "Why are American's so violent about being non-violent?" -Unknown (To me anyway, I'l dig it up from In Search of the Warrior Spirit later).
I've been thinking on what I want to do during the upcoming new year. I've come up with becoming more disciplined, being more relaxed, and improving my outlook on life.
The big thing on my agenda is to start my programming classes by the beginning of next school year. The other really big thing I'd like to do is to take my Martial Arts training to the next level, I feel like I just kind of floated into my 2nd Degree. I did put some work and effort into getting it. I gave it my all while I was testing, but I could have done a much better job getting ready for the test. I've got at least a couple years to work up to 3rd Degree.
The biggest area I've been working on is balance, a couple things I learned from Tai Chi is to put your mind into your feet and into your center, as well as to move from your center. I'm amazed at the difference I feel in movement and stability.
Well everyone make it a great one and happy holidays!
100 Day Challenge: Day 34
Been a few days since my last update.
Some lessons learned this week: Be active in how you spend your time and have specific goals. I put those lessons into play today, by making a to do list. I ended up giving myself a dozen tasks to do and I've completed all but two so far. (This post is one of them so when I'm done here 
) For a while I've had a negative association with to do lists. That happened after listening to the program: Focus by Stephen Covey. I did like what they had with priorities and understanding what is really important. As far as budgeting my time goes, I've started devising a method to keep track of all the things I have to do, as well as prioritize them and to make sure that I get a lot of things done from various areas of my life.
I'm thinking that I'll break my life down into areas such as: School, Work, Homework, Teaching, MA Practice, House Cleaning, and Play. With categories like that in mind then I can budget my day around what needs to be done. Such as having school for an hour on Monday. Then figuring out time for Homework, which I can budget to a specific block, say something like 10:30 - 12:30. Then repeat for other things that need to be done. The priorities would come into play like: 1st Priority: School, 2nd Martial Arts, 3rd Work, 4th House Keeping, etc. The priorities will vary from day to day. As on day like today, both Play and House Keeping are about the same priority level. While Homework comes after those.
Something else I've been doing this week is spending time listening to myself. In my last post I was asking for help with finding Durable Fulfillment, I still haven't found it by any means. But thanks to a comment from Nathan, I've been stopping and listening to myself and to life. It's been interesting. I'll write more about that as I have more experience with it
Alright, well I'm going to call it a night and just spend some time relaxing in my freshly cleaned and reorganized room. It is interesting to not how much of an effect the arrangement of space can have on your mood. Or at least the cleanliness of space. Actually there was a quote I gave to Mr. Smith earlier this week when he was talking about doing a deep clean on his office at home. I got it in an Insight of the Day e-mail: "Every mess in your life is an obstacle to abundance." It really seemed to hit home for him. My own experience of having my closets pretty well organized, my bed made, and I rearranged the space in my bedroom so it seems a lot more functional/inviting. Essentially, I've created a space I can retreat to and shut a lot of noise from life out of. Now I'm realizing I need some more things to hang on my walls, there's a lot of empty space that can be used for inspiration/soothing things
Everyone have a good night, I'll post a video tomorrow.
Make it a great one!