Obligatory Year Changeover post

So, 2012 is drawing to a close, and 2013 is about to start. It's fairly traditional at this point to look back over the year that's gone, and look forward to the new one.

What happened in 2012?

• I was depressed for most of it, but I seem to be out from under the worst of it
• I went to Bendigo, Ballarat, Florence and Seattle for the first time ever
• I saw the Olympics
• I cooked a turkey for the first time ever, and in fact, made roasts a regular thing
• I bought a slow cooker and have been using it with wild abandon
• I have successfully not killed plants
• I have tried (and failed several times) to exercise regularly
• I changed medications from dexamphetamine to modafinil
• I got out more - although I also did spend a couple of stretches housebound for a month
• I lost 10kgs
• Moved to vibrams as my main shoe choice (good for my footsies and spine)

What do I want out of 2013?

• I want to establish regular exercise, with a view to doing parkour classes regularly
• I want to go to Florence again, and also Paris, maybe Wales, Cornwall, or Scotland
• Continue to not kill plants, and establish a working kitchen herb garden on my windowsill
• Do a photography walk in/around London at least once a fortnight - suggestions for locations solicited
• More firmly establish the practice of home cooked meals for both of us
• Establish and grow closer friendships with local people
• Not lose contact with my friends in Brisbane or around Australia
• Write more consistently
• In general, live a more consistently active life, the does not have quite so many bust cycles where I am housebound/bedbound for days/weeks/months at a time
• Work out what my immediate (2-3 years) goals are, and pursue them
• Lose the remaining excess weight of about 15kgs
• Have a more even emotional keel than the previous 3ish years

Well, those are quite some lists. I feel in 2012 I was in a bit of a holding pattern - I didn't accomplish much, not obviously - but getting the better of the diagnosis-related depression is actually kind of huge. I've also mostly got over the culture shock from moving, with a related decrease in my general stress/anxiety levels, which is also noteworthy. 

I'm moderately ambitious for 2013. I'm hoping to establish a new baseline for life that I'm happy with - nothing too major, but enough so that I don't feel like I'm rotting away, or doing the non-tv-watcher's version of sitting at home all day watching daytime TV.

Questions, comments, and suggestions welcome.

Inversions: Challenge cycle Nov to Dec

New cycle, new challenge points. 4 goals, six weeks, but this time, some inspiration from George Orwell. 

 

 

Six Week Challenge The Fourth: Nov 12th to Dec 

 

Goal 1: WAR IS PEACE: Challenge my war on myself - Find and change one negative thought cycle or behaviour a week

 

I've developed some negative patterns. Not caring for myself, eating things that I know will bite me back, avoiding new experiences, that kind of thing. I don't necessarily expect any changes to stick; but awareness of habitual thoughts and actions is the first step.   

 

Goal 2: IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH: Challenge my ignorance - Complete monitoring every day

 

I've started using Patients Like Me to gather information about what's actually going on inside my head and body. This involves at-least-daily quick updates of overall mood, and recording what each of my major symptoms is doing. I may talk more indepth about this at another time. I will also attempt to keep a daily log of what I do, and publish it here on my blog. I may or may not publish my recorded charts of symptoms at the end of the period.

 

Goal 3: FREEDOM IS SLAVERY: Challenge Immobility, Inflexibility, and Atrophy - do my physio exercises daily

 

Well, that one's obvious. Although, if I manage to do other physical things, I get bonus points here.

 

Goal 4: DOUBLETHINK: Challenge my mind - Research and write at least one article on my blog a week about something I've learnt

 

Again, this is pretty obvious. I'm going to say it has to be at least 400 words, although I will allow new recipes, tea reviews, book reviews, introspection, and similar. 

Goals are subject to review and update if I find they are not working, or similar. 

This goalset is somewhat less physical than the previous ones I've set, rather more meta and very introspective. I will still attempt to maintain and increase my physical activity, but my focus is very sharply on what's causing me to not be doing said physical activity.  As always, my greatest enemy is myself.

From here to Traceuse

With one thing and another, I carelessly googled 'London Parkour' and found Parkour Generations. If you see this, guys, you gave me insomnia because I was so inspired and keen I couldn't sleep.

I'm realistic enough to know that going along to one of their classes would probably be a bad idea, since I'm in no condition to actually do anything except hurt myself. I will be emailing or phoning them to double-check this, of course. When they say 'all abilities', they may actually mean it. Some internet resources tell me I should be able to do 25 pushups, 5 pullups, and 50 full squats before starting, and that's a ways away yet.

Even so, at one class a week close enough for me to get to, it's probably not enough for me to really make my fitness/strength/skill increase much.

I need some kind of conditioning program to take me from where I am now to there. It has to be able to be done in my home or at my gym. Both have limitations - my home has very little in the way of space or sturdy surfaces aside from the floor, and my gym is ... well, it is definitely a fashion gym, in some ways.

I also need a pair of gloves - partially to protect my skin, partially to protect my rings. They need to be tight, flexible, thin, and fingerless.

I need clothes. I mean, I have one pair of jeans that are suitable for outdoors work, but they're my favourite jeans, and I don't want to bust them. I don't really have a lot of indoor exercise wear at present either, which is annoying. 

I need to drastically increase my flexibility. It's really, really, really bad.

So, I really have two lists: gear, and exercises. Gear involves the dreaded shopping. Ugh.

Exercise wise, most of the advice I've seen concentrates on getting the basic bodyweight strength moves happening first - full squats, pushups, pullups, and ab work. Well, that's okay; I've got a lot of that incorporated into my workouts now, so I'm on my way there. Still, I'm probably also going to throw in some balance and jumping work, to improve my precision and explosive power. For flexibility, I found this parkour flexibility article on post workout flexibility routines. I did some of it today (sans workout, while waiting for deliveries), and it felt awesomely win. It isn't quite sufficient for addressing a couple of my problem areas, but that's alright; I know about those.

That's what I'll concentrate on for this cycle - incorporating the specific flexibility exercises on a close-to-daily basis, focussing on those movements (or foundations for the movements) in my workouts themselves, and go look at the abovelinked Parkour Generations website for ideas on more specific parkour skills and techniques. With luck, I'll be well on my way to starting classes by the end of this cycle.

Now to go think really hard about how to incorporate a few more of these kinds of things in my goals.

Goal setting - the element of risk and reward

So as I rambled in my catchup post, my goals are missing the risk and reward element. This element is supposed to add extra motivation for achieving one's stated, published goals.

This rant was triggered by this post about habits, and especially the part about accountability.

The problem is, I can't think of an appropriate forfeit, or if it's even an appropriate motivational strategy.

Money based ones don't work, because it's not my money I'm spending. Commitment based ones don't work, because I can't really commit to anything because I have the irritating tendency to either not sleep or sleep too much. The same goes for doing stuff forfeits.

The only one that's occurred to me is cutting my hair - and LIKE HELL THAT WILL EVER HAPPEN. It's not a forfeit I'd follow through on. Even a centimetre for each goal not met - well, it's just plain disproportionate, is what it is. The Grow The Hair Project is 4 years old so far, and has another 6 years to go. And I don't have a hairdresser I trust, either. Still - given a hairdresser I trusted with my hair, a long enough timespan, and a few other things, it's about the only idea I've had so far that makes any kind of sense. Actually, the more I think about it, the more it sounds like a good idea.

Except, should I forfeit due to things I can't control, It also raises for me the question of the value of a forfeit in my circumstance. Due to things utterly beyond my control, I may not reach my goals in the time set. In the previous six weeks, for instance, I lost three weeks: one to travel and injury, one and a half to hypersomnia and recovery, and half a week to a cold.

Without either the injury or the hypersomnia I would have had a chance. Combining the two, and I was dead in the water. Throw in travel and a cold and well, it's a good thing I'd nearly achieved my goals by week 3, because I haven't been able to work out since.

I did a lot of walking and photographing on my trip to Kirkland, true. So I stayed active and doing things - but it wasn't directly related with the goals I'd set myself. Well, except the photography for giving me fodder for a post I didn't get around to doing yet. Still - I did my best, given I couldn't run or lift weights because of my injuries (although I did bring along workout gear in case I got better enough, soon enough to use the workout facilities where we were staying). So, I did my best given I couldn't do much.

It does seem easy to me, however, to say 'well I did my best but it's not my fault, really!' as a means to get out of actually doing my best. On the one hand ... there's definitely been days where I've been tempted to use it as an excuse. On the other hand, there was a week where I woke to eat, sleep, pee, and shower occasionally. Followed by one where I walked around the house in a daze, only awake by courtesy. The first week I couldn't avoid, even if I'd had my meds available. That's simply what happens when I push myself for a week. The following week was potentially avoidable, if I'd called up prior to the trip, got a doctor's appointment, and got my meds in a timely fashion. Except - I called as soon as I got back, expecting that, as usual, I'd be able to get an appointment within a week, and got told the next available appointment was four weeks away. Even so, I could have in theory walked down that day to request a new prescription sans appointment - but it was right before the weekend, and not only a weekend, but the Queen's Jubilee weekend. That meant that it would be at least a week before my script would be ready, since it takes two working days, it was a Friday afternoon, and the next working day was the Wednesday. I was still exhausted, and decided to put the request in on Wednesday. That didn't happen, at which point the next day I could get my script was the following Tuesday (if I put it in Thursday) and between coming down with a cold and everything else, I only finally got to the practice yesterday.

Which reminds me. I forgot to call the pharmacy. Which means I can get about half my prescription filled tomorrow, and have to pick up the rest on Thursday, most likely. Great. They say the medication is too expensive to keep much in stock, so they only order in two boxes. As a result, every single time I go down there, they say 'come back for the rest of it tomorrow'. I did ask them nicely to start ordering an extra box, since my script isn't going down and I'm not going anyway, and they said 'just call us the day before you come to collect your medication'. As if it's that easy, sigh.

Right, so with that rather longwinded ramble above, I can see how setting forfeits might work - and then might make me feel like I'd just rolled a series of ones for my saving throws, and had about as much control over the outcome. That is, it's chance, not skill, that determines success or failure.

That's unsatisfactory, to me.

What's also an option is shifting the goalposts. I mean, I had half the challenge wiped out - but I got further (sometimes MUCH further) than halfway on my goals. Still - I'd give myself brownie points for getting better than halfway, rather than successes for getting halfway, if that makes sense. It feels too much like cheating, or gaming the system (Kobiyashi Maru, anyone?).

As motivation, rewards appeal more to me. They're easier to figure out what to do for them (I still want lots of things), and it's a lot easier to say 'I didn't meet the goal, so I don't get x'. I either met my goal or I didn't; being monkeywrenched just means I miss out on a shiny, not that I have to give something up. Being lazy means I don't get the shiny either. There is no way to get the shiny except by excelling.

I already have a list of things I can reward myself with. New corset, new thinkgeek or threadless tees, new earrings from Etsy, something like that. Something meaningful, that I'll use and think of frequently, worth about £60 or so for achieving all my goals. Not so much something like new camera kit - that's too expensive for a 6 week turnaround. Well, until I can work or have an income, anyhow.

The flaw here is that I am tempted to set my goals too low. 

A solution exists, in the form of Extra Credit and Make It Up goals (kudos to Serenity of Nerd Fitness for this idea). Extra Credit goals are the stretch beyond your set goalpoint. Make It Up goals are that 10% you fell short by due to poor circumstance, but made up by substituting similar goals that are still achievable. Extra credit goals let me set goals that I will need to stretch for, without the guilt of falling short if I get monkeywrenched. Make It Up goals let me still attain goals if the bad things happen. Together, they allow me to set a framework up within which I think I can succeed. It's a lot more work than my usual goalsets, and I'll have some hard thinking and self-analysis to do.

So after all that rambling - with this upcoming round of goals, I won't be using a forfeit framework for motivation. I'll be using a reward framework, and a goals framework which includes substitution options for when I'm ill, and extra credit options for when I'm not. This will allow me to both not panic about falling short of my goals, as well as pushing me to reach for my limits.

That's the plan, at any rate. I'll see how it goes, both motivation wise and whether or not I actually improved sufficiently during the period with all things taken into account.

Questioning the 'aim high' ideal

I've been engaging in a round of goal setting and whatnot as part of self.fix() lately. Looking at the advice out there, it seems that a common wisdom is to set barely-achieveable goals, on the theory that if you fall short, hey, you improved, awesome. The idea is, the higher your goal (so long as it's within the realms of potentially realistic) the more you'll achieve in a given period of time.

This is not how I work.

I've tried that approach in the past, and what's happened is the first time I slip up I get a little bit depressed (because I know how slim the margin of success is) and it gets worse as time goes on. Not to mention that the further I'm going to undershoot, the more anxious (and depressed) I get about the whole thing as time goes on. Or, I go all out - and break myself in various ways.

This time, I'm trying a new approach: lots of small goals. Part of this is my Achievements posts; they're recording the tiny, mediocre, mundane goals I achieve on a day to day basis. A way of reminding myself that I am accomplishing something.

Likewise my fitness goals. My workout yesterday set a baseline from which to improve. Whilst I do have very long term goals, these bear little to no resemblance to my shorter term goals. 

So I have goals like eating twice a day, cooking four dinners a week. Improvements on my current situation, and a bit of a stretch for me right now, but certainly not earthshaking or awe-inducing.

I was asked yesterday by one of the guys at the gym what I'd aim to get out of a 12 week lose and shape up course. When I told him that I would aim to increment my exercises such that I would see an improvement over the course of a month, he ran off the spiel about aiming high. When I told him that I'd tried that, and it was for me a recipe for depression and failure, he was surprised, but became less so when I explained the burnout and the anxiety/guilt mechanisms behind it.

I know that with mediocre goals there is, for most people, a temptation to coast and rest on their laurels. Not so for me; until I get to my endpoints, every time I achieve a goal, there will immediately be another replacing it. When I get to the point where I can easily do 10 knee pushups, for instance, I'll start alternating with full pushups until I can do 10 full pushups easily. As I achieve each goal, I'll plan an extra increment beyond the new goal.

For me, continual adaptability is the key; life throws me curveballs, and in order for those to not completely throw me off, I need to have a maximally flexible approach. At the same time, I desperately need structure and plans to follow, otherwise I'll sit on my backside and do nothing at all.

The constantly incrementing mediocre goalset seems, to me, to be a way to satisfy these seemingly mutually exclusive needs.

What are your thoughts on goals, planning, goal setting, and how they interact with success and failure?