Resolutions: February 2012

"We become what we want to be by consistently being what we want to become each day."

And so after close to a month of practicing the habits I set out to cultivate in January, I am happy to report that despite some occasional lapses,  I've managed to inch a little closer to sleeping earlier, having a daily exercise routine, drinking a cup of water in the morning, and keeping an expenses log.

The habits that I would still need to work on are: eating breakfast at home and well, hydration.

Now that the month is drawing to an end, it's exciting to look forward to conquering an additional new set of challenges for February.

Here they are:

1. Plan outfits, bags etc the night before.
2. Wake up when the alarm rings (do not snooze). 
3. Be punctual. 
4. Perform acts of service with a smile.
5. Practice deep listening.

The mini-projects I would work on are in the domains of Self (Grooming) and Projects (Paper Boxes, Script).

Sounds like I've got February all cut out for me now!

Mindfulness training

Hello fellow Better Selves Project mates! Really enjoyed our little spontaneous meet up yesterday, after the visual treat of watching The Artist.

When I woke up this morning, I thought the film and my experience after tied up pretty nicely in an insight. 

The Artist was clever in its referencing of cinematic conventions and techniques, even as it was a love note and homage to the golden age of black-and-white, silent films. But more that that, its self-reflexivity sensitized me to the experience of watching a film.  

But what does this have to do with anything?

I know I broke a few of my own restrictions yesterday, i.e., eating popcorn (I don't know whether it's supposed to be "heaty"), eating chilli from the baby crayfish spaghetti (I realised only at the end that I had forgotten to tell them not to put chilli, was wondering how come I don't remember it being so spicy), and drink a bit of the summer waltz latte (by accident ah, I really didn't know it was coffee, was so taken in by summer and waltz and the osmanthus), and also didn't sleep by midnight.

(But it's not that I didn't take my restrictions seriously. Other than the accidents, I guess the part about hanging out later than I should was a conscious decision because of the very very great company)

The point of the post however, is not about the transgressions. But rather, what the "transgressions" had given me the opportunity to experience - the value and pleasures of little luxuries I had once taken for granted. 

Without my rules and restrictions, hanging out till late would just be like ok, another outing with friends, but because of the rule of sleeping earlier and the rule of not taking a taxi, I was then mindful of the decisions I was making, and weighing out what was more important to me.

But having said that, I think I still did pretty ok. I resisted the urge to stay out longer and also managed to take the public transport home.

Looking forward to meeting up again next week! :)

21 Days to Change A Habit

How apt then, that our upcoming review meeting for the Better Self Project will be on 21 Jan!

For January, I had set myself the following target resolutions:

1. Jog daily for 10 minutes.
2. Drink a cup of water first thing in the morning
3. Eat breakfast. 
4. Sleep at 11pm every night. 
5. Record daily expenses.   
6. Clear up backlog reports and work. 

Since we still have about a week to our accountability review,  thought it'd be useful for me to do a quick review here so that I can attempt some tweaking or corrective actions (aka last ditch attempts hee).

Generally, I must say, I've found it surprisingly quite easy to incorporate the life-style changes into my daily routines. Am definitely on track with resolutions 1 to 5 (Yes, believe it or not, have managed to keep up with my running!). Although some areas could of course, still do with improvement. (Right now, due to the lack of time, I just tend to ta bao my breakfast and run off to office. However, I still want to work towards my ideal scenario of having time to eat my breakfast leisurely at home, and definitely want to work on being early for work).

However, I'm still having a bit of a problem with Resolution 6. Considering that I want to leave work on time and not do work on the weekends, this has been quite difficult, especially since time at work often gets taken up by meetings and other paper work. I guess I need to squeeze some time next week to clear up the reports so that I can look ahead, rather than live in fear of deadlines (which is an emotion that is not only exhausting but unproductive).

Will report good news next Saturday!

(Ok off to bed now!)

The Storyteller

Lately, I've been going for a number of meet-ups with friends I haven't seen in a while. And like all meet-ups, there would be a component where we each update the other on what's been happening in our lives. Ideally, this would be a great opportunity to showcase what a collected, calm, well put-together, positive person I have grown to become. Instead, I often fall back on stories that bore even me. Yes, the same old stories of what's happening at work, etc, angsty thoughts on certain issues that's troubling me now, my health, etc.

It was probably cathartic once, but like a well-rehearsed script, it has gotten tired.  And worse, at the end of the meet-ups, I often regret about letting on too much information, and feel bad about sounding so negative.

Let's hold on to the analogy of the script as I dissect this a little further. You see, I guess once I had "written" these repository of stories for myself, I somehow feel obliged to repeat the lines ad nauseum whenever someone mentions key words like "how's life?", "how's work?" etc. I go to the meeting thinking in my head at the start, don't tell them the story again, don't reveal those angsty thoughts, just smile and tell them new stories. But once I get to the hello, the same words just start tumbling out, inexplicably without control.

Why should I persist in telling stories that are no longer helpful to me?

So my challenge to myself is this. To write new stories about myself and to practise my new lines till I've learnt them by heart.

After all, we are the stories we tell ourselves, so choose our stories well.

2012 - A Commitment to Change

Fresh from the discussions we had yesterday (welcome to the club, Yishu!), I decided to ride on this wave on motivation to get started on mapping out my life into the various domains.  

So here it is!!