FFC2016 - The Next Chapter

PLEDGE FOR THE NEW YEAR

I've made it! I have reached my goal of writing a blog post every day for 365 consecutive days. It's been a challenge and I've accomplished what I set out to do. But life is a series of challenges that are constantly changing and evolving. So today marks the end of a life chapter but also the beginning of another.

The Next Quest
It's just after 5am and I'm sitting at my computer typing this blog from a fresh mind. Currently, I have a few key objectives for this year that I will aim to complete and these are outlined below. I also have a few immediate take out learnings from 2015 that I wish to adhere to. These are the following:

Less battles. I wore myself out in 2015 standing my ground, fighting for the things I believed in and this has taken a lot out of me physically and mentally. This maxim stands true: If I get angry, I am the the loser. My mind has been filled with the planning, advancement, completion of and reflection on my battles fought. Consequently I've been consumed by these thoughts and they've impacted me in negative ways. Hence, I need to focus much more on the positive emotions if I'm to populate my mind with the creative thoughts and body with the necessary energy to encourage further development and success.

Be Happier. I tend to get caught up in concerns about the sad realities of life and focus too much on matters of the human condition - which makes me cynical. The facts of life will always be there as a reminder of the challenges we all face but we can still be appreciative of our good fortunes and approach each day in a positive and playful manner. Bringing attention to those things beyond our control, will only deter thinking away from what is there in front of our face. There's fun and happiness to be had right now in the moment if we allow it. So I intend to practice a daily mantra of gratitude to help promote happy & positive thoughts from the moment I wake until the last moments before falling to sleep. The teachings of the Dalai Lama can show us all how to train our minds to be better individuals for attaining true happiness:

“Today I am fortunate to have woken up, I am alive, I have a precious human life, I am not going to waste it. I am going to use all my energies to develop myself, to expand my heart out to others, to achieve enlightenment for the benefit of all beings, I am going to have kind thoughts towards others, I am not going to get angry or think badly about others, I am going to benefit others as much as I can.”

More compassion. I need to start thinking more of others and treat myself more kindly too. The judgement I bestow upon others is wounding me spiritually. This area of my being is where the greatest work is required and therefore I must practice daily compassion to get better at following the golden rule - being considerate to another's needs, which is just as I wish to be considered in return.

January pledge
- Up early every day at 5am
- Read 20 pages of a book daily
- Lean languages daily with Duolingo
- Qi gong daily
- Yoga daily
- Eat less to lose 'winter coat' and always make fresh meals with more vegetarian options
- Spend less, budget and save money
- Make up some meals from food left in the cupboards to save money
- Buy reduced items from grocers late in the day
- Research blog pages for developing my book
- Find a project I can develop into a new career
- Create an exercise programme outside of the gym
- Create a healthy and nutritious food plan

Statement
I pledge to be more understanding of others, loving & compassionate, more positive and less cynical. The illusion of life, it's shortness and inevitable end, needn't mean I have to believe everything is pointless. I need to concentrate on my key positive character traits which serve me best - namely my: steely determination, spirit of adventure and efficient focus on doing something well through to completion. I simply have to keep in mind my central beliefs for what I'm capable of. If I continue to strive towards achieving goals, just as I always have done, life's purpose will reveal itself and those things I excel in, will in turn, become my loved, rewarding life's work.

I will create my morning ritual and stick to it. This will incorporate daily affirmations, research, good nutrition, exercise and greater awareness of being more attentive to the needs of those around me.

Blogging
My morning's work will be to research the blog posts of 2015 and collate my findings for seeing where I've made gains, where more work needs to be focussed and this information will be written up into a book. I will post my findings once per week every Sunday without fail. They won't have to be long or have any new insightful messages or meaning as I want to focus the time on the book but they will still show any new learnings and the monthly posts will be a gauge on my progress.

This post is also repeated on the new blog called FFC2016, marking the first entry of 2016 and a life of continued mindfulness. To obtain a clearer picture of where my initial thinking lead me on this quest, my principal post from January 2015 can be found here.

Blogging

TESTAMENT TO THE TRUTH

Where has writing a daily blog in 2015 got me? I can't say I've accrued any additional wealth on a financial standing BUT, I have gained a wealth of information about myself and what I need to focus on next year in order to get somewhere in life.

Taking pen to paper or the virtual pen to the screen via a blog, has arguably been the best thing I've done to date. I've had a lot of fun times and I'm fortunate to say there's been a good deal of love, success and happiness over the years. However, we can all get a bit lost or caught up in the day to day dealings in life and suddenly start to question where we are heading? What's our purpose/our calling, and is there even any purpose to it all??? I guess some would call it a mid-life episode, but really, apart from letting go of the frivolities of youth, why do we have to change our ways anyway? Can't we carry on living and appreciating the life we have?

I believe we get too autonomous as we get older - too stuck in our ways. Some of the things we are doing are not good for our health or spiritual development - and if we allow them to go on, we could reach a point of despair later on down the road. This is where taking the time to write down our thoughts and learnings comes in to play. We can monitor just where the time is being spent and work out how best to make the most of the limited time that we have remaining.

All we have to do is to sit down on our own in the mornings and dedicate 20 minutes or so to write out our thoughts. Better still, use the Blogger iPhone app and add to the blog as you go about your day.

10 Day Countdown
It seems hard to believe that I'm just 10 days away from my yearly goal of writing consecutively for 365 days. I couldn't have foreseen this day or even believed it would have been possible, but here I am. It's a real testament to the fact that we just have to take small steps and believe in what we are doing. It's going to be a real eye opener looking back at what my thoughts have been and I very much look forward to the 1st day in January where I'll make my pledges for continuing my quest throughout 2016. 

300

HAPPY 300th FOCUS DAY

Today marks the anniversary of 300 consecutive days writing a blog since starting on the 1st of January 2015. This is by no means my last day and signifies nothing more really than benchmarking the last century before reaching my 365 goal, but doing this feat for 300 straight days is an impressively high number all the same.

The idea of writing every day came about by chance. I wanted to get up early and get my thoughts out in the open and see where it led me. I can still clearly remember that first morning. As the world slept off it's hangovers, I was looking at a blank screen and waiting for inspiration on what topic my first blog page would be about. I wasn't disappointed in what my mind chose to write and the words have continued to flow freely from that day forward. The first week was a monumental milestone for me and as the following weeks came and went, the one month's milestone was special. It confirmed something I already knew...that I was well on my way to change.

Today, as I hit the 300 day milestone, it's still a significant number but it's essentially just another daily reminder - as have been all those other days. They reaffirm my decision for positive change.

This live journal I'm writing, with daily evaluations accessible for all to see and play witness to being learned. It is a clear indicator of progress. It's something we should all try and do. The content should not be a concern - as the words should flow freely from the heart.

And if the idea of publishing content for all to see is too much of an intrusion into our private thoughts, there's a great website that someone has created for this very purpose where the content is hidden, so nobody but you can look back on your 'brain dump'. The website is called 750 words. 

We All Need A Little Help

DONT BE AFRAID TO ASK

We can't be masters of everything we do and we aren't always the best placed person to make the right decisions.

If there's something we need help with, many people would rather convince themselves that they can handle a situation rather than seek help. This is even more the case when it comes to discussing our personal life with an advisor or professional therapist.

We could all do with opening up a bit more to discuss our concerns, worries and dilemmas. It's good to talk. Yet, a lot of us - especially men, will never admit to having a weakness, preferring to bottle up their feelings, where they fester away, until they can't be contained any more.

It's really ok to speak with an expert but if we just can't make that step - the next best solution is to write our feelings down. The very act of writing, will help to purge the thoughts that are making us feel anxious, fearful and vulnerable. And when these words are out there, they can be measured and action taken to fix the issues or the much needed help can be sought after. 

Writing Therapy

PUTTING IT DOWN ON PAPER

According to research discussed by Robert Trivers in his insightful book called The Folly of Fools: The Logic of Deceit and Self-Deception in Human Life, the very act of writing stuff down can help realise change. So if that means making plans for the future or on the flip side writing about traumatic experiences we've suffered - the very act of writing this all down will help to either materialise or purge it.

Apparently, in tests, it was shown that those who had lost their jobs, after 6 months 53% of writers compared to only 18% of non writers had found a new job. One theory is that the anger felt is not displaced on to the new prospective employer and you become more attractive as a potential employee for that company. This theory holds up in all aspects. Try as we might to rid ourselves of the thoughts and fears built up over years - they manifest in several ways throughout our lives. The conscious mind may not detect or can be hiding these hard to remove personality traits. It's at times when we're tired or our conscious mind is dulled through alcohol that we reveal these parts of ourselves that we are trying our best to conceal or contain. Writing them down and facing up to them - then letting them go if destructive, through a symbolic act of deleting, screwing up or burning the paper could also help to free our minds from the torment of past memories.

Burnout

PTSD

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. It's not just the armed forces that get affected. I've been reading some articles today about the effects of being subjected to sustained high levels of stress, the infectuous nature of working with trauma sufferers and fallout from being in this kind of environment for too long. Our front line could be the 9-5, the trauma sufferers our colleagues and the fallout can be the consequences from not dealing with something we're not even unaware of being affected by...

Numbness

When exposed to high levels of stress for sustained periods, soldiers have been observed to display behaviour changes in the form of; mood swings, anger outbursts, lack of empathy and numbness. There's also been studies to show how these same traits can be found in the office workplace - indicated by a clear increase in stress-related symptoms being diagnosed over recent years. A friend of mine who worked in the stock market, had to leave his job because it was affecting his marriage so much. He wasn't as aware of the changes to his character as his wife and friends were at the time, because he spent a major portion of his time at work. This kind of work, although well-paid, is known to be a hi-paced and stressful job. Being in media, there are known high-stress factors affecting certain roles, but being in an ever-more competitive market, the acceptable levels of stress have increased significantly across a multitude of roles and certainly not just representative of those with the highest salaries. So it's inevitable that more people are now working in an elevated state of stress which is not healthy for long periods and is likely why I've noticed the behavioural characteristics my friend, a high-earner from the stock market was displaying in more of my colleagues who are merely doing a regular job in lower paid roles. 

The signs that we're over-stressed don't show up as much until we're outside of the toxic environment. Our partners and friends will point out to us the times we're clearly out of balance. These can show up with an unexpected outburst in minor stress situations, for example; when driving a car. Other sure signs are fatigue - being exhausted at the end of the working week with no energy for the weekend's activities or isolation - unusually quiet/withdrawn & feeling flat/numb in what are usually known to be fun and upbeat situations. 

The feeling of numbness is hard to describe. You can be doing something fun or not so much fun and there'll be no great deviation from the line of zero emotion. There's no/little spike of excitement when there should b,e or emotion when something bad/sad has happened. It is interesting that I've been able to witness and observe these feelings in myself and mostly rectify numbness quickly & easily by readily having something on hand to jar the dulled brain back into life. For others, where they've not been made aware of their symptoms until they are close to burnout, it's maybe not been so easy to fix. 

Life Mantra

There's a simple way to keep on top of how you're feeling and that's to write things down. I've been doing this consistently since 2010. Every year I make a list of the things I want to achieve at the beginning and evaluate them at the end of the year. This is great practice as there's a master plan in place. But, you'll have some known truths about yourself that will help or hinder your achievements and this is where your mantra comes in. I write down what things negatively affect me - like being in a stressful work environment, dealing with difficult characters or having to repeatedly do things that irritate me. I'll then have a list of positives that I can also get from being in those environments/situations and have some extra known tasks, activities and tricks that I can draw on to help adjust the balance if the day is particularly tough. Some examples of these easy to obtain positivity enhancers are:

- Doing some exercise at the gym

- Riding my road bike

- Going for a walk

- Eating a nice meal

- Watching or listening to some comedy

- Watching an inspirational TED video

- Listening to music or a pod cast

- Sleep

The not so easy to get immediately but best positivity enhancers are things like; taking quality time out, ie. getting away for a weekend break or longer with partners and friends. These need to be factored-in regularly and there needs to be time for assessment and self-reflection. I now make regular checks every day when writing a blog and it's helped keep track of a number of things - in particular, the life/work balance. 

Get out and move on

Whatever your reasons for remaining in a bad situation/environment/job, when you realise that the positivity enhancers are being over-used and their restorative effects becoming weaker/not as long-lasting...it's time to look at options before burnout takes hold or manifests into something even more serious. 

The work-live balance

This article link gives a bit more info on the topic of working in toxic environments. I believe there's a lot more studies required, especially around having increased connectivity periods - the 24-7 smartphone phenomena means we're spending less time away from thinking about work. Certain firms in Europe like Volkswagen are realising the impact of having a poor work/life balance and are now regulating how much time is spent at work either physically or virtually by restricting hours and connectivity times. 

I have friends that are showing signs of burnout written about in here and I've observed some of these symptoms in myself too. High pressure is ok and can actually produce better, more rewarding results but we need to be more aware of the damaging effects that come from being exposed to sustained high-stress situations in toxic environments. If it's making us ill - It's time to get out.