Making progress...

It's been a good day, so far. I've not made much progress on the job front, but as you might notice, I'm more concerned about developing myself to be more efficient and productive. Being unemployed has given me a ton of perspective on my life. I wan to get every bit out of any revelations that I possibly can. There is a lot of things I want to do in my life. Either I find a career that is in line with those priorities, or I get better at managing my time so that my career doesn't interfere with my hobbies, my hobbies don't distract me from my career, and I can still feel happy and fulfilled by accomplishing things that I want to do.

For example, I am a musician. This is a must. This will always be apart of my life and it is important to my mental wellbeing to continue to progress as such. I have a creative side that desperately needs to be put to work. If this isn't happening at "work", then I must make time for it at home without hurting the time I devote to my wife, family, and friends. I also want to be a writer, a computer programmer, a world-class chef, a penguin, play an alien on one of the Star Trek shows, and learn to juggle. It is important that I get myself straightened out to do these things!

From my research, much from the books I've listed in a previous post, it seems beneficial to work on this by adding 2 or 3 productive habits a week. It is important not to dive in the deep end and change everything about your life in one shot. If I can make just one habit stick, I will feel accomplished and motivated to add another. If I try 10 habits and fail at all of them, I will feel worthless and just end up cursing at myself in a mirror. My focus will also be to remove several bad habits a week. Essentially, I want to replace two or three bad habits with good habits every week. To better choose effective habits, I have created categories to which a habit I choose will be used to improve:

• Mental Health
• Physical Health
• Diet 
• Chores & Overall Well-Being
• Work
• Family & Friends

For example, this week I am adding the habit of doing a 2-Minute Drill every morning, as recommended by the Men's Health Belly Off! Diet. This quick series of exercises (sit-ups, push-ups, etc) is to be done as soon as I wake up every morning. It will improve my metabolism, get the blood going to prepare me for an active day, and will start off the day on a proactive track. This habit will benefit the "Physical Health" category primarily. After this becomes habit, then I will add on an actual work out of top of this, to be done 4 times a week.

The bad habit I'm trading in for this is VIDEO GAMES. I've made a horrible habit of getting out of bed and immediately playing video games while I drink my morning coffee. In my defense, it has been a very successful way to wake myself up. Unfortunately, it is also successful in creating a black hole that I get sucked into for several hours before I even noticed the day is passing me by. Starting off the day this way creates a lot of lazy momentum that is tough to turn it around. To help facilitate this habit, I have stowed away my video games. Out of sight, out of mind. Good-bye my darlings....

Also, I've given my kitties the boot from my office space. KTHXBAI!!!