Like many people on the internet my thoughts turn to the next year and what I would like to accomplish. I have long thought New Years resolution were somehow flawed. Yes I know it works for some people but for me it’s not sustainable as the answer is in the title, resolution not change. More important is the change of a habit, routine or the behaviour that will lead to achieving a goal and thinking that you can change possibly decades of behaviour in the first few months of the new year is somewhat optimistic. For me the idea of small change fits much better for my character and seems much easier to get a result for any given change. It maybe something like not leaving the dishes till the next day or making sure to put things back where they came from. This one I pretty much have fought all my life only to find that when I did embrace it it made life so much easier, who knew. In fact I find that the older I get the more I like order. So, the idea of small change is not new and can be seen all over the interwebs but for me I learned about it over a decade ago via a colleague who had worked in the automotive industry. So how does this equate to reaching goals or making change? well for me instead of saying I’m going to stop drinking in January, I’ll look at it from the point of view I won’t have a drink today and then before I know it a month has gone by. This leads me nicely onto my list of challenges and opportunities for 2019.
Health and fitness This is something I have wrestled with all my life but after a sudden life event five years ago that changed the pace of life completely for me I have been attempting to get on top of the whole fitness thing. Life is bound up with physical well being and having spent the best part of my years in a sedentary and on the whole unhealthy career I definitely didn’t actually do anything about it not least because I was embarrassed to join a gym or group activity. I had the occasional fling with exercise equipment but that rapidly dwindled off to the pages of eBay or freecycle . Now however is a different matter. Having seen I can do it and disappointed that I allowed myself to falter I am now ready to recommit. Due to a knee injury (sustained in the days long before health and safety) I’m going to have to start off slowly, very slowly and the activity that is the most satisfying to me is walking which you can’t go wrong at. It doesn’t cost anything and you don’t need anything to do it and something I have learn over the last couple of years an excellent way to meditate. For me traditional meditation was something I could never get my head round but when I am out walking I can very quickly get into ‘that’ mental state and miles can go by. I have also used the excellent app Pedometer ++ to help motivate me to keep going and it really helps, once you see those green progress bars you really don’t want to see the red ones! For the moment I am going to start with two miles which is nothing compared to last year but never the less consistency pays off and I have also realised that trying to do to much at the beginning will lead to setbacks. But I’m crossing my fingers that the pain will decrease over the course of time as my fitness increases and my weight drops.
Another important factor to getting out the door is for my mental state, since the events of five years ago I have been on some pretty extended “lows” thankfully now things are way better than they were and one of the prescribed medicines was go outside. At the time it was the last thing I wanted to do but being of a stubborn, bloody minded persuasion I wasn’t going to give in easily so took the suggestion up with a vengeance and made myself go outside no matter what. Funnily enough or maybe that’s the wrong word, but summertime was the time when I seemed to let it slip so now I am putting in place tools to help me focus on the longer game, I’ll not bore you with the details as really all that matters is progress and one should be able carry this out without any aids. I’m not going to be posting progress as motivation or to seek validation but maybe there’ll be a bit of celebration when and if I reach my goal. I maybe post if I find something interesting to post about. However I am really looking forward to getting fit in 2019
Art on iPad Since getting this iPad Pro 10.5” earlier this year I have been smitten with the pencil and the drawing possibilities of it. I am not artist, just see my doodlings here in micro.blog but the one thing I think is that I would really like to take out the iPad into the wild and try and make some pics. I have to say I really like taking pics of architecture and love city vistas so I thought about maybe trying out some ideas in 2019. I have no idea what will come from it or whether I will in fact be able to produce anything. But if you don’t try..
Start what I finish This has been one of my major character flaws and in 2019 I am going to attempt to address this. Not part of this goal but related is the desire to finish books I start reading. I am not a prolific reader in fact far from it and I might read maybe one or two books a year as I prefer to disappear down the Toob and podcasts for content but I plan to try and read more this coming year and to finish reading them.
Learn to code This is something that I have thought about doing since last year but Is based on an interest started as a kid by my grandfather who brought us a Sinclair ZX computer along with a tiny little monitor that was a TV too unbeknownst to our parents. After we had finished typing laboriously an text based adventure game only to find that it didn’t work due to some bug we would switch over the the telly. Mum only found out about this years after! I then moved onto a Amstrad PCW which had Basic on it which I self taught from books and magazine articles to the point that I sold a database to our local newsagents. Imagine that now with YouTube and stackoverflow.. Returning to the current day I was given a Raspberry Pi 2 this year and have some ideas and projects I would like to have a go at and Python seems to be the language to learn. So we’ll see how that turns out but I do remember the joy in getting things to work.
More woodwork This is something that through my working life I never either had the time or the space to enjoy my hobby of woodworking. Now I have some space I really need to get it into shape so that I can start making some things for both myself and maybe to sell. I particularly like the Shaker style furniture and plan to make some furniture in this style. I also need to get my tools organised and invest in some better ones but that will take time.
So for now that’s what I am going to be putting my energies into in 2019. I’m looking forward to seeing micro.blog grow and the connections from it. Hopefully you will have or have had a peaceful New Year, as tomorrow it starts in earnest.
