Alexandersmap

    Category: Habits

    • The Deathbed Question

      “You are 99 years old, you are on your deathbed, and you have a chance to come back right now: what would you do?” – Christopher Carmichael

      No relation to me that I’m aware of, but I love the question. This question is referenced by Jérôme Jarre, a young man with an old soul, in a written interview he’d done in Tribe of Mentors, itself a wealth of information and inspiration.

      The answer should never be “not this” of course, but importantly, what IS that answer? The time travel spin is a variation on the dying wish story: I wish I’d spent more time with my children instead of working, or similar wishes. But it’s easy to separate ourselves from the responsibility of that deathbed moment. There’s still time… Carmichael’s what would you do? question brings the future to NOW. And really, that’s all we have isn’t it?

      So, …what’s the answer to the question? Right now?

    • Shattering the Peppadew Jar

      (Reposted after quirky WordPress delete)

      This morning I was pondering the power of routine in our lives when my routine abruptly changed.  I was filling a glass of water in the refrigerator when I noticed the basket of limes was protruding out because they were crowded by the package of strawberries.  In pushing the strawberries to side I started a chain reaction that led to a jar of peppadews to topple over onto the glass I was holding in my hand, shattering both immediately.  They eventually ended up on the floor, where the juice and glass and peppadews and water began to flow outward in all directions.  Suddenly I wasn’t focused on the next step in my morning routine and quickly began the cleanup process, which included extracting two small slivers of glass from my hand.

      Prior to that moment, I had been contemplating in succession the workout posters on the wall in the basement where we exercise, and then the cookbooks on the shelf in the kitchen, and thinking about how we rarely look at either.  When I work out I generally do the exercises I’m familiar with, I don’t scan the wall for a new one.  When I cook uiuiI usually cook the same things over and over, rarely going to the cookbooks for something new.  In the time I could scan the index of a cookbook I could Google a couple of available ingredients and find a dozen four and five star-reviewed recipes.  And yet the cookbooks remain ready should I need them.

      Routines are powerful things indeed.  I’m better for having changed the start to my early morning from grabbing a coffee and scrolling through social media to exercising first, reading second and writing third before I jump into whatever the rest of the world is up thinking about.  I credit reading Atomic Habits for shaking me loose from the normal routine.  Other books have inspired me along the way, but that book was like a jar of peppadews shattering in my hand, triggering me to change things immediately.

      This is my 200th blog post this year, and this is the 189th day of the year.  I’m well ahead of last year’s pace when I started this thing.  Last year I posted 143 times total.  That’s the power of establishing habits for you.  I’ve read more, and better books.  I’ve worked out more consistently as well. But the writing has been the one I’m most pleased about.  I was contemplating what to write about in this 200th post of 2019 – travel, gardening, history or some such thing, but nothing has done more for my writing than changing my daily habits.    Some of it is pretty good, some of it isn’t so good, but I’m not aiming for perfection.  Instead I’m establishing the habit and the commitment to shipping every day, as Seth Godin would say.

      Follow some friends of mine at fayaway.com to see how they’re doing their own version of shattering the peppadews to sail around the world.  Other friends have completely transformed their lives by focusing on hiking the mountains of New Hampshire.  We rarely see them anymore but they’ve never been healthier or happier than they are now. I watched a niece similarly transform herself through hiking and other lifestyle changes. Another good friend from Maine left an abusive marriage and moved to the mid-Atlantic region, where she just announced her engagement to a much better person. All shattering their own peppadew jars. Anything is possible if you just shake yourself free of the shackles of routine.

      “Don’t think, try.” – John Hunter

      “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.” – Aristotle

      What Aristotle left unsaid is that mediocrity is also a habit. Change – getting out of your comfort zone, can be good indeed. James Clear talks about casting votes for your identity. If you identify yourself as an athlete you’re more likely to get up and work out. If you’re identify yourself as a disciplined eater you’re not even going to see that bowl of M & M’s your wife leaves right next to the door. Carrying the metaphor further, shattering the peppadew jar is deciding what your identity is going to be and casting that first vote. Who you’ll be, and who you won’t be on a larger scale.

      Back in my early twenties I used to call rowing an attractive rut, because it’s easy I could see the benefits of doing it in my overall health and fitness level, but I could also see the opportunities I was missing out on to do it. Travel, taking specific college courses because they conflicted with rowing, going out with non-rowing friends to an event because it would impact my performance. When you believe the overall benefits outweighs the costs it’s inconsequential that you’re missing out on things. About when I started identifying rowing as an attractive rut I was changing the equation in my own mind. I still row, but I don’t have illusions of winning the Head-of-the-Charles anymore.

      Achieving anything requires a healthy measure of sacrifice. Establishing one routine at the expense of another. You can remain average at a bunch of things and get along perfectly well in this world, or you can do the work that makes you exceptional at a specific thing and below average at other things. Attractive ruts are found in routine. But life is all too short, and before you know it another decade has flown by.

      “A rut is a grave with the ends knocked out.” – Laurence J. Peter

      So perhaps it’s best to shatter a few more peppadew jars. Sometimes an abrupt reminder to shake up the routine is the best thing that can happen.

       

       

    • Burpees Before Bed

      The other night I lay in bed, mind racing. My streak of burpees every day was in jeopardy. A busy day, missed opportunities along the way, and to be more honest, procrastination had delayed me until now, 11 PM, a couple of adult beverages into the evening and ready for sleep. Except there was no sleeping with the thought of breaking the streak here. Look, I know it’ll happen eventually, but not this way. Not because of a lazy mind. So I got up, did a dozen burpees to meet the minimum and got back in bed, heart still racing, and slept like a baby. Another link in the chain.

    • Felling the Tree

      “Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to be.” – James Clear

      This morning the snooze alarm went off well before I was prepared to get up. I don’t use the snooze button mind you; don’t believe in it. You’re either sleeping or you’re getting up. But my wife uses the snooze button often as part of her wake-up routine. Thankfully most days I’m up well before her alarm would go off. Today was an exception. Feeling a bit worn out I was going to sleep in, until the second snooze convinced me it wasn’t possible.

      This morning I operated in slow motion. Foggy and some aches and pains. I slowly dressed to work out, walked downstairs and drank a pint of water. The internal dialogue trending towards bagging the morning workout and doing it later in the day.  I’ve heard this song before and point my feet towards the basement door, down thirteen steps and onto the erg for a row.  I row 500 meters to warm up and assess my overall condition.  My assessment isn’t good, but I stand after 500 meters and warm up the shoulders.  More aches…  but I ignore them and drop down for the burpees, slower than usual but complete, row another piece and call it a workout.  I’ve done the bare minimum, cast my vote and I’m back upstairs.  I hear the snooze going off upstairs and look at the clock.  60 minutes of snooze buttoning.  Yikes.

      On to reading stoicism, a bit of an article on Ben Franklin in London, and a bit of writing this before my wife is downstairs and off for her commute.  Habits carried the morning for me even as the mind rebelled.  The James Clear quote above stays with me more than anything else in his excellent book.  Simple, memorable wisdom in a bite-sized chunk.  I wish I’d written that.  Instead I write other words, casting votes for the type of person I wish to be.  I’m closing in on 100,000 words written in this blog, and a few thousand burpees.  I need to move beyond the bare minimum workout, which means changing other habits later in the day.  Win the morning, lose the evening and it’s a wash.  Life is too short for a wash.  With only 142 days left in 2019 there’s so much to do still.  Why settle for the bare minimum?

      I joined a group challenge with co-workers.  We all travel, and we all struggle with the balance of exercise versus caloric intake that the job seems to demand.  We’ve all agreed to lose ten pounds by the time we reach a trade show in Chicago next month or pay $20 bucks and hear about it from those who were successful.  Nothing focuses the mind like peer pressure, so I’m all in on this challenge.  But I noticed I gave myself a pass last week (after all I had five weeks to complete the challenge).  I recognized this trend – it reminded me of pulling all nighters to complete papers in college.  Wait until the last minute, then put yourself through hell to reach a goal.  You won’t fell the tree with one swing of the axe…  I like the more intelligent approach of consistent, daily action and the compound effect, and so an incremental increase in daily workload to reach the goal is in order.  Keeping it going for the rest of the 142 days offers a head start on 2020, a nice round number with some big moments scheduled.

      I’ve always been intrigued with the concept of accelerating through the curve.  In racing that means slowing down in the first half of the apex and accelerating in the second half. Using momentum to your advantage.  In life momentum starts with casting consistent, daily votes.  That applies in your career, with exercise and weight loss, and writing.  The lack of momentum also applies in each of these areas, so why build anchors when you can build kites?  Or to return to that zen philosophy, you need to chop for a long time to fell the tree, you can’t do it with one swing.

    • On Writing and Ritual

      This morning the blues were running into shore again, hundreds of thousands of silvery fry swam in unison to escape the feeding frenzy, growing swirls of terns cried out in ecstatic approval as the desperate columns of fry rose to the surface. Individual fry break for the sky, betraying their unspoken vow of safety in numbers only to prove the point as they’re plucked from the air by the terns hovering for just such a moment. Removed from this frenetic dance of life and death by my place on shore and the couple of notches up the food chain humans are offered, I contemplate the cooler, autumn-like air and the changes to come in the next few weeks.

      “When we take our time and focus in depth, when we trust that going through a process of months or years will bring us mastery, we work with the grain of this marvelous instrument that developed over millions of years. We move infallibly to higher and higher levels of intelligence. We practice and make things with skill. We learn to think for ourselves. We become capable of handling complex situations without being overwhelmed. In following this path we become Homo magister, man or woman the Master. – Robert Greene, Mastery

      I’m a long way from mastery in writing, but I enjoy the pursuit. The daily ritual of observation, contemplation and expression offers me the opportunity to improve my skill set, and perhaps live up to the declaration made by Mr. Harding in that high school English class when he handed back our papers, looked at me and announced to all that would hear, “You will be a writer someday”. 35 years of active avoidance later, I’m finally getting around to it. Or more accurately, putting it out there. Robert Greene writes of focus in depth, and I sense that in the ritual. It bears fruit in productivity, and is its own reward in transformation. Shame that I waited, but I’m writing now and will do so every day that I’m given.

      “If you wait for inspiration to write you’re not a writer, you’re a waiter.” – Dan Poynter

      “I like myself better when I’m writing regularly.” – Willie Nelson

      The sunrise was lovely this morning, but not spectacular. No clouds in the sky, just a brightening orange sky and an eruption of flame as the sun rose up once again. Cape Cod offers a different perspective than New Hampshire, there’s nothing shocking in that statement but the obviousness of it. The last week was a change of scenery as I save vacation time for big travel to come. So the mornings offered me the state change that the rest of the day couldn’t. Even in this there’s nothing new, save for the ritual that documents it. Daily writing offers the opportunity to discover the spectacular. Like the sunrise often it doesn’t reach that level but it can still be pretty good, and I’m better for having done it.

    • Raising the Average

      “Perfection is the enemy of action.” – Ryan Holiday, The Daily Stoic

      Somehow I haven’t found the time to walk five miles every day this week. Busy with stuff. Like finding excuses to not get some exercise. But somehow I’ve managed to knock off a dozen burpees every day. Granted, it’s a small token of daily fitness, but I haven’t broken the streak yet. I’ve established a cadence with burpees. It’s a form of daily ritual, a small gesture towards fitness. It won’t close the gap on its own but it gives me some measure of achievement.

      Seth Godin mentioned in an interview that he writes multiple blog posts every day, essentially building a library of possibilities to post. I have no such library. Instead I write as inspiration strikes, usually in the morning but sometimes late in the day. But I post daily to keep the streak alive, typos and all. I’m not writing a masterpiece, though I surely try. The cadence is what I’m focused on. Hopefully the content meets expectations on occasion.

      Every morning this week I’ve gotten up for the sunrise, alone to catch the sun break the horizon. There’s a feeling of hope for this new day, as there was yesterday and hopefully tomorrow. I haven’t had a perfect day yet this week, but I’ve had good days nonetheless. Perfect days are evasive creatures; I’ll take great days or even average days. Average is still pretty good when you look at how dark the world can be. I woke up today (bonus!), saw a sunrise, sipped some coffee and read a bit of meaningful prose. I’ll take that kind of start any day. Chasing perfection leads you down a path of never good enough, which leads to the darkness. I choose the light, errors and all.

      There’s a great article about Dalilah Muhammad’s world record 400 meter hurdle run in Sports Illustrated this week. She ran an imperfect race, but she didn’t need perfection to get the WR because she’d worked so hard to be at a level of performance where an average race was still far ahead of the perfect race for someone else was. There’s a lesson there for all of us. We can’t reach perfection but by continually raising the bar in our own lives we can reach levels of greatness in our pursuits. Steady improvement over time moves us closer. That seems healthier than never good enough.

    • Diminishing Returns vs. Compound Interest

      Sunrises don’t suffer from the law of diminishing returns the way sunrise pictures do. Getting up for the sunrise in the summer means getting up early, and you’re either in or you aren’t. Yesterday morning I lingered in bed a few minutes too long and missed the sun breaking the horizon. This morning I made a point of catching that moment and still missed it by five minutes. But I managed to witness a decent show nonetheless.

      The thing about sunrises is that once you’re up and experiencing it you recognize it was worth the effort. The thing about sunrise pictures is that they become too much of a good thing already! Too many sunrise pictures on social media and you experience the law of diminishing returns. People like the first, but by the third day in a row of posting that sunrise (or sunset) they’ve had just about enough of you. Best to practice a bit of moderation already. Absence makes the heart grow fonder and all.

      The first cup of coffee offers a thrill you don’t get on the second cup. Wrapping your hands around a hot mug of coffee and taking that first sip is right up there with that sunrise for sensory thrills. The last sip in that mug is just trying to capture the last of the fading heat before the dreaded lukewarm blahness takes over. You have the second cup to recapture that thrill but alas it’s not the same (but so worth it anyway). By the third cup the magic is completely gone, you’re just in maintenance mode. If you have another you start questioning your choices in life. Such is the nature of diminishing returns.

      The nature of addiction is similar to that coffee experience; always searching for that thrill, increasing the dose, continuing past the point where you know you should stop. I’m simplifying it and have seen too many people struggle with addiction to treat the topic cavalierly, but I think about it because I’m challenged on it. People toss the word addiction around lightly. I’m not addicted to coffee, but I dance on the edge with it. So too with other things. I’ve danced with the topic of how much is healthy and how much is too much? on many habits; alcohol, coffee, Words With Friends, social media… blogging.

      My wife runs almost every day, and has since well before I met her more than a quarter century ago. She’s a better person after a run when she hasn’t run in a few days. As with coffee so too with exercise: Too much of a good thing offers diminishing returns at best and injury to self at worst. I’ve seen her go beyond her comfort level in training for stretch goals and become injured. 5K to half marathon is her natural range and she thrives in it. Her habit loop is generally very positive and has given her a lifetime of good health and energy in return.

      Self-awareness helps you develop good habits, and so do the people you surround yourself with. If you’re truly the average of the five people you associate with the most, then surely having those five be purpose-driven, physically active, supportive friends is better than the five being aimless, hard-living and dismissive acquaintances would be. Coming back to diminishing returns, those five will reinforce that first, second and third act of a habit. Do one more rep versus have another drink. Habits become more about reinforcing identity and less about the result of an individual act. The return over time builds on itself. The return on moderation, consistent exercise, getting proper sleep and reinforcing good habits with a network of positive influences in your life is the opposite of diminishing returns, it’s compound interest.

      A lifetime of getting up early and seeing the sunrise has generally benefited me more than staying up late watching television or closing out the bar would have been. There’s a place for those things too, but I’ve found the benefits of staying up late offers diminishing returns as I get older while getting up and getting the heart rate up, reading a bit and writing has given me compound interest. And after all, are we riding the wave to the beach or sliding sideways to the curve? The end might be the same but the journey should be more interesting along the way.

    • Progress Whispers

      Scales don’t lie, and this week I added a couple of travel pounds. Sales meetings involve unnatural portion sizes repeated often, with snacks in between. And so the pants were a bit more snug than when I arrived. That seemed to be the consensus as all 90% of us immediately agreed to lose 10 pounds by a trade show in September. Peer pressure multiplied by $20 each generally does the trick.

      “Progress…. is quiet. It whispers. Perfectionism screams failures and hides progress.” – Jon Acuff

      Some words jolt you awake and help you see things a bit more clearly. Progress whispers resonated for me this morning. Progress towards our objectives is often painfully slow, and we find ourselves growing frustrated by the level of progress we might be making. Acuff makes another point in highlighting perfectionism as the antagonist to progress, undermining it with its relentless chirping.

      Steve Pressfield describes this as “The Resistance“, Seth Godin calls it our “Lizard Brain“. It’s the inner voice that tells you it’s not good enough and not yet. Godin’s advice is to start pulling the thread anyway, to learn to dance with The Resistance. To ship your work, even if it’s not perfect. The concept of shipping a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) is common in nimble businesses today, but harder to dance with when it comes to writing your first novel or starting a business.

      Sales is a numbers game, and so is losing weight, writing a novel (or blog) or accomplishing any worthwhile objective. Progress whispers, and you need to break it down into the smallest increments to track it just to see any meaningful forward momentum. The 12 burpees I do every morning aren’t all that much, but they add up to 4380 in a year. I’ve noticed the change in my body even from this small amount, done repeatedly and consistently over time. So it is with sales calls, writing daily, and other accretive activity.

      Losing weight is tougher as you get older. You may say it’s because our metabolism slows down. I’d certainly say that too. But then I look at the guy I went to college with who rides his bike every day and hikes the rest of the time. His high activity level has bought him washboard abs, without sacrificing career or family. Another friend who embraced CrossFit shortly before turning 50 is now in better shape than when he was 25. No, “metabolism” is “Lizard Brain” in disguise.

      Activity over time equals identity. Athletic, writer, Rainmaker, parent, spouse and trusted friend are all identities I try to embrace. I’m a little better at a few than others but hope to make progress with each. My progress may be a faint whisper but it’s progress nonetheless. Best for me to listen for it more. Throwing $20 dollars and the threat of peer ridicule to the mix amplifies the goal a bit too.

    • Honing a Curious Mind

      I’ve been trying to figure out who is singing in the neighborhood for the last six weeks. I make a point of being outdoors whenever possible in the early morning (New Hampshire summers are very short after all). Some singers are obvious, others are more evasively unfamiliar to me. I regret that my education never included identifying birdsong. But as with many things I’ve made it a point of my adult learning path. I’m currently in the 101 level birdsong classes.

      I tried an app that analyzes bird song, but the bluebirds always sing at the same time as this character and tend to confuse the analytics. It keeps think its a mockingbird when I can hear the differences clearly. Eventually I came to the conclusion that this was a Brown Thrasher. In the process of figuring that out I’ve come to learn the songs of another half dozen birds I’ve heard in the background music but never took the time to learn about. I’m far from an expert on any of this, but the path is more vibrant.

      In the last 18 months I’ve learned about or reacquainted myself with local and world history, stoicism, transcendentalism, world religions, the power of habits, physiology, native trees, horticulture, birds, bugs, the environment and other diverse (eclectic?) side paths on the route from here to, well, there. Side paths lead to other side paths and before you know it maybe you’ve accumulated something meaningful in the old brain. You can’t write about what you don’t know about, and this cajoles me from tangential interest to deeper learning about topics. As a side benefit I’ve become better at writing too… you’ll see it eventually.

      “The discipline of sharing something daily is priceless.” – Seth Godin

    • Changing the Perspective

      There’s no place like home, but there’s a lot to be said for changing the view once in awhile. So we picked up and relocated to the Cape for one night in the middle of a work week. I’m back to work today, but with a refreshed mind. We settle into a pattern of familiarity when we do the same thing day-after-day. Routine is powerful, and can be hugely beneficial in earning compound interest over time from daily, positive habits. But sometimes the plaque buildup on our minds needs a cleansing to create new perspective on a project or problem you might be tackling. Nothing changes perspective like a system re-boot like a vacation or a sabbatical.  But those opportunities aren’t always there. Changing scenery does the trick most of the time, even when you can’t take extended time off.

      This morning I’m back to work, but the view out the window has improved, and a quick early morning walk on the beach offered its own rewards. I noticed a burst of energy in my work tasks, and I’ve seen the fog burn off, not just on the bay but in myself as well. I re-read a bit of Atomic Habits this morning as well. Something kept bringing me to this graph that illustrates the conflict between expectations and reality. James Clear calls it the “Valley of Disappointment”. Seth Godin calls it “The Dip”.  It’s the lagging measure of results to actions you’ve taken.  Whenever I start a new sales job I try to gauge the amount of runway I have available to take off.  If you aren’t selling the trendiest stuff out there at commodity prices then you need time to build demand for your product, build a channel, get it specified, wait out budget cycles and finally get it purchased for installation.

      Valleys of disappointment happen, but it’s important to see the forest for the trees.  Perspective is invaluable when you’re in the valley, and just as important when you’ve climbed out of the valley.  A little change of scenery almost always does the trick.  Sometimes that scenery is physical like the beach, sometimes it’s mental, like looking ahead instead of looking back.  Jon Acuff wrote in a recent newsletter about the ten year question.  In short, what will you look back on ten years from now and wish you’d done today?  That is what you should do.  Acuff flips the narrative from looking back with regret to fast forwarding to a future you, and looking back from there.  Fascinating exercise, and a good way to give you perspective on what is important now. So I tackled the day with new energy, new perspective and a new focus, and that was the goal all along.