Alexandersmap

    Category: Lifestyle

    • The Route of the Routine

      “Our goals can only be reached through a vehicle of a plan, in which we must fervently believe, and upon which we must vigorously act. There is no other route to success.” — Pablo Picasso

      To have a plan is to have a route. A route transformed into a daily routine is what carries us from who we have been to who we aspire to become. Who we are today represents a single step on the journey, but it’s often what we fixate on the most. So it is that we get frustrated with performance standards on any given task, workout or event we’re in the middle of at the moment. We measure ourselves against there, when we are still here. Never a fair comparison.

      It’s good to focus on small wins while gently pushing to a higher standard. Yesterday was a good day of work but not a good day of working out. Today offers an opportunity to turn that around. Seeing the forest for the trees, it’s may become clear that the routine is the same, even when the steps along the route change. Just keep following that desired compass heading.

      As Picasso pointed out, the trick is to vigorously act on our goals. Otherwise they’re nothing but dreams. Daydreamers don’t get very far, do they? Once we know the route, we must get to it already.

    • The Minimum Viable

      When you’re short on time, what gives? The routine being what it is, an abundance of minutes to accomplish everything is often necessary to meet our expectations of ourselves. But some days there just aren’t a lot of available minutes. Still, we must move the chains.

      James Clear discussed this concept of minimum viable habits, for which he coined the name atomic habits. Makes a great book title for sure. The concept itself is pretty straightforward: what is an acceptable level of effort applied to a habit to make us believe we’ve checked the box today? Read one page? Ten pushups or a walk around the block? When we set the minimum viable number, we give ourselves a way to pat ourselves on the back and move on to the rest of our hectic day.

      I’m quite literally rushing out the door, but attempting to create a blog post that meets or hopefully exceeds that minimum viable for me to consider it a worthy submission. I do this at the expenses of some other habits I’d very much like to do as well, but they’ll have to wait a few more hours—when they too most likely will sneak in above that minimum. That’s how we make progress and keep streaks alive for one more day. And some days, that’s just enough.

    • Showing Up

      The hardest day in a new workout routine is the second day. You’ve hit it hard on day one, felt that sense of accomplishment, and then get up the next morning a bit stiff, with lactic acid buildup and a hundred reasons why you should wait just a little while before you get back to that routine. This is the day when you’ve got to show up and push through it, no matter how it goes. Showing up is where committed identity is established.

      The thing is, the results may be pretty ugly. My day two was humbling and embarrassing to post, but it’s one workout in what should be a steady climb to better. What does it matter if we don’t set a PR on day two? I’m not rowing in the Olympics, and the dog walking team hasn’t called me just yet. All that matters is the streak, and you can’t get to day three without getting through day two.

      We are what we repeatedly do. That’s the only success formula that matters in a lifetime. The reason The Beatles were so prolific in the relatively brief time they were a band was because they showed up and did the work. When they slid into a distracted fog they fractured and broke up. The analogy isn’t any different for us. We must show up and do the work that calls to us, every day.

      I was talking to one of my favorite writers a few days ago and she told me she hadn’t been writing lately. I reminded her then (and now, I suppose), that writers write, every day. It’s the only way to avoid atrophy. It’s why I publish this blog every day, and check a dozen other important boxes every day. We must show up, if only to keep a promise to ourselves. There’s nothing worse than a dysfunctional relationship with our inner voice.

      Easy for me to say, right? I’ve already established the habit. But that’s just one part of a routine that is always a work in progress. We never quite reach excellence (arete), do we? All we can do is try to move closer. The rubber hits the road when we gently put our excuses on the nightstand and rise up to meet the moment.

    • BHAG At It

      “Set goals that are so big, so hairy, they make you gulp. When youre about to fall asleep, your BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal) is there by your bed all hairy with glowing eyes. When you wake up its there: ‘Good morning, I am your BHAG. I own your life’. — Jim Collins

      Yesterday I set a goal for myself that was so ridiculous that I laughed. I more than doubled the lofty goal I set for myself a year ago in mileage for the summer, all for a good cause. The thing is, I did it in a calculated way, on a spreadsheet, with a key differentiator from a year ago: I’ve learned what is possible if I simply change the way I arrive.

      The answer to doing more in the same amount of time is to do work with a higher return on time invested. I love a great walk as much as anyone, but they take time. Rowing is far more efficient, and I can cover a lot more mileage in less time. If there’s a red flag in the plan, it’s big blocks of time when I’ll be away from the rowing ergometer for business and personal travel. It’s why I emphasized walking a year ago: because I can do it almost anywhere. By combining the two, but with emphasis on the rowing workouts, I can accomplish 235% more in the same amount of time. That’s what you call a big, hairy, audacious goal.

      The trick is to stop talking about what you’re going to do and get right to doing it. Just because something is possible doesn’t mean it will get done. Just like every other habit in our lives, we must consistently show up and do what we promise ourselves we’re going to do. That’s the only way to make a BHAG our friend. So gulp and get to it already.

    • Coloring Beyond

      “Live life to the fullest. You have to color outside the lines once in a while if you want to make your life a masterpiece. Laugh some every day, keep growing, keep dreaming, keep following your heart. The important thing is not to stop questioning.” — Albert Einstein

      I’m usually suspicious of quotes attributed to famous people but can’t find anything that contradicts the source, so thanks for the advice, uh, Albert. He seemed like the kind of guy who might have actually said it anyway. But I digress…

      I was always a meticulous “color within the lines” kind of wanna-be artist. The lines were there for a reason, weren’t they? Don’t stray beyond, I’d tell myself. It wasn’t until I was older that I started figuring out that the lines were just someone else’s interpretation of where they should be. And I started straying beyond and finding out that that’s where the magic is. So I’d stray a bit farther still.

      When you color outside the lines you begin to notice the other people who color beyond the lines. There’s a whole community of outside the lines people fully enjoying their lives while the inside the lines people grind through their days. Coloring beyond is invigorating and a bit audacious. Following other people’s rules is constricting and subservient. Who do we really want to be, ourselves or someone else’s version of who we ought to be?

      Monday mornings feel a bit different when you stray outside the lines. At the moment, I’m thinking I ought to stray a bit further to see just how audacious I can be today. We can’t make our own masterpiece following someone else’s plan, can we? Carpe diem, friend.

    • Lifestyle Choices

      “You’re a ghost driving a meat-coated skeleton made from stardust; what do you have to be scared of?” — @rat_sandwich

      Funny quote, and doesn’t it resonate? Each of us knows that it’s now or never. We must live while there’s time to do things. That the only answer is to be bold in our lifestyle choices. Do what resonates and forget the rest. Yes, we know this to be true, but are we following through? We’ve got to feel the urgency to fly.

      The thing is, it’s an easy thing to tell ourselves to be bold, it’s a harder thing to be it. But bolder may be reached in a big leap or through increasing our audacity incrementally every day. Before we know it, we’re actually bold, or at the very least, bolder than we once were. This is how we begin to live properly.

      “Think of yourself as dead. You have lived your life. Now, take what’s left and live it properly. What doesn’t transmit light creates its own darkness.” ― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

      Bold doesn’t mean to run away from everything, not to me anyway. We may live a larger life without being reckless with all that we hold dear. Bold is a lifestyle choice realized in all of our moments. It takes courage to look our eventual death in the face and choose to dance, now, while we can.

      All that matters are the choices we make today. Yesterday’s me is dead, and today everything changes. This is the only way to grow out of who we once were into who we are meant to be. Who is that person, and what’s the first step to meeting them? Together, we’re writing one hell of a story.

    • To Be Where I Have Been

      Oh, let the sun beat down upon my face
      And stars fill my dream
      I’m a traveler of both time and space
      To be where I have been
      — Led Zeppelin, Kashmir

      We walk on familiar ground most days. Even the avid travelers tend to cross their wake more often than one would expect. I’ve gone through the same security line countless times at the airport on journeys to faraway places, just as sailors note the mouth of the river as the beginning of their next passage. The destinations change, just as we do, yet that which we’ve seen before sends us off or welcomes us back.

      Each day at home is a routine of familiarity. This may be seen as reprovisioning the body and soul (and wallet) before the next voyage, or a welcome embrace back to where we feel we belong. I plot my next trip even now, yet still grow a garden. We nomads are complicated creatures.

      There are voyages to places, and voyages in our personal development. We need both to feel complete on the journey. Perhaps at our final destination we’ll finally feel satiated, but I believe we just get tired. Growth is our ongoing mission, start to finish, wherever that ends up being. We may have hopes and dreams and a clear path to take us there and still never arrive at any of it. Then again, we may just stumble upon it and realize we’ve arrived sooner than expected.

    • Proper Work

      “How important it is to walk along, not in haste but slowly, looking at everything and calling out Yes! No! … Imagination is better than a sharp instrument. To pay attention, this is our endless and proper work.” — Mary Oliver, Yes! No!

      I saw some pictures of friends off on some beautiful hike over the weekend, and other friends reawakening their sailboat before setting off for adventure. My own activity this weekend was less inspiring. Instead of adventure, I found some new soreness this weekend, earned with a pressure washer and a tall stepladder navigated to high places to make the house shine a little brighter. Sometimes our proper work is doing chores that have been nagging us for awhile, that we may return our focus to the universe yet again.

      The thing is, when I walked the pup later in the afternoon when the sun was shining just so, the house smiled back at me. We become what we put into the world, and a bit of housework does the body and soul good. It may sound silly, but I can look at a sparkling clean house and say “I did that” just as proudly as if I’d hiked up Mount Washington. The memories are different, but every journey set out upon that is completed counts for something.

      Proper work is highly subjective, but in the end it’s the things that we apply focus to that moves us forward. Writing this blog—to me—is proper work. So is tending the garden and washing the dishes and calling the customer you know is angry because it’s the right thing to do to hear them out and help them move to a better place. To be present and engaged in each thing that we do matters a great deal, for it’s the stuff of life and we only have the one go at it.

      What we say yes and no to in our days becomes our identity. When this day is complete, what will it say about us? We ought to slow down just enough to see the path we’re on, that we may know where we’ve been, and perhaps, where we’re going next. And so if you’ll excuse me the blog is now complete for the day, and it seems I have even more work to do.

    • The Yes Behind the No

      I recently looked at a boat, thinking it would be a very nice time to shift back to boat life. I’ve since backed away from that particular boat, for now, that I might make the most of the ripening moments at hand. The boat and I have an understanding that we may meet again someday. If it’s meant to be.

      We say yes to some things knowing that we’re saying no to other things. That’s the lesson every child must learn to become an adult. We can’t have it all, no matter how much money or power we attain in our lives. There’s always a no hiding behind a yes.

      We all know some people who should be adults who refuse to take no for an answer. Give them enough power and they’re capable of making life miserable for the rest of us. Wars are started because people can’t stand a no. But no’s will always be there, mocking us as we grab every yes, creating yet another no.

      Like a heartbeat, drives you mad
      In the stillness of remembering what you had
      And what you lost
      And what you had
      And what you lost
      — Fleetwood Mac, Dreams

      The very best humans are those who love the yes they’re living, with a gentle nod to the no they’re leaving to whither on the vine. That’s not a call to settle for less than we’re capable of, merely a nod to knowing when you reach your dreams and loving them for what they are. The yes will always be there, awaiting the right time. If it never arrives perhaps it wasn’t meant to. The most essential thing, I think, is to be fully aware of the yes we’ve let into our lives.

    • Foundations

      “Mistakes are, after all, the foundations of truth, and if a man does not know what a thing is, it is at least an increase in knowledge if he knows what it is not.” ― Carl Jung

      Navigating years as they unfold may make us more intelligent, or less so, depending on the lessons learned along the way. I’m shocked at the distinct lack of intelligence displayed in some people my age or well past it. I’m impressed with the brilliance and maturity of some people much younger than me. I’m sure I shock them at times too by what I don’t know at my own age. Such is the journey through time for each individual.

      We all ought to make more mistakes along the way if only to figure out that we should take another path to becoming. Fear of mistakes is what keeps us from going anywhere at all. There are times in our life when we debate whether to take a hard left instead of staying on a familiar course. Both are deeply impactful, but which elevates our experience the most? Life is full of such forks, and most follow the path well-travelled. And that makes a difference too.

      We don’t learn and grow by staying the same. We must challenge ourselves in new ways, that we may build a stronger foundation from which to see the world differently. Our lifetime of learning and experience, reflected and acted upon, carries us to a greater and more profound identity. It’s right here in front of us, where we might ask once again, what next?