by Brian Carl on February 25, 2010
Finally, the list will be revealed.
Before you read it, I want to explain my reasoning for choosing these goals (You can scroll down if you don’t care).
There are a lot of things that I want to do and narrowing the focus down has been hard.
One thing that’s helped is creating a bucket list. This put a lot of the things in perspective. I decided that none of the changes are going to help me professionally and all of them will be designed to help me enjoy life more instead.
I don’t mean this to sound like I don’t like my job or that I don’t want to excel at it. I enjoy it, however at this point I am much better at my job than I am at my life. Also jobs will change over time and creating habits for a healthier body and mind will always be important no matter where life takes me.
The other thing I noticed as I went through my bucket list, I want to spend more time on experiences. It’s so easy to go through life just working and watching TV and continue doing the same thing every day and I want to make avoid this whenever possible. Everyone needs a health balance of the comfortable and the new.
So without further ado:
- Get in better Shape. (workout on a regular basis)
- Begin carrying a notebook with me wherever I go and documenting experiences, ideas, and goals.
- Begin writing on a daily basis
- Start doing something entirely new as often as possible
- Write a short story
- Promote my work (video & writing)
Now some of these might not make sense right away, but all of them will be explained in detail.
The promoting my work can be seen as a professional goal, however I don’t see it that way. I don’t ever intend on making a living off of my creative works, but I still want others to see them and (hopefully) enjoy them.
So there it is, the list is written down and I intend on keeping to it.
Photo Credit: CarbonNYC
by Brian Carl on February 24, 2010
It’s been about 2 weeks since I wrote my last post on my 6 changes project. I discussed dropping my first project and moving on to getting in better shape. I am still slightly disappointed by this , but I know it is better for the project as a whole.
This step is going well. The initial goal is to get into the habit of going to the gym at least 2 times a week and 1 day of extra activity. I haven’t missed a week, but it is still early.
I am not where I need to be with this goal yet, but now I need to start preparing for the rest of them. I mentioned in my last post that I would be writing about the rest of my goals for the year, but I haven’t gotten around to it yet.
I have written them all down, however I didn’t want to jump the gun and throw them all up here without prioritizing them first. This is the problem I had that caused me to halt my first goal and start a new one and I don’t want to repeat that.
The next post will have all 6 goals written out in sequential order and why I am doing them in that way. After that I’ll post actual date and time lines for each goal and exactly what I want to achieve in that time.
Photo Credit: Maia C
by Brian Carl on February 4, 2010
I hit my first road block on my 6 changes project.
I should be upset, but I’m not. The reason why is that it’s due to a change in goals.
The writing project has been put back on the shelf, while I focus on getting myself in better shape. I know changing a project this early goes against the project itself, but here are the reasons I am okay with it.
- Getting in better shape will have a positive impact on all of the rest of the goals that I set out to accomplish. I’ve been more tired than usual and that is because I’m not as active in the winter. I snowboard, but that is not on a regular basis.
- I learned that prioritizing goals in my life is as important as prioritizing goals in business. I came into this project knowing that my first goal was to write more, but that wasn’t the end goal. As I said in the first post, I didn’t know what the other goals were going to be at the time and now that I have a better idea, I realize I need to change their order. If I had sat down and planned out the rest of the goals, I would have known that wasn’t a good one to start with.
- I plan on hiking a lot this summer and doing longer hikes. If I wait on getting into better shape, I will be behind the 8 ball when summer starts (or maybe even spring if the weather is good). This is another example of how long term planning in necessary in normal life situations.
I don’t consider this first stumble a failure in the plan and I will use this experience to make the rest of these changes more effective. This new goal is going along better than expected and I have no fears that anything will change that.
The next steps for me is to actually sit down and write out all 6 goals and prioritize them from now until the end of the year. My next post will focus on those goals.
Photo Credit: out of ideas
by Brian Carl on January 14, 2010
There is one confusing thing about the 6 Changes Method that I’m following. I never know what to call the steps.
According to the website, I’m getting ready for step 7. Me, I’m a rebel, I’m going to call it step 2. The first 5 steps are all prep work for the actual progress (Making step 6 into step 1), so they don’t count.
I did a little writing in here during step one, but not enough to call it a habit yet. For the most part all I did was get into the habit of logging into my page every morning.
Starting this weekend, I’m moving into step 2 (rebel).
My next step is going to be starting to do small amounts of writing every day. I’m going to start off every morning by doing the 5 minute daily writing exercise from C. M. Mayo. She has a page called the “Daily Five”. It has a post for every day for a year and you have to write for 5 minutes to complete the task.
I’ve done these in the past, but I’ve never held myself accountable to doing them every day. Now I’m going to.
These writings will not be posted online, but I will publish my progress. I’m sure you don’t all care if I am doing these everyday, but it will help me stay on task.
Step 3 (rebel, rebel) next week will focus on writing one good post a week and creating the structure for bigger projects down the line. Stay tuned.
Photo Credit: Whatsername?
by Brian Carl on January 12, 2010
I don’t know if anyone actually read through the 6 change method I posted yesterday, but after choosing your goals the first real step is to break them down into 8 small steps.
My first one is getting on the computer in the morning and logging into my blog. It’s not actually writing, but at least it will (hopefully) lead into writing in the future.
I am going to do this until Friday and then from there begin the actual writing portion of the goal.
The ironic thing about this goal is that I’m writing about writing, but I’m not counting these updates as part of my goal.
I want the writing to be something that takes more creativity than these progress updates. I don’t know what the end goal is yet, but you’ll know it when you see it.
A note on the picture, I couldn’t find something that represented this post, so I figured how could I go wrong with this one.
Photo Credit: Paphio
by Brian Carl on January 11, 2010
I mentioned before I have new projects going on and as much as I want to write in this blog, other goals have become a priority.
Even though I said that, I was lying. Don’t act so surprised.
I am going to use this blog as a way to help me stick to my goals and will be writing more often than before (*Fingers Crossed*). I am going to use the plan by 6changes.com to help me with my goals throughout the year.
Even though I haven’t chosen 6 goals (Which is Step 1), I am going to start with Step 2: Pick 1 of the 6 habits to start with. The first habit is writing more. That doesn’t mean in this blog, but that will help towards the goal. Everyone at one point in their life says, I could write a book because they think their life is crazy and adventurous (now they say they could start a reality show). I am not that ambitious (yet), but I do want to be writing on a daily basis.
The 3rd step is to Commit as publicly as possible to creating this new habit in 2 months. That is what I am doing here.
This week I am going to finish the plan for steps 4 and 5 and I will post them all on here. I will also post my progress and chronolog my work. There will be a new tab for writing coming in the future as well.
Photo Credit: ·Insomnia·
