Continuing on the getting out of your comfort zone theme, I started yoga this morning! I was up at 6am to get to a 60 minute class before work with my new flatmate. Holy toledo, more of the laughing at yourself for failing. But still, coming out of it feeling positive. I’ve had so many people praise yoga lately that I figured I should give it a shot. If anything, just having a buddy to workout with is a great motivator.

And, getting up early for a class means never being late for work. <3

Mount Rainier, view from Crystal Mountain Resort Summit.

The second day, yesterday, I kicked serious ass. I boarded all day and only biffed it boarding once, early on. The light bulb went on, something clicked, and like that little girl from Jurassic Park, I was all, “I know this!” as the muscle memory from years of skateboarding came back to me. I was proud of myself, because I rocked it.

Driving home from Crystal.

The lesson I learned was that a good attitude can get you past a steep learning curve, but you have to be willing to get outside your comfort zone, and take some hits. You can’t win if you don’t fight, and you can’t fly if you don’t jump. Starting is the scariest part.

After that, it’s all a unix system.

This video can change your life, maybe even save it.  20-30 minutes of activity a day can have HUGE impact on your health and both quality and length of life. It’s almost miraculous.

“Women who go from zero activity to just one hour a week reduced their heart disease rate by almost half.”  Wow. Thanks to genetic analysis by 23andme I know that heart problems will probably, literally, be the death of me.  I’m okay with knowing this in advance because it’s information I can use to motivate myself and actually affect my fate.

My personal goal is to drop 20 lbs this year and stay there.  Stay active. Take the stairs. Bike. Walk.

Walking is man’s best medicine.
Hippocrates, Greek physician (460 BC – 377 BC)

Can you limit your sitting and sleeping to just 23.5 hours a day?  Something to think about.

Well, I’m here to tell you… not making a choice, is a choice.

The world keeps turning, despite your perceived inaction. I say perceived because by not moving forward, you are making a choice – instead of owning your own steps though, you’re just staying on whatever course you happen to already be on. In not wanting to make a decision, you are deciding to stay in your default state, whatever comfort zone you happen to be in.

If you get to a fork in the road, and there’s two paths, make a choice to move forward, boldly, down one. Trip and stumble along the way, but fight your way through, going for what you want. Make mistakes, but don’t sit too long at the fork wondering about the opportunity cost of one over the other – because there’s also an opportunity cost of just sitting there, frozen.

Life is going to be a battle, whether you’re sitting at the fork in the road or moving forward. But only in moving forward do we own our path. Don’t kid yourself and think you’re stalling between two choices – you may have already made the third choice, to let life happen to you instead of captaining your own destiny.

“Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined.”
Henry David Thoreau

So, starting a new challenge, one thing I usually look for is the quick wins in life (I would say “work/life” – but that’s kind of a pointless dichotomy).   By “quick wins” I mean what are the things that are easy to implement, but create great outcomes?  Essentially, what’s the best ROI, given our time and effort as an investment? What are the LHFs (Low Hanging Fruits)? This is a powerful business concept, but why not use it for this application?

For healthy living, what this will look like is somewhat different for everyone, because effort required is defined personally (e.g., I hate running and love weights, but my sister loves running and is not enthusiastic about weights).  The LHFs for me when it comes to being healthy involves a lot of small common sense baby steps: be more active daily, drink more water, decide to have the healthier food options, don’t eat late at night, limit alcohol and other “empty calories” – in general: moderation and activity.  These are easy for me.  Stuff that’s hard for me and doesn’t pay off? Counting calories and overdoing myself physically – I burn out quickly, frustrated.  Stuff that’s easy and doesn’t pay off? Sitting at my computer, eating without thinking, staying up late, and reading YouTube comments (unrelated, but come on, reading YouTube comments never pays off).

Some things that are in the high effort/high payoff category for me are prioritizing sleep and cardio training – both examples of why you can’t just go for the LHFs, you have to also look at the longterm strategic outcomes.  I don’t want to send a message that those things that are hard are not worth doing.

Still, starting out with LHFs, even just identifying them, is a very powerful way to jump start toward a goal.  And if you’re anything like me, the more you see results, the easier it gets to push into the harder stuff, because you get more and more excited. I’m already 25% of the way to Disneyland, which makes me feel like a badass.  And if there’s anything I’ve learned it’s that feeling like a badass is a great motivator.  A little confidence in yourself can go a long way.  Knocking LHFs out of the way like a mega rockstar demigod epic dinosaur hunter will psych you up for continued success.

That all being said, I also like to identify “selfhacks” to get myself jump started in this game of personal “hardware” upgrades.  Being a nerd, if I can track health metrics easily and automatically, I am way more likely to be motivated – so I’ve let myself play with a lot of fun gadgets like the FitBit, and, best of all, the Withings WiFi Scale and the CardioTrainer app on my Android (I’d recommend those all – I’ve also tried the Bodybugg and the Nike+ but loved the aforementioned the most).  Being a ridiculous extrovert, my other selfhacks have been to schedule social things around activities instead of around food – things like swing dancing, and walking around Greenlake for a chat with a friend.

Both finding LHF and “selfhacks” really focus around knowing yourself and what works specifically for you, you might need to experiment along the way.  I’d love to hear what your discoveries are.