Daily Ramblings – Motivation Monday – All the Best in 2022

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Achievements, Adventures await, fresh start, Goals, New beginnings, New experiences, New Friends, New Year

Well, here we are, folks! It’s a new year and we are all at the starting gate. Who will take off quick and burnout before the end of the year? Who will never get off the starting line? Who will methodically attack each of their goals and achieve them by year’s end? It is up to you.

It feels good to have a fresh start and I am excited about the days, weeks, and months to come. As we move through the week, I’m changing up some things for my daily postings. I hope you like the new ideas. I’ll keep you in suspense until these days hit. You’ll just have to wait and visit every day.

I hope all of your holidays were terrific. Mine were great! Family came out to visit, my sister moved back home, and we got in lots of movies, board games, and for me, video gaming. I also got into some really good fiction books. It was a great December!

Here’s to the new year, folks. I wish all of you the very best and hope you achieve all of the goals you’ve set for yourself in 2022!

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Bonus Content – Happy New Year!

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Adventure, Goals, Happines, health, Hobbies, Love, New Year, Projects, Prosperity

I’m posting this roughly 12 hours before the New Year, but since many of you are in so many different time zones, it just made sense to get this out there. 2021 was a good year and 2022 will be even better. This year, like every year, presents the opportunity for growth, improvement, and learning. I wish each of you a terrific 2022 filled with love, prosperity, good health, and achievement.

If you are finalizing your goals for the New Year, here are some areas you may want to consider if you are stuck.

Relationships

Health

Finances

Hobbies

Spirituality

Learning

Creative Projects

Travel Plans

These are some areas that I am diving into this year and figured some of you may benefit from seeing what I am doing and it will prompt you to do the same.

I’ll be back on my blogging schedule on Monday. It was a great idea taking December off. It was nice to just do my thing without a schedule, to-do list, or some other mechanism I normally use to track things. It allowed me the freedom to just be for a month, enjoy my family and friends, and get in some serious gaming. Now it’s time to get ready for the new year and get cracking at my new goals scheduled for the year.

Happy New Year!

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Workout Routine – Week of January 4, 2021

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Bodyweight workout, Exercise Bands, get moving, New routine, New Year, Stair Stepper, Starting Fresh

My routine this week, after taking a few weeks off, is to do a combination of bodyweight exercises, combined with my new exercise bands.

Workout – Monday – Sunday

Stair step lunges

Standing Calf Presses

Bodyweight Pushups

Exercise bands curls

Exercise bands Standing Rows

Exercise bands Lateral raises

Standing Exercise Band Ab Crunches

This first week, I’ll stick with one set of 10 for each exercise to get the body moving again. I’m also going to continue to follow moving around every hour for about 1 minute. This could be jumping jacks, walking up and down stairs, or doing some other aerobic activity, to keep the blood flowing and get out of my chair.

Have a great folks!

See you at the finish line!

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Motivation Monday – It’s a New Year

Tags

Achievement, Determination, Goals, Innovation, Learning, lockdowns, motivation, New Year, persistance

I’m back after a nice vacation toward the end of December. I hope all of you had a pleasant time during the holiday season. We had a little get together with my sister and her boyfriend. The meals were terrific.

It’s that time again to list out my goals for the year. Here we go:

Physical

Exercise daily

Learning

Finish Masters in Sociology

Learn Excel

Learn Marketing

Learn Statistics and various diagrams

Learn Digital Advertising

Learn Python

Learn Graphic Design

Financial

Add 1200.00 to my savings by year’s end

Pay off dental bill by year’s end

Spiritual

Finish 12 ECK discourses

Run 9 Book Discussions

Run 1 Sound of Soul event

Develop 1 Digital Report to be used by me for Vahana reports each month

Learn about Facebook advertising and test it in the Thumb area by year’s end

Spiritual Exercise 2x 365 days

Gratitude Journal 365 days

Read Bible 365 days

Reading

Read 60 books in 2021

Writing

Build followers to 1100 by year’s end

Finish and Post 250 Blog Posts

Follow 200 new Blogs this year

Begin a new non-fiction book (fiction writing is on hold for the time being)

Social

Write 52 letters to my wife

Post poetry and Quotes  365 times this year

Interact and make friends playing Call of Duty

Hobbies (Call of Duty Gaming)

Diamond out Submachine guns

Diamond out shotguns

Diamond out launchers

Diamond out knife

Diamond out Sniper Rifles

Diamond out Pistols

Learn Combined Arms Maps

This is my list of goals for the year. Note: I have planned no face-to-face or location goals at all, since it is highly likely intermittent lockdowns will continue, particularly as the COVID virus mutates. There is already a new strain in the US.

Get at it, folks! It’s a new year. You’ll see some new content types this year on my blog. I like changing up this blog from time to time because it makes it interesting for me and I would like to find more ways to entertain and serve you in 2021. We’ll see how it goes.

Have a great year all!

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Final Post Friday – 2020

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2020, 2021, Blogging, Bye for Now, final post, Friends, New Year, Thank you

Well, it’s been a helluva year. I hope all of you have been safe, healthy, and happy. This will be my last posting for 2020, as I’m taking off the last few weeks in December to celebrate my favorite part of the year.

With this final post, I’m grateful to have made a few friends, including author K.M. Allan. So many stories of your lives, pictures and places you’ve traveled, and all the rest each of us enjoys talking about are truly a tremendous gift for me. Despite our lockdowns, we have a medium to write down our thoughts and share them with the world.

I’d also like to thank all of you, personally, for following my blog. I try to capture a bunch of different topics, unlike many out there that stick to one topic or idea. This year, I’ll be dropping some of my daily topics for others. I don’t know which ones yet, but I’ll be thinking about that before the New Year begins. As this blog grows, so will my ideas.

In closing, I wish all of you peace, happiness, and love in 2021. See you there!!

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – 2020 Goals – Here We Go!

Tags

Accomplishment, Achievement, Attack!, Consistency, Goal Setting, New Year, Push Yourself, You Got This

Drum roll, please…

As promised, here are my goals for 2020.

My 2020 Goals:

• Reduce Weight to 200 lbs by year’s end (weigh-in weekly)
• 365 gym visits
• Finish Rough Draft of my first Novel
• Complete 12 Online Courses this year
• Complete Computer Science Path on Codecademy this year
• Save 1200.00 by year’s end
• Finish Yearly Religious Discourse
• Run 12 book discussions
• Read 60 books this year
• Take a personal vacation once per quarter exploring a new town each time
• Visit the library 52 times this year
• Follow 200 new blogs this year
• Attain 800 followers by year’s end
• Track goals

It will be a great year! I can’t wait to knock this stuff out. Consistency is key. Just doing a little each day can produce huge results.

What are you goals for 2020? I suggest you set a few and make them public like I do. It adds a little more pressure, and it is great how people cheer you on throughout the year once they find out what you’re trying to do.

Send me your list if you’d like or send me a link to your annual goals you post on your blog.

I wish everyone a terrific 2020, filled with love, accomplishment, good health, and success. Let’s Go!!!

Until next time…

Dave

 

 

Daily Ramblings – Motivation Monday – End of Year Recap

Tags

2020, Achievements, Failures, family, Friends, Goals, New Year, Planning, Strategy

Here I am for one day to document my goals for 2019 and how it all panned out throughout the year. When I return finally on the 2nd of January 2020, I’ll post my 2020 goals. I wanted to get this out to you before New Year’s Eve as promised. So here we go!

Physical

1. Develop a life-long workout routine for home and gym
2. Reduce Weight to 200 lbs
3. Get to your Dental Appointments
4. Get Annual Physical
5. Chiropractor monthly to keep back and joints in order
6. Eye exam

Learning

1. Complete 12 courses online this year

Financial

1. Save 1200.00 by year’s end

Spiritual

1. Complete Book discussions
2. Participate on panel at Regional
3. Participate at HI retreat if invited
4. Kick off the Art of Spiritual Dreaming
5. Complete Light and Sound Discourse
6. Send in 12 Initiate reports
7. Spiritual exercises 20 minutes per day
8. Read Shariyat (My Bible) daily

Reading

1. Complete 48 books by year’s end

Writing

1. Finish Recruiting Book this year
2. Learn outlining for nonfiction books
3. Learn outlining for novel creating steps

Blogging

1. Build followers to 1000 by year’s end

Social

1. Stay in touch with family and friends

So everything that is in red is where I fell short of my yearly goals. Here’s what I learned.

Reduce Weight to 200 lbs – Missed

Losing weight is all about calorie deficit. You won’t lose weight if you do not decrease your intake. This is hard, no doubt about it, but I’ll be adding this again to my yearly goals for 2020. I’ve purchased a food tracker and will continue to strive to build a nutritious diet that is sustainable for the long-term. If any of you have followed my blog for this year, you know I gave the KETO diet a try. It didn’t work. I lost weight, but could not sustain the diet for the long term. Back to the drawing board.

Save 1200.00 by year’s end

Again, another tough one. You would think it was easy, but when you’re on a retirement income, it is not. I have morphed my budget in the last few months that should help me with this goal. This will also go back on my list for 2020. I plan on saving more than this, but this is the goal, since I couldn’t hit it this year.

Build followers to 1000 by year’s end

Another tough one. I thought I would make it, but have just recently breached the 650 mark for followers. This will be a goal of mine again, but this year will be more realistic. I’ll shoot for 800 by year’s end 2020. I’ve got some plans to change out some of my content for the upcoming year, sticking with the topics people enjoyed and leaving aside those topic areas where no one seemed to be too interested or where I wasn’t getting the traffic I wanted.

What I’m going to keep.

I had great success in the areas of book reading, classes taken and completed, and book writing. I also knocked it out of the park on my exercise, my spiritual areas, and my social areas. I haven’t finalized what my goal list will look like yet. I’ll be thinking about those things tomorrow and New Year’s Day.

I know a lot of people have given up on setting New Year’s resolutions, because they seem to fail or lose interest after a few months. I would urge you to set them anyway. Just don’t set too many. Shoot for one or two areas you’d like to improve this year and stick with them. Who cares if you miss the mark, the key is the process of trying to meet them. It really makes life very interesting. You will also make some progress. Relish that! That’s where you can become even more motivated. When you begin to see progress in an area you want to improve, you’ll be that much more driven to keep pushing!!

One thing I discovered is that my goals were not specific enough in some areas. I will reword them this year, so they are measurable. Tracking goals is really important. To properly track them, they have to be specific metrics. You’ll see this in my upcoming goal’s list.

Well, that’s it for today! I hope all of you are having a wonderful holiday season. I did. My brother and sister came out for the holidays and it was terrific! We had a great time as a family.

Happy New Year, readers! I hope all of you have a wonderful time at the parties you are going to or hosting. I also wish each of you great happiness, adventure, love, and an outstanding 2020! Remember: You can’t lose if you don’t quit!!!

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Ted Talk Tuesday!

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Ted Talk, Benefits, Evolution, New Year, Dan Dennett, Internal Wiring

 

For the first Ted Talk Tuesday of the New Year, here is a short talk provided by Dan Dennett. He explains that cute, sexy, sweet, and funny are all wired in to our brains because of evolutionary processes. It is a short and funny video.

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Spiritual Saturday

Tags

Assessment, Balance, Goal Setting, New Year, Planning, Review, Well-roundedness

Over the next few days I’m going to be reviewing 2018. I’m also going to be formulating what I want to do with my 2019. If you’ve never done this kind of exercise, I’d highly recommend it. The first challenge I ran across when I began my annual habit of re-reading good books I’ve found, was what areas to focus on?

Here are the areas I use to formulate a New Year:

Physical

• Diet Goals
• Weight-loss goals
• Exercise Goals
• Nutrition Goals

Mental

• What do I want to learn?
• How many books do I want to read?
• What podcasts do I want to watch/stop watching?
• What courses do I want to take?

Spiritual

• What spiritual practices do I want to continue?
• What do I want to do to contribute to my fellow man?
• What kindness can I spread to the world?
• What types of spiritual questions do I want to pursue an answer to?
• What spiritual books and courses do I want to take?

Social

• Where can I go to meet new people (physically)?
• Where can I go to meet new people (virtually)?
• What activities can I do to engage with people?
• How can I improve or maintain current relationships?
• How can I gain more followers to my blog?

These are just some thoughts you may be able to think about for your own review and goal setting. I like to work through exercises like this because they help me to capture what really worked previously, what didn’t work, and what I can do to keep moving forward in my life. I think the most important aspect of this exercise, along with others, that bring some semblance of order and meaning to my life.

We all want to wake up energized and anxious to get to work. As a retiree, this has become a really important thing for me. I want my retired life to be profitable, meaningful, contributing, and fulfilling. These things represent different things to different people. I would challenge you to really assess what you value. What you want to achieve. What you want to do with yourself in the next year.

As promised, I’ll be posting my finalized plan for 2019 on the 31^st of December. This was a good year. Next year will be better because I’ve built a solid foundation of writing, exercise, spiritual pursuits, and social activities. This year will be better because I am better. I have learned a great deal over the last year and look forward to begin applying all I have learned/re-learned.

I hope all of you have a terrific New Year’s Day! Take some time over the next few days and really think about all of your experiences in the last year. What did you learn? What do you want to apply to your future?

I’m excited to begin the new year and begin executing all of the things I am contemplating. I hope you have some time to figure out what you want and institute a plan that will bring all of your goals to fruition.

Until next time…

Dave