Daily Ramblings – Motivation Monday – Week of August 3, 2020.

Tags

Consistency, Dedication, Drive, Exercise, K.M. Allan, motivation, Reading, rituals, social media, spiritual efforts, Writing

Here’s my schedule for the week:

I’ll be conducting some research on Afghanistan for my book. I’ll be taking three courses (Sociology on Study.com, Sociology course at Grand Canyon University, and Malcolm Gladwell’s writing course on Masterclass). I’ll also continue pushing through my Computer Science course. I’m currently working on a Python project that reinforces the algorithms surrounding various search strategies.

I’ll also continue reading my books. One of them is on politics by Ben Shapiro, the other is a book on Afghanistan for my book research, and the third is a book by one of my favorite new authors (K.M. Allan) who just released book two of her Blackbirch series.

I’ll be jounaling daily, blogging daily, doing my spiritual exercises, spiritual reading, physical exercises (see my workout routine posting), and posting meaningful quotes and other uplifting content to my social media feeds.

Well, that’s it folks. Keep pushing on whatever goals you set for the year. I realize that some of them have probably gotten nixed due to COVID, but do the best you can. I’m rootin’ for ya!

Have a great Monday!

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Motivation Monday – Week of June 15, 2020

Tags

determined, Disciplined, Driven, focused, Monday, motivation, Pumped, rituals

Here we are again, folks. It’s Monday!

I hope all of you had a great rest this weekend. I know I did. My “Do Nothing Day” (Sunday) was relaxing beyond belief. I napped and it felt really good!

Here’s the game plan for my week:

Physical – Exercise daily (See Workout Routine)

Mental – Writing Course daily, Codecademy daily, Reading Daily, Writing Daily

Spiritual – Spiritual discourse work, spiritual exercises, read my Bible (all daily), Dream Journal daily, Gratitude Journal daily

Social – Post uplifting quotes, poems, and other uplifting content, daily, help the folks when needed, stay in touch with extended family and my friends

Have a great week, folks! Here we go!!

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Wisdom Wednesday – Little Things Lead to Big Things

Tags

Big Things, Consistency, daily, habits, Little Things, rituals, wisdom, Wisdom Wednesday

Wisdom is the quality of having experience, knowledge, and good judgment; the quality of being wise.

We gather wisdom after many bouts of pain, suffering, and mistakes. We gain wisdom throughout our lives. Because wisdom is such a malleable term, the wisdom we gather is also uniquely ours. Each of us take our lumps and learn from them, in most cases.

One piece of wisdom I’ll offer is this: You can accomplish a great deal over time, by doing a little each day. If you write every day, you’ll write a great deal in a year. If you read every day, even if it is a few pages, you’ll read a great deal by the end of the year. I’m not just spouting a platitude here. If you read my Motivation Monday postings, you see what I commit to doing every day. This works for me. Reading, writing, learning, exercising, meditating, and all the rest. Each one of these things contributes to me. The “me” I want to be.

It took me years to figure this out. I got my first clue from my time in the Army. We exercised every day at 0600, without fail, Monday – Friday. This insured we stayed in great shape. Apply the same simple principle to anything you want to be good at, and you’ll attain the same results, in most cases. If you’re not an expert, you’ll definitely be better at whatever you focus on daily.

I would suggest you pick one thing to start with. Maybe you want to learn a new language, write poetry, or pick up an instrument. Whatever your “thing” is, commit to doing something with that skill or topic every day. You need not do a lot. Maybe you commit 30 minutes. Whatever you can put into it, based on your personal schedule, do it. In no time you’ll gain proficiency. Spend more time, and you’ll be building real skills.

If you’ve struggled with learning new things, or accomplishing a goal, you have set your sights on, try this for yourself. It works really well. It also feels good to check things off your daily to-do list.

Well, this is it, folks. Have a great Wednesday!

Until next time…

Dave

 

 

Daily Ramblings – Motivation Monday – Week of April 6, 2020.

Tags

Daily activities, Mental, Monday, motivation, Physical, rituals, Social, Spiritual

Here we go, folks! Start your engines!!

Weekly schedule:

Physical (Exercise daily)

Mental (Coursework daily, Book writing daily, Read a chapter a day)

Social (Post to this blog daily, share quotes and articles daily, and stay in touch with friends and family via social media or phone)

Spiritual (Religious Discourse work daily, Spiritual Exercise daily, and read my Bible daily)

Relaxation (Netflix, Amazon, Vudu, Curiosity Stream, and Xbox Games)

Have a great week, everybody!!

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Motivation Monday – Week of March 9, 2020

Tags

Consistency, Exercise, Learning, Monday Motivation, Productivity, Reading, rituals, Social, Spiritual, Writing

I had my monthly book discussion today and fell a little behind schedule, so I’m scrambling a bit to get caught up and knock out my daily tasks. Here’s my weekly schedule:

Read daily – chapter a day

Write daily – Blog postings, any homework assignments, and work on my book.

Exercise daily – Gym, diet, sleep, meditation

Learn daily – Computer Science Path (Codecademy), Algebra course, NLP course, Course on Autism Spectrum Disorder

Spiritual daily – Read Bible daily, Journal daily, Spiritual exercises daily

Social daily – post quotes daily, share articles daily, get out into the community daily, hang out at the coffee shop on Saturday, hang out at a library on Friday

That’s all I got for today, folks. Have a great week!!

Until next time…

Dave

 

Daily Ramblings – Wisdom Wednesday – Small Deeds

Tags

Action, Artists, Authors, habits, Intention, John Burroughs, Poets, rituals, Small Deeds, Words

The smallest deed is better than the greatest intention.

John Burroughs

I’m a huge advocate for building out daily rituals that align with one’s goals. If you want to write a book, you’ve got to read daily, write daily, and learn about writing daily. If you want to be in good shape, exercise daily, eat right daily, meditate daily, drink water daily, and sleep daily.

It’s the little teeny steps you take toward your goals that get you to where you want to go. Writing a book is easy, if you write a little of your book every day. Learning a new language is easy, if you learn a new word or phrase every day. Getting stronger is easy if you build your strength a little each day. Get it?

The small deeds John Burroughs recommends are the little steps you take toward your goals. Taking one small step is so much more effective than planning how you’ll take that step or that you intend to take a step. Just take the step and you’ll be one step closer to your goals and what you want in life.

Don’t rush it. Artists build their paintings in stages. Authors write their stories in layers. You start with an outline; you flesh it out, then you go back and refine, as the picture in your mind becomes more clear.  You can’t or won’t complete all of this in a day or a week. Take your time. Be patient. Be consistent.

Stop talking about what you will do and start doing it. Take small steps. You will get there.

Thanks for visiting.

Until next time…

Dave

 

Daily Ramblings – Motivation Monday – Fall down, stand up

Tags

Continue, Get back on the horse, habits, motivation, Persist, rituals, Take your lumps, Weekly Schedule

If you fell down yesterday, stand up today.

H. G. Wells

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Life has a tendency to smack us around a bit. Like the picture above, life gives us a toss. Then we get back up and keep moving forward or we decide to stay off that crazy horse. It’s all up to us.

I choose to get up. I don’t care how many times the horse kicks me off. I’ll keep getting back on until that horse figures out that I am crazy enough to keep getting back on. I’m like the Irishmen who keeps blind-siding the bully until the bully gets tired of breaking his hands on my face.

The moral of the story: Don’t quit. Keep going. This ancient wisdom make so much sense, yet so many quit anyway.

Here’s my schedule for the week:

• Learn Spanish daily
• Python daily
• Work on my book daily
• American History daily
• Algebra daily
• MS Publisher daily
• Blog daily
• Social Media daily
• Exercise daily
• Meditate daily
• Read 1 chapter daily
• Journal daily

I hope all of you have a great week! Feliz lunes para ti (Happy Monday to you).

Until next time…

Dave

 

 

 

Daily Ramblings – Motivation Monday – It’s Sunday Night, and All is Quiet

Tags

Blogging, Comments, Flexibility, habits, Meditation, motivation, rituals, Variety

Hey there!

I was reading through a few blog posts and saw the time. It’s Monday Motivation time. I’ll time this post if I finish early or just post it at midnight. I love the variety in the blogs I follow. One had a family visit to a great tropical resort, another is in Japan, and yet another got to the gym and knocked out some treadmill work. We are all so unique, yet the same. We like to write (obviously), we like to tell our stories, and we like the occasional response to our work. I try to respond to all the blogs I read, hoping folks will do the same on mine. I really enjoy getting comments. It makes my day!

OK. Off we go!

This week I’ll be following my daily regimen. Writing, reading, learning, meditating, coding, exercising, and all the rest. I enjoy my rituals. I schedule enough work to keep me busy and the rest of the day is mine. Rituals are nice because they slowly become a habit. I do not follow a daily schedule, because I would rarely follow it. I get all of my stuff done. It’s nice to have some flexibility in the day and attack what I want to when I feel it.

One thing I do is cluster like tasks together. When I’m done with this blog post, I’ll hit my journaling, posting quotes, sharing articles, and letter writing. Tomorrow during the day when I’m fresh, I’ll do some work on my classwork and coding exercises. I’ll get my exercise in, and I try to meditate every afternoon between 2:30 and 4:30 pm. I like this time of day because there is little chance I’ll fall asleep. I tried morning meditations and before-bed meditations, but I always fall asleep. The afternoon sessions are perfect.

I hope all of you have a great week!

Until next time…

Dave

 

Daily Ramblings – Motivation Monday – Week of January 20, 2020

Tags

Consistency, Goals, Keep Pushing, motivation, rituals, You can do it

Well, my Mom returned late last night from a trip to Texas and things are back to normal in the Gardner home. While she was gone, I took care of my Dad, who has been suffering from Dementia for a few years. He is still able to do most things, but he has to be watched.

Recently, we had to get him set up with physical therapy, because he has been stumbling around and falling. The doc told us his quadriceps and muscles surrounding his hips have become significantly weak, so Dad is going to PT twice a week for the next month.

I didn’t get much sleep last night, but today’s tasks are waiting, so I’ll make this a brief one today.

Here’s my schedule:

• Blog Daily
• Code Daily
• Work on Book Daily
• Read Daily
• Exercise Daily
• Meditate Daily
• Journal Daily
• Learn Daily

I hope all of you have a terrific week!

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Motivation Monday – Do Not Stop

Tags

Consistency, Continuous Improvement, Elastic Habits, habits, motivation, rituals, Stephen Guise

“It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.”

Confucius

Here we are! I like this quote because it aligns perfectly with a book I’m reading, called Elastic Habits by Stephen Guise. His new book describes how to have flexible habits so that on days that suck, you do the bare minimum to continue your streak, medium level habits for normal days when you are motivated to get something done, and elite level for those days that you are wired to crush the day. He also provides alternative tasks that augment your goals. Let’s say you want to get in the habit of exercising every day.

You could pick weight exercises, cardio exercises, and perhaps a sport like swimming, basketball, or tennis. On a bad day, you do a pushup, walk for a minute, or knock a few balls around on the court. For your medium-level you could do 20 pushups, or a 20-minute run, or play a set of tennis with a friend. For elite-level you could do 100 pushups, run for 45 minutes, or swim 10 laps in the pool. This lateral as well as multiple levels of your habits, provide you with maximal choice and the ability to elevate or deflate your daily accomplishments based on your mood, time available or energy available.

If you are interested, you can pick up a copy on Amazon. Elastic Habits on Amazon.

I am not an affiliate, just a HUGE fan of Stephen’s work. The book will run you 7.99 and is only available in e-book form.

The advice provided by Confucius aligns perfectly with this book, because Stephen provides you a mechanism to always take one step forward with all of your habits. I can’t recommend this book enough!

Here’s my week:

• Get an advertisement in the Jeffersonian for my book discussion on Dreams
• Get copyright message on Poster for book discussion on Dreams
• Help my wife study for a teacher’s certification test daily
• Exercise daily (see workout routine)
• Eat a vegetarian breakfast (altered from my workout routine for breakfast instead of lunch) daily
• Meditate daily
• Take online classes daily
• Blog daily
• Work on my fiction book daily (outlining, story beats, character development, world creation, etc.)
• Read a chapter daily
• Post quotes daily
• Share an article daily
• Eat out for lunch daily

Well, that’s it for this week folks. I hope all of you achieve your goals and have fun while you are doing it. Living a life with healthy habits is a wonderful thing. This new book, Elastic Habits, will show you how to do it with no chance of failure.

Have a GREAT week, folks!

Until next time…

Dave