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Tag Archives: Routine

Daily Ramblings – Motivation Monday – Consistency

21 Monday Feb 2022

Posted by Dave Gardner in Motivation Monday

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Consistency, Exercise, Goals, Goodreads, Monday, motivation, Reading, Routine

Good morning! Happy President’s Day!

How do you stay motivated for your daily tasks and goals when it’s a holiday? I follow a pretty rigid schedule of Monday – Friday, even while retired. There are certain things I do everyday, regardless of what holiday falls on Monday. The caveat to that is during the month of December, I pretty much take the whole month off.

I find consistency is the key to getting anything done that requires more than a day’s work. Take reading, for example. I use Goodreads to track all of my reading. I set a goal of roughly 60 books a year. If I read 5 books simultaneously each month (5 chapters a day), I will typically meet or exceed the 60 book goal I set. A lot of that depends on how big the books are. During those years I am reading a lot of history or non-fiction books, the number I hit tends to be lower. Most of these books (at least the ones I am interested in) tend to be quite long (400 or more pages). Subsequently, it’s harder to knock those ones down compared to a 200-250 page novel, which tends to move along more quickly. Anyway, for me it is better to do the same things each day on a schedule than just wing it. By doing a little each day, you can achieve quite a lot by year’s end.

For exercise this week, I’ll be doing some home workouts. I’m not a huge fan of driving in the snow or in inclimate weather. Here’s my workout:

Monday (Quads and Calves)

Tuesday (Hams and Abs)

Wednesday (Back and Biceps)

Thursday (Chest and Triceps)

Friday (Shoulders)

Each day I’ll do 50 reps for each body part.

I hope each of you has a great Monday!

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Motivation Monday – Announcements

18 Monday Jan 2021

Posted by Dave Gardner in Motivation Monday

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Tags

ambitious, Determination, Discipline, Drive, habit, motivation, Ritual, Routine, Routines, workout

Hi all! First, it’s Dr. Martin Luther King’s birthday today! We in the U.S. declared it a national holiday a while back. This means I get an extra day off this week. That being said, here’s a few announcements:

  1. I’ll continue working through the spiritual laws on Saturday’s posting, but giving myself Saturday or Sunday to put it up.
  2. My workout this week will be the same as the last few weeks as I get this body back into condition after taking the bulk of December off. This week, I’ll be doing a full-body exercise band workout with 3 instead of 2 sets.
  3. I’ll be combining my workout routine and some other things I have scheduled for the week into one posting instead of two. So Motivation Monday will have a great quote, cool video, or something else I find that wakes me up in the morning and continue to pass those off, adding my workout routine and anything else I feel is appropriate for the beginning of the week.

For those of you in the U.S. enjoy the end of your long weekend.

Here’s a Wikipedia article on MLK for your reference, if you are interested in reading about him. Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_King_Jr.

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Workout Routine – Week of November 9, 2020

09 Monday Nov 2020

Posted by Dave Gardner in Workout Routine

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Consistency, Dedication, Discipline, Exercise, Exercise Bands, Routine, Tabata routine, workout

Welcome to my Workout Routine for the week of November 9, 2020. As we approach the harsh winter in Michigan, I am much more prepared than last year. Each year, we get some big snows. This makes driving really difficult and treacherous. To avoid that risk, I purchased some exercise bands from Bodylastic, and I am very pleased.

I’ve also been studying some of Jim Stoppani’s work. One of Jim’s biggest insights is that sitting is the new smoking. I couldn’t agree more. My life is very sedentary, now that I’m retired. I exercise daily, but discovered through Jim’s website (jimstoppani.com) that he follows a rule where he is doing an activity above his daily workout routine. This week, I’m going to incorporate that. This will add some variety to my workout and let me focus on one body-part each day.

Because I have an Apple Watch, I am reminded to stand up every hour. I’ll use this as my cue to do some exercise. Here’s my schedule for the week:

Monday – Legs

Tuesday – Back

Wednesday – Chest

Thursday – Shoulders

Friday – Arms

Saturday – Abs and Calves

Sunday – Off

I’ll be mixing in some Tabata work in as well. My Tabata format will be:

8 minutes of exercise (20 seconds exercise, 20 seconds rest)

That’s it, folks! Have a great week!

See you at the finish line!

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Workout Routine – Week of October 19, 2020

19 Monday Oct 2020

Posted by Dave Gardner in Workout Routine

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Cardio, Discipline, gym, healthy living, Routine, Weights, workout

This week, I’ll be hitting it hard in the gym. Here’s my schedule below:

Mon-Wed-Fri: Upper Body

Tue-Thu-Sat: Lower Body

Sun: off

Each day will also include 20-30 minutes of cardio and the sauna.

Hit it hard this week, folks!

See you at the finish line!

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Workout Routine – Back at it!

13 Monday Jan 2020

Posted by Dave Gardner in Workout Routine

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Tags

Exercise band, Home Workout, Living Healthy, Recovery, Routine, Taking it Easy

Well, folks I’m back. It took a good week of cough syrup, soup (courtesy my Mom), and lots of rest, but I finally put this cold to bed yesterday. I’m back up and at it again. Subsequently, I’ll be getting back at the exercise routine. This week, just to make sure I don’t recycle the cold I beat, I’ll be doing a home-workout with exercise bands, and taking it a little easy as I move back to a full-time workout schedule.

Monday – Saturday

  • Full Body Routine (exercise bands)

See you at the finish line!!

Dave

 

 

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Daily Ramblings – Wisdom Wednesdays – Affirmations: Rewriting The Script

13 Wednesday Mar 2019

Posted by Dave Gardner in Wisdom Wednesday

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Affirmations, Alter, change, Create, habits, Replace, Rewiring, Routine

“May Light always surround you;
Hope kindle and rebound you.
May your Hurts turn to Healing;
Your Heart embrace Feeling.
May Wounds become Wisdom;
Every Kindness a Prism.
May Laughter infect you;
Your Passion resurrect you.
May Goodness inspire
your Deepest Desires.
Through all that you Reach For,
May your arms Never Tire.”
―D. Simone

Today we’ll talk about affirmations. We can use affirmations to rewrite faulty scripting, like all the negative things you tell yourself subconsciously. These faulty scripts tell us we are not good enough, not strong enough, not smart enough, etc. Whenever you resist something beneficial to you, it is the faulty scripting within you that is at work.

How do we rewrite our internal scripts? We rewrite them through repetition. We replace them with better, stronger, self-supportive scripts. We repeat affirmations out loud or speak them internally each day. They build, support, and strengthen us. We can create affirmations to patch the gaps in our internal software.

What do affirmations look like? I am healthy is one example. You could recite this one by itself or you could change it to look like this: “I am healthy because I eat nutritious foods and exercise every day.” We should write affirmations to express a state we want to be in right now. It should start with the phrase “I am.”

We are the way we are because of our internal scripts. We write these scripts throughout our lives and circumvent our ability to change, improve, or adapt new behaviors. Why? The brain does not like change. The brain likes things just as they are. Changing ourselves eats up a lot of energy. Thinking, changing, and altering all require huge amounts of energy.

We resist change because of this wiring. Each time you do something new or your thinking changes, the brain wires a circuit to automate that new task or idea. This wiring takes time and energy. Change requires the brain to create a new neural connection and destroy another. Let’s say you are trying to quit smoking or drinking to excess. The brain enjoys smoking and drinking because of the rewarding chemicals your brain produces each time you light up or have a sip of our favorite adult beverage. These habits are “hard-wired” into our brains because they are both repetitive and rewarding. To drop these habits, we have to replace the neural pathways the brain has created or let the brain decouple them when it determines we no longer need that neural pathway to survive.

Negative talk and resistance to change are also neural loops or pathways that are hard-wired into our brains. They are strong because the brain wants to protect us. Change to your brain is scary. In some people, change is fearful because change invokes the fight-or-flight mechanism in the oldest part of our brains. When this mechanism kicks in we sweat, we tense up, and our pupils dilate. We may shake with uncontrollable fear. If you have ever witnessed someone who gives a public speech, who has never spoke publicly before, you’ll see this mechanism kick in.

To change your life, you must build new neural pathways that support positive changes. One way to do this is to assume you are what you want to be. To act “as if”. If you want to be healthy, you must act as if you are healthy. Affirmations start this process. Affirmations get us to visualize what we want to be. Positive self-talk replaces the negative messages we tell ourselves unconsciously.

Here are a few examples you can try:

I am healthy.

I am calm.

I am happy.

I am smart.

One exercise you can do every day is to write your affirmations 15 times a day. Writing your affirmations down while reciting them is a powerful tool. It is powerful because it repeats and it engages your mind and your body (hand write them, don’t type them). Do this exercise every day at the same time. This daily affirmation exercise will bring about positive changes in your life. It will “rewire” you to be better. Stick with it. Don’t give up. Take the 5 or 10 minutes this requires. It is worth it.

You have the freedom to change these affirmations any time you wish. I would stick with your first set for a month. You can couple these affirmations with action. Let’s say you want to feel better. You want to start an exercise program. So, you write “I am healthy” in the morning 15 times, reciting these words as you write them in your journal. You also walk for 20 minutes each day, meditate for 10 minutes a day, and eat one healthy meal filled with nutritious fruits, vegetables, and a lean protein. You track all these habits by creating a repeating list of these items you check off each day. Try this for 30 days. Write 1) walk for 20 minutes; 2) meditate for 10 minutes; 3) eat one salad each day; and 4) write my daily affirmation “I am healthy” 15 times a day. As you accomplish each one of these things, check them off. Before you go to bed at night, write these 4 things on a list for the next day.

If you have failed to make a change in your life before, give this exercise a try. It works. I have been doing this for years and it has brought great changes to my life. Once you figure out how to rewire your brain, you can literally do whatever you want. You can make changes and they will stick. You can recreate yourself and recreate your life.

Until next time…

Dave

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Daily Ramblings – Daily Quote

07 Thursday Sep 2017

Posted by Dave Gardner in Quotes

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Tags

Eric Thomas, Process, Ritual, Routine, Series of Habits

Today’s Quote:

“Fall in love with the process and the results will come.” – Eric Thomas

I love this quote because it discusses the simplicity of systemic workflow. Think about how easy it is to do something you do every day at the same time. There is example after example of the simplicity of following protocols, processes, and established best-practices–religiously. Because they work!!

You can substitute routine or ritual for the word “process”. Routines and rituals simplify our lives because we don’t have to reinvent our days. We simply get up and execute. Look at some of the things you do every day without fail. Once you do, you can ask yourself what other things would I like to do daily that can provide me with maximum benefit. Let’s say it’s reading.

Find one time in the day that you believe is your best time to read (maybe an hour before bed). Put it on your calendar, make it a daily repeating event on your calendar app and Wala – you have a new habit in the making. The ritual comes in by adding other habits in and around your reading like:

Evening Routine

  • Hygiene (Brush Teeth, Wash Face/Shower)
  • Prep Clothes for tomorrow’s workday
  • Read
  • Retire

You can obviously manipulate this any way you wish. The key is to consistently execute this routine each night at the prescribed time on your calendar. By doing so it will slowly become a habit you never miss. If you read just 1 hour a night, that is 365 hours a year. Imagine what you could read in a year just reading that 1 hour a night.

Thanks for visiting!

Until next time…

Dave

 

Daily Ramblings – Daily Quote

06 Wednesday Sep 2017

Posted by Dave Gardner in Quotes

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Tags

change, John C. Maxwell, Ritual, Routine, small changes

Today’s Quote:

“You will never change your life until you change something you do daily. The secret of your success is found in your daily routine.” – John C. Maxwell

For a good chunk of my life, I focused on my “willpower” to make things happen. Over the years, science has discovered that willpower is a faulty mechanism at best. The key to change is to take small steps and automate. To emphasize, I will substitute routine with ritual.

I have rituals for two parts of my day. The first is in the morning. The second is in the evening. I won’t rehash my schedule but will say that you should order your activities so that they make sense to you. Hygiene, journaling, meditation, exercise, etc. Start small. Maybe your ritual is nothing more than:

1) make bed

2) eat breakfast

3) meditate

4) brush teeth and hygiene

5) get dressed head to work.

This is simplistic, but what I am referring to by starting small. You may even want to start smaller than I have above. The key to rituals is focusing on things you do already. Once you have gotten this worked out, just add one thing you’d like to add to your day, whether it is reading a book, meditating, or journaling. It’s up to you.

Until next time…

Dave

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