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Let’s Make a Deal… With Yourself

Since I started this blog, my real goal was to hit one post per day and try to keep that up over time.  Clearly that has not happened and of late, it’s lucky when I get one a week.  So what to do… what to do.

Well this here guy decided he would fix this problem the old-fashioned way: self bribery.

img_8941In case the photo above is not glaringly obvious enough, I am getting a new computer and it’s going to be a Mac.  ‘Twas no easy decision for me as the son of 30 year IBM employee.  I was there during the heady early days of home PCs when the mighty IBM PC was battling it out with the Apple IIe.  It was a pitched and vicious battle, for sure.

But those days are long gone and I’ve been in need of a new computer as my trusty Dell desktop begins to sputter and fade a little more every day.  So a brand spanking new 15” MacBook Pro is en route to me right now.  FedEx still shows the damn thing in China with a Thursday delivery date… but damn it, I WANT IT NOW! *ahem*

hipsters_coffeeThe deal I made is that this would be the tool through which I build this blog and my overall on-line presence… umm, which is basically this blog and my Twitter account.  I have told myself with a powerful laptop, I will be able to blog and do all this groovy social networking anywhere the moment I am struck by the muse’s song.  I think this will be true for the most part… but I also know a decent chunk of me just likes having a new toy to play with.  So I am expecting more posts on a regular basis to coming flowing from my gray matter down through my fast-typing fingers (seriously – I am uber-quick) and onto the Interwebz for your reading enjoyment.

Now excuse me while I Google the best coffee bar to take my MacBook and fully immerse myself in my new hipster persona.  I’m writing the great American novel and pontificating on all things cool… obviously, you bourgeois swine.

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“Blank” Something Different

In thinking over my previous post on breaking a funk and reclaiming my rightful mojo, I knew some action needed to be taken outside of… well… just writing a post about it.  While writing is certainly a form of action, it’s often more the declaration of desire than the actual exercise of change and movement.  I don’t believe this diminishes the importance of the writing, but it certainly clarifies in the grand scheme of change, improvement and all the other goodies this blog seeks to focus upon.

So what kinds of actions will be on tap for our intrepid blogger?  Well, a few notions (nothing overly radical) designed to break me out of my routine if nothing else.  Why is this important?  I see it basically this way:

If you are in a funk or a rut, you are clearly following a path of well-worn grooves that you’ve created for yourself.  It’s a routine and while it’s clearly not a good routine, it’s likely become comfortable nonetheless.  Therefore, to at least begin that critical process of being released from the funk, change is needed.  It can be a change in venue or perspective or habit, but until action of some kind that is just plain different takes places, you are working from a very difficult spot to free yourself from the rut.

A few short term plans to shake things up:

  1. Move something different.  I plan on making a bit of a resvision to my current exercise/training plan.  I really do enjoy the lifting scheme I use (Jim Wendler’s 5/3/1), but I have been doing it for quite a while now.  I have had great success with it, so instead of scrapping it all together, I am using his brand new 5/3/1 for Football to give myself a shot in the arm.  It’s not going to be a wholesale change in what I do, but then again, I don’t want it to be here because this has at least been going well (God forbid).
  2. See something different.  Sometimes you just need to just pause and take in in some visual inspiration at a museum and it’s been a while since I’ve gone new-britain-museum-of-american-art to a museum to soak up a little art.  It really is one of those things I always enjoy when I do it, but then I never do it often enough and then eventually catch myself think, “Huh… haven’t really been to a museum in a while…”  I always find it funny that I have several activities I really like to do, but then I never do them all that often.  They just seem to slip my mind so effortlessly.  But late Saturday morning will be spent at the New Britain Museum of American Art taking in what they have to offer.  It’s not a museum I have been to before, but I’ve heard excellent things about it.  My hope is that a little exposure to creative works will provide a jolt to my own creative juices.  I plan on having a post all about this experience on Saturday or early Sunday.
  3. Think something different.  In a sense, I will likely get this from #2, but I know that in order make a change, my mental approach needs to vary and adapt.  As I’ve written about before, I sometimes can be someone more-than-a-little leery of change… but I can also feel very invigorated by it.  If it’s self-created change, it tends to feel a little bit better because I can at least give myself that momentary illusion of control in the situation.  But in order to think differently, I might need to vary up my reading list.  This can be magazines, blogs, books and all of that good and wonderful written material the world has to offer… but I need something outside of my comfort zone.  I’m not 100% sure of where that is just yet , so I am open to some good and useful suggestions, i.e. while a book on acetylene welding techniques is certainly different… umm… that might be a little TOO different.
  4. Deal something different.  I’ve also decided I might make a deal with myself as a bit of motivation.  My home computer is seriously on the wane and I’ve been thinking of a replacement.  I’ve got a little money tucked away in some savings and I plan on hanging onto it… but I am also considering picking up a MacBook Pro whenever Apple decides to launch their newest version (which is allegedly soon, but who knows what decisions will be made by High Priest Steve and friends).  The deal would be if I do it, then this blog has to become a daily minimum.  In fact, I am thinking about waking up 45 minutes to an hour earlier each day and trying to use a bit of a morning energy to crank out a post or two.  This may be precisely the change I need, so stay tuned.

Time to stretch a bit out of the comfort zone and see what the end result may be.  Stay tuned for the mayhem to follow.