Setting a Goal For Myself

DAY 13

So recently I've been busy getting back into university life so haven't been posting for a while. I'd like to start again and have another goal to share. It started with an assignment for a pharmacy paper that I'm taking. It's called the behaviour change assignment and it's a project that lasts for a couple weeks. We are told to start a simple habit to help better ourselves. This is to put us into the position that our patients are in and be more empathetic and understanding about their strives to change. We get to experience how there is a degree of difficulty and determination needed. The assignment criteria are as follows:

A brief (one page maximum) statement of
 your goal
 your current behaviour
 why do you want to change
 how do you plan to change your behaviour
 how hard do you think it will be, what do you anticipate will be difficulties, facilitating factors
 how you plan to get over difficulties

How will you unlearn the old behaviour?
How will you reward the new behaviour?
How will you address the barriers?

Here's my write up for that:

"My goal and behaviour that I want to develop is to have a healthy diet. This would improve my future health and reduce my weekly expenditure on food. A more personal reason for this goal is to avoid getting diabetes. My father has developed diabetes and made me see the reality of an unhealthy diet. It’s a very real disease that anyone can get if they’re not careful with their diet. To develop this habit, I would cook healthy and eat out less often. Habits take time to build momentum so I'm planning to start my first week with eating out less than 5 times. I would decrease this threshold as each week passes. I’ve counted and calculated that on average I eat out 6 or 7 times a week. Reducing it below 5 would be a significant change. Over the weeks I plan on reducing this number to 2 or 3. I consistently cook healthy meals at home so I will focus on eliminating the habit of eating out. I include 4 or more vegetables in each meal and have reduced my carbohydrate intake. Restaurants or takeaways in Dunedin rarely have nutritious and balanced meals. The places that do are very pricy. I would go broke before the end of this semester if I ate at those places consistently. Currently I find it difficult to resist eating out because of the limited time to go home and cook between lectures or labs. One other barrier to eating healthy is to resist junk food and sticking to the diet. It's just so easy to go out and grab some chips or Chinese take away. To develop my goal I'd pack meals for myself to stop myself from eating out. I would pay extra attention to the pharmacy timetable and watch out for the days that have one-hour lunch breaks. Another barrier is that I don't know many healthy food recipes so the food I cook is bland. I'd prefer eating out, but to develop my goal I would take the time and learn some new recipes. I would immerse myself in cooking to promote and facilitate this new identity. In addition I would apply a type of operant conditioning to punish bad behaviour and reward good behaviour. To increase my likelihood of cooking I would set aside $30 for each week that I successfully complete. It would be around a little less than half the average amount that I would’ve spent on eating out each week. I will give myself the option to save or spend this money on anything but eating out. As a punishment for not successfully completing the week I would need to do 30 minutes of cardio for each time I eat out. I find cardio really boring so this would be great punishment for me. This will be a challenging, but worthwhile experience and I hope I don’t relapse."

A Post About Confidence

DAY 12

Confidence is a value that in many ways controls our lives. If you want to impress that boy or girl you'll need confidence. If you wanted to get through a job interview you would need confidence. To earn the trusts of others you would need confidence. 

What Makes This Value So Highly Sought After?

Everyone has a rational voice in their head that monitors each of their decisions. It's there to minimise the risk of failure and embarrassment. In doing so it often tells leads to decisions such as to not talk to that boy or girl and not apply for that job interview. There's zero risk for failure and embarrassment, but also zero chance of success.

People who are confident aren't affected by their subconscious fears. They seek out opportunities and create chances for success. They focus on the chance of success rather than the chance of failure, and try to maximise that chance with the present situation.

By focusing on the success they display a sense of "knowing what they are doing". They strive to bring the situation into the direction that they want. They have a vision of success and aren't afraid to share it with others. Naturally people are attracted to these visions and give more value to a confident individual. Confident people focus on the success and that's what people want.

Finding Confidence Within Yourself

There is no easy way to find confidence and that's a fact. People are confident because they have been through failure and have experienced the paths to failure. They know how to fail and that's actually a valuable attribute. They know the right things to avoid rather than avoiding the whole situations themselves. 

A person can go through a bout of success after success, but suddenly fail hard resulting in a loss of confidence. In these situations of adversity a person must be able to remain confident and persevere. People who have failed will know how to keep this composure. 

For example a person, as a young man, would need to find confidence to approach women. If they get rejected it would be a huge blow to their self-confidence, but they can learn and experience many approaches to learn that it isn't as bad as they think. Through experience they can build a tougher and stronger sense of self-confidence.

By knowing what leads to failure they will also know what leads to success. They've seen and experienced success, and know what to look out for. Condition yourself through many difficult situations and confidence would eventually emerge.

Avoiding Procrastination

DAY 11

I got the new expansion for the massively multiplayer game World of Warcraft recently and have been pouring my time into that. Instead of getting stuff done I've been interacting and adventuring in a fantasyland with other like minded people. 

I've been trying to stay productive and keep my writing alive so I felt like I needed to make this post. To help myself and to help all who want to avoid procrastination I have tried searching for a way to prevent it. 

In the event of that I stumbled onto a technique called the 2-minute rule. I've been using this rule and would like to share of how it works. 

The Rule: If it takes less than two minutes, do it now!

A lot of the tasks that you neglect are a summation of smaller tasks. You have the ability to deal with the little tasks, but you find reasons to not do them. 

The 2-minute rule helps you overcome laziness and procrastination because it makes it easy to start an action. Part of procrastination is finding a task difficult to approach and start. Building this habit of approaching smaller tasks helps you build discipline and allows you to tackle greater tasks.

Every goal can be broken down into 2-minute segments and conditioning yourself to acting upon them will definitely increase your productivity. 

Doing the tasks builds momentum so often you'll find yourself immersing yourself in the task for longer. If you want to write better then start by writing for 2 minutes. Often you'll find yourself writing for an hour. If you wanted to go for a run then you should take 2 minutes to put on your running shoes and get out the house.

A significant part of being productive and avoiding procrastination is initiating the tasks. The rule makes you initiate tasks and helps you stay on track of your goals. It guides you through each step and allows you to work your way up.

Try inputting this in your life now. If you don't try then you'll never know what you could have accomplished.

Embracing Today

DAY 10

Super Short Thursdays

Everyone has dreams that they want to reach out to. A goal or at least a thought would have slipped into one's mind during their lifetime. Exercising, learning an instrument, writing, and etc it could be anything. Start that thing you always wanted to do today. Think of how much time you spend on working on these dreams of yours. Do you feel content with the effort you are putting in? If not then how much effort do you think you should be putting in? Put that extra effort in today and start making progress towards that goal. If you don't think you're dong enough to accomplish your dreams then you aren't progressing. Reaching one's goals and dreams requires diligence and discipline.

A Native American proverb describes each new day as a chance to change your life. Each day you have the choice to decide what you're going to do that day. Make the decision to start what you want today because not a day can go to waste. Embrace that today is as good as any other day, if not the best day to start. The worst feeling is regretting that you didn't start something in the past. You will kick yourself in the head for that. Don't let that feeling of regret come at all by embracing today. 

Life: Rolling the Dice

DAY 9

Motivation for people who aren't doing so well in high school or life in general

I have to be completely honest here. I didn't enjoy my high school life as others have. There were many factors at play here, but mainly it was due to study troubles, friendship struggles, and girls. I yearned to restart my life and was really looking forward to studying abroad after high school. After I graduated I left Macau to study in New Zealand and the aforementioned problems did not bother me anymore. It wasn't as simple as just going there - much thought and patience brought me to where I am. I knew a long time ago that I can choose to go where I want and chase for what I want. I wanted to go to New Zealand and study a health profession. Now I'm pursuing a career in pharmacy and life's great. Just like me everyone has a chance to restart their life and be where they want to be. You can make the change, and roll the dice. See where you go, who you meet, and experience so much more. 

Just Leave

If you don't like where you are in life - figuratively or literally - then you should just leave. Unless you have a family member to take care of or a similar commitment then you have no excuse to not leave. Don't worry about what happens next because it's wasting mental energy and unproductive. Think of the present and decide on where you want to go. Plan on how to get there and don't look back. This is your life we are talking about, don't stay in a place where you are miserable! If you have the chance to re-roll the dice then take it - you'll have nothing to lose! I don't care where you live, there are cheap plane tickets to many different parts of the world. I guarantee that travelling to a unfamiliar place is an addictive and pleasant feeling.

New Experiences

Immersing yourself in a different environment helps you learn about the world and helps you find your place in the world. Each city, town, country, etc that you go to will have it's own kind of uniqueness. It may be their culture or it may be their ideologies. Those are just two of many things to look out for in each place that you go.  Enjoy each experience and note down what really sticks out to you. Go as far as you can and come back to the best places. You deserve to experience the world.

Find some kind of work in each place that you go - you'll be surprised by all the opportunities out there. This gives you a lot of experience and a more in depth look into where you are. You would get a feel of what it feels like to be a local. In addition this helps you stay in places that you like for longer.

Change Will Come

If you are actively pursuing change then change will come. Be patient and hang in there while you wait for the chance to re-roll your dice. Bear with the difficult people and situations that you are in because they won't matter in the end. You won't have to deal with them once you're gone. Work hard for change because it comes with a price. Work hard for whatever that's required for you to roll your dice. You can't just wait for change without putting the effort to change. Get that A average, get that job, or do whatever it takes. Initiate the change then the ball will start rolling until BAM. It all clicks and your on a plane to Russia or where ever.

Images

DAY 8

Ill keep it short today.

As long as our minds exist, we are constantly sensing the world and understanding it. A sight, a sound, a feeling, a taste, these all contribute to the creation of imagery in our minds. When strangers are nice to us we create an image of that person. From that moment on that stranger is a nice person in our minds. If a stranger is unkind to us we will remember him as an unkind person. Our nature of creating these images make first impressions very significant. 

Realise that the image that you create is just a delusion. That person that you observed is always changing, they aren't always one type of person. It is what your mind is telling you to accept due to what you felt at that moment. Our mind links sensations to feelings so it is restricting us from true freedom of thinking.

Remove these images and think freely without bias. People aren't regularly out there to defile you and people won't always be kind. They live their own lives and care more for themselves than others. Accept the present and forget about the past. Be free from worry, doubt, hatred, anger, resentment, and disappointment. Let go and be free.

You cannot conquer a free man. The most you can do is kill him. - Robert Heinlein

Studying Like A Boss

DAY 7

My parents used to nag me all the time in high school about studying and doing schoolwork. I was stubborn and thought I had all my knowledge down. This was because I would do everything last minute, but never failed. All this ego hit me in the face when it got time to apply for universities. I was lucky enough to get accepted into a program that I wanted at a great university. Since then I had changed my study habits to never restrict my opportunities again. No one told me how to study and I had to find out on my own. Since no one told me how, I would like to share my top 5 university study tips with you guys.

Treat Study Like A Job

Work from nine to five and don't get distracted. Focus all your mental energy on schoolwork during this time. Go straight to the library and review notes or do assignments between lectures/labs. Don't waste time texting on your phone, watching videos, general procrastination, and etc. Treating your student life like a job is crucial for discipline and diligence. You can relax and enjoy your leisure time after you work, but you need to really focus when you work.

Go To Class and Listen in Class!

Skipping class is one of the worst things you can do. The lecturer is there for a reason. Their slides cover only half the content so you can't just rely on them. Lecturers explain ideas and concepts that aren't on the slides all the time. You need to be there to record this information and succeed. If the concept or idea did not make sense to you in class then you have the option to ask the lecturer about it.

I see so many people messing around on Facebook and online shops in class. Don't be tempted by this! Focus on what the professor says thats not on the slides and write notes down. This will save you so much time when you review lectures. It will also stick in your mind longer - reviewing reinforces this.

Ask Questions

You are paying for this in some way or another so don't waste a single drop of the education. Take advantage of this fact and squeeze every drop of knowledge from the professor. Check their office hours and seek them out if you are unsure of anything that they taught. They may even emphasise on something and give you a hint about what's on the exam. If you didn't already know, they are the people who write the exams.

Try to get to know the top students of your class. This is really helpful for asking questions about your specific paper. They don't have office hours and are just a Facebook message away from contact.

Hard Work Trumps Talent

Alright, we all know that kid that aces every test with minimal effort. F**k that kid. We aren't as gifted as him/her so we need to work a little harder to achieve their level of academics. It's 100% possible for anyone to ace any course with hard work. Trust me on this one, I've been there.

Get Enough Sleep

You work better when you get enough sleep. You will also pay more attention in class and won't be dozing off every couple minutes. Honestly, concentration in lectures is a very demanding process and a good night's sleep makes it noticeably easier. 

Coffee can only do so much and your sleep deprived days will add up. In time you won't be able to deal with the fatigue and will start skipping classes. Like seriously. Prioritise sleep.