January Update

Thirty-one days have gone by.  We’ve almost completed the first month of 2016.  Here is a list to reflect on how my daily improvement work went this month:

  • Reading every day wasn’t too difficult.  Having the goal of reading a book a month helped, though I didn’t finish reading the Think and Grow Rich book.  The book has a lot of motivational perspectives for getting richer not only just in terms of money, but also living a successful life.  Reading through this 1937 classic feels like going on an inspirational retreat.  I read 23 days out of the 31 days in January.
  • Writing every day was hard.  Sometimes I have topics to write about, sometimes it just seemed like I was digging a lot trying to find topics to write about.  I only wrote 14 days out of the 31 days; didn’t even hit 50% of the days.  Self-criticizing aside, the tracking of writing has made me more aware that this is an area I need to focus on in the subsequent months.
  • Exercising every day was easier compared to reading and writing every day.  Tracking shows I exercised 27 out of the 31 days.  I’m not sure whether the motivation was intrinsic or extrinsic or both.  There is a gym at my work, so I work out at lunch hour on most days when I’m at work.  My workout partner, Brian Westgate, is my fitness accountability buddy.  It’s hard to skip gyms because I know I would have to face his humiliation multiple times via different channels of communication.  I scheduled basketball and arranged family’s help to ensure I play basketball once or twice a week.  I think I did well in this area, so I hope to keep it up.
  • Meditating daily wasn’t easy.  I only meditated 17 days.  I’m familiar with all the benefits of mediation, but it’s not easy to practice the theories you know.  I guess most nights I was just too tired to sit for 10 minutes.  Practicing my breathing has helped my speech and temperament.  I hope to incorporate meditation more in my bed time routines in the coming months.