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My Journal - Alex


AlexTheGrape

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Just a quick update:

The weekend and the week so far has whizzed by, I've been super busy! I have actually started dating and that is going well. I've also been getting up at 6 every day to go to the gym, which has lent me more time to study afterwards. I'm a little tired as I haven't been getting much sleep as usual, but I think I should recover some over the weekend. In any case I'm doing pretty well!

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Yesterday has been another great day of studying and such. I had my first tutoring sessions with high school students, which went really well. I found it enjoyable to help out students individually, and it pays heaps better than my restaurant job, so I'll definitely continue with this.

 

The main thing I need to improve on would be to get to bed quicker, as I've been rather slow with it recently.

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The past few days have been a blur of activity, I had my test and have been working hard to meet all my commitments. I’m finding that organising for tutoring sessions and so on has been a bit more trouble than it is worth: I haven’t started yet but I have still spent many hours on the website organising timetables and making arrangements. I’ll see how it goes though. I sorta went on a date yesterday, so hopefully this goes well in future.

 

Today has been an awesome day at university, I got up super early to go to the gym and had plenty of time left to study before my first lecture. I finished writing and proofing a CV for an internship, so I’m glad I got that sent and out of the way. I’ve needed to stay late at university every night this week, so I’m finding it a little difficult to put in all the revision work I need to.

 

 

 

Gratitude journal

 

I am grateful for having friendly and helpful lecturers.

 

I am grateful for living in New Zealand.

 

I am grateful for the washing machine.

 

One amazing thing that happened/I did today:

 

Getting up really early has allowed me to do so much more with my morning! I felt pumped to make the most of today and I want to do the same tomorrow.

 

Workout/run

 

Yup, I went to the gym again!

 

Daily task planning ahead of time

 

Nope, not needed.

 

Exercise planning

 

Tomorrow I’m going to the gym again.

 

Meditation

 

Nope. I really need to schedule it somehow, but I’ll just need to remember for now.

 

Visualisation

 

Nope. I have nothing to visualise… I’ll just need to visualise my goals, and remember why I want to do them. Feel the success of achieving it and feeling inspired whilst working.

 

Daily affirmation

 

No daily affirmation. I don’t think these ever worked anyway so I’ll just remove it next time.

 

Fully cold shower

 

Nope. I did one yesterday out of necessity, but for now I’m enjoying the warm showers. There’s only so much willpower I have!

 

Reading + taking notes

 

Nope. I need to dedicate more time! I also don’t know where I should be taking notes.

 

Getting to bed before 10:10pm

 

Nope. I am today though!

 

Jar of Awesome

 

Yup! Getting into the habit of this is getting good.

 

Cook a meal + Cooking journal

 

Nope. I’m going to scrap this one as I really don’t have time right now and won’t in the next couple of weeks.

 

Daily application of self-development skills

 

Tomorrow I’m going to have a cold shower, let’s do this! – I failed this one on Tuesday, I had one yesterday and it was ok because it was not completely cold. I think I should do this in future.

 

Programming

 

Nope. I also don’t have time to practice this daily.

 

Social journal

 

Nope. I need to find it…

 

What went well today:

 

Getting up early.

 

What didn’t go well today:

 

Not much actually.

 

What I could have done to make my day better:

 

Meditate maybe? Otherwise I did pretty well.

 

What I will do differently tomorrow:

 

I’m going to get to bed early so that I get enough sleep.

 

Photo Stream

 

Here's a photo I took at a VEX robotics scrimmage (competition) I volunteered at about a month ago!

 

DSC03431.JPG

This is like the example of a journal entry well done. Super inspiring man.

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The past week has yet again been a blur of activity, but it has been a lot different to any other week this year. I went on another date (same girl as before) which went very well, it was by far the best I’ve had before. We’ve been spending lots of time hanging out and studying together this week, and has been a really nice way to get through the week. I’ve also been getting up at 6am every day (with the exception of yesterday) which has lent me heaps more time to do my best at the gym and have extra study time before my first lectures of the day. I’m finding that doing journaling is currently a good reflection tool weekly, as I’m already evaluating how I’m doing on a daily basis in my daily planner (however not in word format). I feel this is working pretty well, as the only real things I need to be evaluating on a daily basis is how much work I’ve done, and how I can be more productive. I think I’ll only need to do extra posts during the week if things go particularly bad or some other reason for reflection.

Now my goal is to do my journaling activities (i.e. gratitude journal, amazing thing that happened, meditation, visualisation, goal setting) on a daily basis but tracking them on paper since I’m not going to be journaling here every day. 

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Thanks Hitaru! Good to hear a second opinion on how I'm doing. I hope it inspires you to do your best :)

I can have nothing but respect for you mate, you were already doing great when I first arrived. Also you're a TV celebrity (?)

Let's do our best, for sure! B|

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If you miss the accountability you can always post pictures of your hand written posts. But greast to hear that everything is going allrighjt for you

You're quite right, I should definitely do that. I think posting daily would be best even if it does take a little more time, and taking a photo gives that option. Thank you for the suggestion!

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Today has been a great day at uni. I got up at my new usual time of 6am to get to uni early, and I managed to get some good studying time in. I gymed today too, as well as tutored a student for an hour. I was surprised to find how easy it was to make visualisation goals for myself with the right tools. I also meditated and visualised, both of which I haven't done for a long while. I think it certainly helped me out when tutoring this evening.

I knew that I needed to make some as I hadn't had any concrete goals for the past few months, if not the whole year. I'll likely upload a photo of how I set them too. Now that I have visualisation goals, I can visualise where I want to be, and remind myself of what my goals are. I've made them into weekly tasks too, that way they're achievable and measurable.

If I look back at my previous goals, they were quite unrealistic. I wanted to have started my own community group by about March this year, but I never got anywhere close. I need to develop my social skills and leadership skills heaps before I attempt anything like that, which has been why I've been doing quite a bit of leadership stuff this year. Tomorrow I want to continue my success, and make sure to make moves on achieving my weekly goals.

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Here is how I set myself some goals (which I use to visualise). I asked myself questions about my past, current self, and desired future self to determine what was important to me to work on. I brainstormed how these areas can actually be worked on, and I circled the ones that would be a good fit. I then decided on something tangible I can achieve this week for each of the three areas, so that I have something to reflect and check on at the end of the week.

The quality of these photos isn't that great, but it should at least show that creating meaningful goals can be done in less than ?page=6530 minutes!

WIN_20171002_201405.JPG

WIN_20171002_201427.JPG

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Hey thanks for sharing these. I will steal the questions for my next goal setting session ;). I like especially the last two questions because I usually have a hard time asking people for help. But I know how important it is to use other people experiences. 

Edited by WorkInProgress
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Here's my weekly reflection:

This week has gone really well. I managed to do fairly well to get studying done where it is needed, however I'm a little lacking in a couple papers. I made sure to get help when I needed it, and I did a good job of tutoring and working at the restaurant. Staying at university to get studying done has been helpful on the couple of days which I did do it, but I'm going to need to try a little harder on the weekend to study longer. I did however manage to get in intense exercise between 50min sessions whilst studying, which really helped me keep alert and engaged. I've been getting up consistently at 6am which has been great, and I've been trying harder than ever at the gym - things are going superb. My relationship is going very well, I could say I have a girlfriend now. I really think everything can only get more intense around the board, as exams are coming up and I'll be more pressured for time. I wasn't consistent with visualisation, I'll need to continue that.

I'm going to stick with the weekly posts now, as I simply don't have the time every day to be writing a long post; every minute of spare time I can muster needs to be put towards my studies and social life.

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Here's my weekly reflection:

This week has gone really well. I managed to do fairly well to get studying done where it is needed, however I'm a little lacking in a couple papers. I made sure to get help when I needed it, and I did a good job of tutoring and working at the restaurant. Staying at university to get studying done has been helpful on the couple of days which I did do it, but I'm going to need to try a little harder on the weekend to study longer. I did however manage to get in intense exercise between 50min sessions whilst studying, which really helped me keep alert and engaged. I've been getting up consistently at 6am which has been great, and I've been trying harder than ever at the gym - things are going superb. My relationship is going very well, I could say I have a girlfriend now. I really think everything can only get more intense around the board, as exams are coming up and I'll be more pressured for time. I wasn't consistent with visualisation, I'll need to continue that.

I'm going to stick with the weekly posts now, as I simply don't have the time every day to be writing a long post; every minute of spare time I can muster needs to be put towards my studies and social life.

Sounds great. Having a girlfriend will help you a lot. Especially after the first crush is gone you'll have someone to point out your dumb ideas in normal life. The added self-reflection can be priceless.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Last week has been another blast of busyness. I did well to arrange my week days so that I didn’t have any clashes, but I made a couple of poor choices in how I spent my time during the week. I spend a little too much time with my girlfriend when I should have been studying or going to robotics, and I believe I’ve learned from those experiences.

I need to keep my sleeping and studying routine consistent throughout the weekend during these important exam times, as it really messes me up when I stay up too late and get up too late.

In general it has been a good and very busy week, and I know the workload will only ramp up from here.

One of my pen pals wrote to me asking if we were still pen pals anymore, as I haven’t sent a proper email to any of them this year. It has made me feel a little sad and guilty that I haven’t put in the time to write to them, but it also shows that I’ve had a change in priorities. I initially wrote to my pen pals in the school holidays as I’d have a lot of free time, and it was a good way to keep myself from gaming. Now I am able to meet all my wants and needs without gaming or writing to people which is really good. It is hard to tell but I think I am happier than I used to be in general. Anyhow I will need to narrow down my active pen pals I write to down to just one or two, as I will simply be living my own life from now instead of reciting it.

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Last week has been intense! I had another two tests and managed to get through the week well. I've been trying to achieve my highest during the tests, but in doing so I have been slightly behind in lectures. I'm pretty much caught up now though.
I need to make sure I do these reflections on a Sunday, as I otherwise forget until I can hardly remember what I did during that week.

I worked plenty of hours for my jobs, it is getting to be a lot to juggle though.

I didn't spend very much time with my uni friends and instead spent a lot with my girlfriend. Its not a bad choice, but I need to be aware that friendships require consistent maintenance.

I'm feeling good in general though, which is the best I could hope for in exam season. I only have two weeks until my exams are over!

I haven't been meditating or anything like that, I am just not convinced enough that it helps me enough for it to be a priority. Perhaps because I'm doing regular exercise and progeamming I am already getting a good rest.

Looking to my upcoming summer holidays, it seems like getting a temporary full-time job would be good to make use of my time, however I do want a bit of a holiday, so I won't rush into it.

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Last week has been an ok week in terms of productivity. During the uni days I went to the gym twice which was not ideal, but I made decent use of my time and ensured that I met my deadlines. 

In the weekend I had a couple dilemmas and effected my ability to study somewhat, I didn't get much work done as a result.

This week I need to give my coursework and studying full priority, even cutting down on gym time if necessary to meet the exams as prepared as I can be.

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Be careful you don't cut the gym out entirely if that is the way you are using to clear your mind! I have found if I throw myself boots and all into my studies and remove everything else in my life, that I burn out quite quickly. That might be acceptable that you burn out after your exams, but if it happens beforehand you might do more harm than good with your routine.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Exams are over. They have been for some two weeks now! A lot of change has happened in the meantime. When my holidays started I spent a lot of time reading and I made sure to go to the gym the normal amount. I spent a decent amount of time with my girlfriend. I started to do some full-time construction work to fill in my time, whilst also doing my part-time job. For the better or worse, I started gaming again. I believe it came of running out of interesting books and I then wanted something fun and easy to fill my time, so I grabbed the lowest hanging fruit. I'm sure there are many more underlying problems which I need to address, so I need to do that very soon. It'd likely trace back to not having any long-term goals at the moment, I'm not visualising, etc.

I let a couple people know that I'm going to play no games tomorrow to see how it goes. I'll  likely continue going cold turkey afterwards, but I'll have to see.

Tomorrow I'm going to:

  • Sort out my immediate tasks I need to do
  • Make a few calls and do some reflection to figure out what I really want out of life (I'm finding it rather vague right now)
  • Create SMART goals according to what I want to accomplish. Set goal time limits which I'll keep here for accountability
  • Set up measures to keep myself accountable (e.g. daily alarm for GQ posting)

From my repeated experiences with relapse, I've found that posting daily during the holidays is essential for my productivity and wellbeing. It may not be necessary when time is sparse during exams and such, but throughout the year I should be reflecting daily and keeping myself accountable for taking the more difficult but more beneficial actions.

Edited by AlexTheGrape
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