Goals Update and Accountability Check #4 – Persistence

On my second update I began the trend of picking a word which I believe embodies each period of time. For this period I chose : Persistence. It’s been awhile since my last update and there have been some exceptionally busy times. At times it has felt like I have just been grinding my habits out without much thought which isn’t particularly a way I’d like to think about them. So, with some foresight, I am preemptively announcing that the 5th update will be: reinvigorate. I suppose it is time too now that I have surpassed 100 days (for nearly everything).

There have been some wins in this period. First and foremost, I completed my mixtape and I am gearing up to release it. That is somewhat surreal but it is also bittersweet because it feels like it should have been completed a long time ago. However, better late than never. I registered for the HSK 4 exam which is a step in the right direction as I push myself to a suitable challenge. My saving habits are also doing a little bit better in this most recent period.

 

Now, I will make brief comments on a few of my Productive APP habits:

Yoga: My practice is going strong and it really is the cornerstone of my day. My body has never felt better and my movements continue to become more fluid. I definitely need to reinvigorate my practice though as I noticed my practice is becoming sort of routine. I think now is the time to create focus areas and write my own flow to mix in with some new videos.

Meditation: Meditating is definitely my second favorite practice and habit. When I sit down to meditate these days it seems to feel completely different than a few months ago when I started the habit up again. There is so much more space and awareness that has come to my body and mind over the past few months. I am really thankful to have been able to cultivate it.

The Novel Mind: The website is coming along at a good pace and I am adding to it bit by bit. I feel like I am starting to see the snowball effect as I really don’t put hours on end into it (yet) and instead I do something for it everyday. I am finding that my ideas for this site are also endless.

Exercise: Here, I faced my first real failure since I began this endeavor as this habit got reset to zero when I missed the 88th day. I was disappointed in myself that it happened and desperately wanted to make an exception but I realized that I had to accept the fact and couldn’t make excuses. I also came to the conclusion that in the long term it would be better to not make exceptions when something went wrong because that could set a bad precedence for myself in the future. I decided that it was much better to learn from the failure, get myself back on track and be more careful. I believe that if I can do those things then it really wasn’t a failure at all and instead an opportunity to learn. There will always be setbacks but as long as you can make the proper adjustments you won’t be set off course. On the other hand, I’ve rebounded back on another streak and my “minimum” push-up amount is now 25 which is up from 10 when I first started. That is a positive as the minimum has continued to rise along with my strength.

Chinese Study: I have kept pushing my studies and I now have nearly 1,700 Chinese character cards in my Anki deck. I have also put in a significant effort to answering HSK 4 test questions. I had scheduled the exam for December 4th but unfortunately it has been cancelled due to the fact that two nearby cities (one hour and two hours away respectively by high speed train) reported a total of five COVID cases last week. The epidemic precautions in China are becoming insane but there isn’t anything you can do and now with the extra time I will be more likely to pass so that is a plus. Anyway, I really enjoy the language learning and it continues to become easier to communicate and understand people.

French Refresh: My lessons on iTalki continue to go very well. I also put some additional work into the grammar app or freewriting sentences using the words from the iTalki lessons combined with structures from the app. I think the new year will bring a determined exam level goal.

Freestyle: This daily practice is a lot of fun and has paid off immensely. I have found a much greater ability to cultivate more meaningful rhymes on the fly and I gained the confidence to do it more in front of people. I had two opportunities to pull words written by people in the bar out of cups and string a rap together using the random words which went alright in all due respect. Freestyling in front of a decent audience and truly having to improvise is quite intimidating and I don’t think it would have been possible without this practice.

Record Mixtape: Last week I finished the last songs and sent the last files away to be mixed and mastered. I received the last song this morning and got to send it out to a few friends for a quick preview. It took 58 sessions of “something” to complete and I mostly did it all between 6:50 and 7:20 am. I can now retire this habit and replace it with writing for the next project- or potentially beat making as I haven’t quite decided.

 

One last note:

There was one unexpected outcome that I really noticed during this period and that was a way to cope with or relieve stress. There were some stressful days since the last update but having fairly solidified habits as these really helped during the “hard” or down times. Because, what else are you going to do during these times? Are you going to give up and do nothing when you don’t feel so good or there’s something on your mind? No, you’re going to do what you always do even if that means persisting through and just going through the routine. These habits gave me an excellent and productive way to be when the going got tough.