How To Stop Ruining Your Own Life

While preparing your goals for the coming year, have you reviewed what you did last year? Were you happy with the results? If the answer is no, maybe some further introspection is required - and I have a few simple questions you can use to get right to the point.

What have you done?

A long time ago, a mentor of mine used to tell me:

“Pretend that you create everything that happens to you. When you you find yourself in a situation that you're not happy with, ask yourself, 'What have I done to create the situation for myself?'  

"In most cases, you'll find something that you did - or failed to do - that brought you to this point."

I've used this technique many times on my own, and I love it.  This method forces you to turn the tables on yourself and look at things in a different light.

Once you identify what you've done to create your own bad situation, then ask yourself:

"What can I do in the future to create different outcomes that are more desirable?"

As you come up with possible solutions you want to try out, write them down and resolve to try altering your behaviors in the future.  Then, monitor yourself to see how these changes impact the outcomes.

A personal example

I used to work with someone that dumped half-finished projects in my lap and expected me to save the day by getting them done.  Because I wanted the company to be successful, I'd take them on and finish the projects, they would take credit for the results, and I'd end up really irritated.  But I kept doing it anyway (I know, shame on me).

During one of my reflection exercises, I became consciously aware of what I'd been doing.  I vowed never to make another "diving catch" to do something for this person that they should have done for themselves.  To make this easier, I came up with several useful strategies to say no gracefully and I put my new plan into practice.

A few months later, I was much happier, and this person's poor performance became noticeable enough for our boss to address it as a performance issue.

In other words, this really works (at least for me).  Let me know how it goes for you.

Comments are now enabled again on Genuine Curiosity

Just a quick note to let you know that I had a configuration problem on the site that somehow disabled comments.  This has been resolved, and you can now leave comments on posts here at Genuine Curiosity.

This was all part of a migration to an updated blog platform within SquareSpace, which is my blog provider - they made quite a few changes on their new platform (SquareSpace 6) and I'm in the middle of the learning curve.

I moved to this version because it has better mobile support, easier content "voting," and a number of other usability enhancements.  Let me know what you think of it vs. the old site, if you have an opinion.

Reflect on the old year, plan the new year

Last week, I wrote about Beeminder, to help motivate you to keep your New Year's resolutions, and a few weeks ago, I reviewed the book "Your Best Just Got Better," which is a great book to read to figure out how to set meaningful goals.

This week I want to share some tools and methods to get past the "writer's block" that often stalls people when they sit down to write their goals and resolutions.

Getting your goals out of your head

It's pretty common for people to carve out a few cycles this time of year to make plans, new year's resolutions, and such.  I'm a very visual person, so I find that using a mind map helps me organize my thoughts and stimulates my thinking.  My tool of choice is MindManager from Mindjet, but you can find lots of other mind mapping alternatives on the other end of Google (FreeMind, for example, is free and Open Source).

I organized my map into three main "zones" (which you can see in the diagram below):

1. A review of last year, where I identify highlights, lowlights, and missed opportunities
2. A look ahead to help me frame my main areas of focus (more thematic or directional in nature)
3. Making more concrete commitments I want to achieve (specific commitments and projects I want to focus on)

I've included my blank map below, and you can download my "New Year Reflection" mind map here.  You can also launch an interactive (but not editable) version of the "New Year Reflection" mind map via this link (give it a bit of time - it has to download a Flash-based player).

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Feel free to customize it so the prompts are more meaningful to you.  And, if you use this approach, please let me know how it works out for you.

Still stuck? Try thinking about it another way...

If you'd rather think about your goals in terms of the roles and "categories" in your life, I have another template that may be useful, as well.

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You can download my "2013 Success Planning" mind map here.  And, if you don't have MindManager or a compatible alternative, the interactive (but not editable version of 2013 Success Planning can be accessed via this link (give it a bit of time - it has to download a Flash-based player).  In this map, the "writing prompts" are in the Notes attached to each of the major categories - click on the little notepad icons and you'll see the prompts over in the notes pane on the right.

Improve the odds of keeping your New Year's resolution

It's that time of year - the time for New Year's resolutions, new promises, and fresh starts.  If you're like me, some of them work out and others don't.  What's the problem when they don't work?  For me, it can be easy to just let things slide because there aren't any consequences for being a slacker.  When they do work out, it's usually because I feel a sense of obligation or accountability, so I don't end up letting myself off the hook.

This past year, I discovered a resource that can make a big difference in your chances of success in 2013.  The tool?  Beeminder.  I've written about Beeminder before, but wanted to revisit it in the context of New Year's resolutions - I think Beeminder is one of the best tools around to maintain individual accountability.

Accountability - and consequences - matter in New Year's Resolutions

The concept behind Beeminder is pretty simple: you set a goal, you pledge some money, you use the Beeminder site to track your progress, and if you don't meet your commitment you pay up.

My commitment, as reflected in my Beeminder project this year, was to post to this blog at least 4 times per month.  There was something very motivating about having the pressure of my commitment hanging over me - Beeminder helped me establish a new set of consistent habits for writing blog posts, even if my initial pledge was $5.

Even reinforcements are not silver bullets

Even with the commitment and penalty in place, I fell off my path once along the way.  What did I do?  I got back on the horse, paid my penalty, and set a new commitment amount of $10.  That pricier commitment has been a big help - I have been consistent about posting here at least 4 times per month and, with this post, I will satisfy my 2012 goal - pretty cool.

Time to set a new goal

Now, as we move into 2013, I will be setting a new goal to keep my momentum here on the blog.  I'm planning to set a goal of at least 52 blog posts in 2013, and will maintain my current financial commitment of $10 and, of course, I'll be using Beeminder to track my progress.

If you want to learn more, there are some great examples at the Beeminder site, such as losing weight, exercising more, quitting smoking, becoming more productive, achieving financial goals, learning new languages, and a lot more.  By the way - during this year, I've interacted with the Beeminder team quite a bit.  If you have questions about how to best represent a goal on Beeminder, reach out to them - they have been extremely helpful in getting my goals to work the way I expect them to within the Beeminder system.

If you want to see what goal tracking looks like, you can see my status graph for my 2012 goal at this link.  Going forward, you can follow my 2013 goal at this link.

And stay tuned - I'm going to share some other resources to help with resolutions and productivity in my first post in 2013.

Jawbone UP Wristband (2012 version) - A Hands-on Review

Chances are you know at least one person that has a pedometer, a Nike Fuel Band, or some other kind of exercise / activity tracking device.  A few weeks ago, I got a "Jawbone UP" wristband and I'm really enjoying it.

What is the Jawbone UP?

This multi-function device tracks steps and your general activity level, and syncs with your iOS device (no other smartphone platforms yet, unfortunately).  But the UP also tracks your sleep, which is one of the main reasons I've been waiting for it to be released.

The Jawbone UP is $139 which seems like a good price for the functionality it offers.

For what it's worth, this is the second version of the UP - the first version was released a year ago and discontinued because they kept failing.  The new version seems solid based on my experience so far.

My impressions of the Jawbone UP

Comfort: The UP band is very comfortable.  I wear the Large size, and it fits very well (I used Jawbone's sizing guide on their website to figure out what size to order).  The band is flexible and coated in a soft rubbery finish, so I barely notice it's there, and I wear it all the time except when showering (it's water resistant, but I'd rather avoid getting it wet when I can).

Battery life is very good; you charge it using a special USB adapter provided with the UP and it takes about 80 minutes to reach a full charge.  Once it's fully charged, the UP lasts for about 8-10 days before it begins giving you the "low battery" warning.

Accuracy is decent, when it comes to exercise tracking.  I've done some testing of the band by counting my steps and comparing the steps it has recorded, and it is typically a bit low (conservative).  However, in the few tests I've done, its number is 95-98% accurate (I notice it is less accurate when I'm carrying something with my left hand, as I have the UP band on my left wrist).  I'd much rather have it under-count my steps than over-count them.  Sleep tracking, by the way, seems spot-on.

Syncing is pretty easy.  You start the app on your phone, remove the plug cover and plug the UP band into your phone's headphone jack.  It takes a few seconds to load the data into your phone, then you can unplug the band, replace the cover and put the UP back on your wrist.

The App not only gathers your data, it also uploads your stats to the cloud to maintain a historical record of your activity.

Minimal, easy controls make the UP a snap to use.  There is only one button on the UP - a silver push-button on one end of the strap.  If you tap the button, you can tell whether the band is in "Sleep mode" or "Awake mode," through a small LED display on the edge of the band - you see a moon in Sleep mode, and a Sun in awake mode.

To toggle the modes, you "long press" the button, and it will vibrate to let you know it is changing modes.  You'll also see the LED indicator toggle the Sun and Moon indicators when you long-press the button.

Sleep Tracking

I'll talk about sleep tracking in a bit more depth, since it was the main feature that put me over the edge when I picked the UP.

As I mentioned above, you signal to the UP band that you're going to sleep by long-pressing the button on the end of the band.  You'll see the crescent moon indicator come on briefly to signal Sleep mode, and you'll feel a brief vibration from the band.  That's all there is to it - put it in Sleep mode, and you can go to sleep.

While you sleep, the UP band will track your sleep activity based on your movements and does a good job differentiating between you being awake, being in deep sleep, or in light sleep.

When you wake up, you simply toggle the band back into Awake mode and go about your day.

Smart Alarms

To help you wake up, you can use one of my favorite features:  the Smart Alarm.  You can set a Smart Alarm using the UP App and the band will try to find a time when you seem to be in light sleep and wake you up gently, so you feel more alert when you first wake up. 

The UP band begins "watching" for the right time 30 minutes before your target time and gently vibrates when it is time to wake up (you just press the button to get it to stop).  If you haven't begun to come out of deeper sleep when your target time comes around, it just wakes you up then so you won't be late.

I love this feature, and hope Jawbone continues to improve it to make it less limited.  For example, now you can set only one alarm at a time and you have to re-dock the band to change it.  You can set it to work on weekdays only, or 7 days a week but that is about as granular as it gets right now.  I'd like to have different weekend and weekday schedules.

By the way - if you travel, once you dock the band it will adjust to whatever time your phone is set for.  That means if you allow your phone to automatically set your time to the local time, you'll wake up at the same time in your new time zone - in my case, I set it for 5am and it wakes me at 5am for my current time zone, wherever I happen to be.

Other odds & ends

There are a lot of other features, as well:

• The metal button on the end of the band rubs on my laptop and bothers me, so I've taken to flipping the band "upside down" when I am typing - that makes things much more comfortable (see picture at right).

• The iOS app for the Jawbone UP is very easy to use.  It has a lot of trending reports, "at a glance" analysis of your day, and makes some smart recommendations for sleep and activity - all tailored based on what you actually do.
• The app not only gives you suggestions based on how much you move, how much you sleep, etc; it also gives you comparison information so you know how you compare to the rest of the UP community, and introduces a challenge every now and again to motivate you to be more active.
  
• You can set targets / goals for both steps and sleep, and you get a score each day to track how you're doing.  If you track food, it can also comment on how you don't sleep as well after a heavy day of caffeine or alcohol, and things like that.
  
• Speaking of tracking food, the app makes it easy to log your food and drink intake so you can compare calories burned vs. calories consumed.  I'm not consistent about this, but it's there if you want it.
  

In short, I am very happy with the UP band and think it is a great way to track fitness and sleep.