#TYSIC Update

(Ten Year Self Improvement Challenge)

Note: Sorry, this is a long one. I do not blame you if you decide reading all of this would damage your life in some way, but if you do read it all, thank you kindly. Feel free to comment with any advise or tip you have

I have set out my goals, and now it is time to provide the update on my progress. I’ve decided that they should probably be split into long and short term action points.

Short term – Top Priority
Learn to drive
Improve my career
De-clutter
Do regular exercise (code name #operationsexpot)
Learn not to over think things

Mid Term – Medium Priority
a appris une langue
Lose weight
Maintain regular blog
Be creative
Make people laugh
Meet a nice gentleman

Long term
Buy a car
Go travelling
Buy a house
Get married
Start a family
Set up my own company

Learn to drive
I had a driving lesson on Sunday. I seem to have a mental block when it comes to driving. I’m rather lucky in the sense that if I put my mind to something, I will achieve it. Sadly, it seems that my mind is actually what is getting in the way. I second guess my judgement, which inevitably leads to making a mistake. I am finding this utterly infuriating! I just want to be able to do it. I have no idea why I am finding it so hard. My next lesson is a week Friday.

Improve my career
I actually quite like my job. I love the people and I enjoy working in IT, but I am horrifically over worked, and I know that my skill set is worth more than I am currently being paid. I need to see what sorts of jobs are available. The trouble is, I still don’t really know what I want to be when I’m all growed up. I have a few Cloud 9 jobs I would love such as graphic designer, entertainment critic, comedian, managing director of my own firm, Chloe O’brian’s direct line manger at CTU, but no real “calling” to a particular field.

De-clutter
Fail. I need to work on this

#operationsexpot
I have done reasonably well this week. I went to a class called Body Pump on Monday, which is basically lifting heavy things, repeatedly, to music, for about an hour. I went to the gym for 30 mins on Wednesday, immediately followed by a class aimed to kill you through lactic acid poisioning through your legs, bums and tums. I hurt. But as some masochistic sad case once said, pain is beauty.

Thinking about how to stop over thinking things
I have only been made aware of this being a real issue for me, fairly recently. It affects my driving, my working relationships, my friendships, my relationships and just my overall judgement of a situation. I also have no idea how to work on this issue. Suggestions would be greatly received.

Learn a language
I have a learn Nepali CD that I used for my trek last year, but I don’t know how useful this language would be to me. I have a couple of ideas. I could continue with my French learning. I got a B at GCSE so that might help (Even though that was 10 years ago it’s self) Or I could maybe start to learn Japanese. This is mainly because it is a stunningly beautiful language and I love the fact that they have 3 alphabets. Anyone got any suggestions for other languages I should learn? Maybe I should learn a programming language. That would help with some of my other tasks.

Lose weight.
This is an on going battle for me. At my heaviest, I weight about 18 and a half stone. That was about 2.5 years ago and I am still ashamed that I let it get to that stage. I weighed myself this morning and I currently weigh 16.3. I would be ecstatic if I could get out of the teens. My main problem is binge eating. I do this when I am overly happy, excited or content, or if I am feeling miserable, frustrated or tired. That doesn’t leave me with a lot of time in between to eat healthily. I think that refusing to binge eat may need to be added on to my list of goals

Maintain a regular blog
Well, I am getting there. I have had a couple of quiet lulls where I was either too tired, or too grumpy to write something worth reading, but I seem to be back on the ball. I wrote a little guide to online dating this week, which was mainly written to allow me to air my frustrations, but I have received quite a few lovely responses from people about it which has made me happy. I still have a bucket load of comedy reviews to write up for it, but I have been a little bit lazy.

Be creative.
I have set myself a little challenge to attempt to do a doodle a week. This started with the #preciouslittle robin ince’s view on the war on terror, followed up by my keith lemon doodle. This week I am attempting to doodle Michael legge and james hingley although I’m not too impressed with my current attempt. Still, the more I do, the better I will become.
(michael legge doodle = here)

Make people laugh
There is something about making people laugh that I find completely addictive. I just love making people smile. This week I did it by accident. I wrote a blog entry about some online dating horror emails and sent it to a few of my friends that could relate to it, and they were in absolute stitches. I was really taken a back and completely honoured that they enjoyed it so much. I hadn’t really even attempted to make it funny, I had just been annoyed at the situation and wrote down my thoughts. I think I am going to focus on some writing and see if I can really hone my ability to make people smile.

Meet a nice gentleman
Well, on the topic of online dating, I have booked a date with an ex wrestler on Saturday. He is 6ft 5 and works in civil service and seems rather interesting. I am a little bit nervous though (and this is where my overthinking issue comes in) because he seems very keen.

The long term goals are not really applicable at the moment.

There. Update complete.