Bad Habits

I was fan of Maxwell when he debuted with Urban Hang Suite back in the 90s.   I wasn’t too fond of some of the songs on his latest album.  However.  I melt everytime I hear Bad Habits.  OMG!   First of all, he is fine.   Second, of all, the song is dope!    It also gives me positive vibes when I think of my own bad habits.    I don’t think mine are as bad as his in the song (LOL), but I think it is a worthwhile exercise to revisit mine nonetheless.    At a minimum, it gives me a reason to watch the video again.   Here is the video if you haven’t seen it:

Now on to my own Bad Habits.   I realized that I never posted my list  ways to combat them.  These habits  stand in the way of me reaching my goals.   In Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers, he posits that you can become an expert in anything if you practice it for 10000 hrs.  I would propose the same can be said for practices you want to stop.       I am willing to bet that you suffer from one or two of these as well!  Well, here goes:

Habit:  Poor eating habits.  Remedies:

1. Hide/trash the chocolate covered peanuts and other temptations.   Out-of-sight, out-of-mind works for me.
2. Fill my cupboard and fridge with raw greens, beef/bison/turkey jerky, flavorful nuts.   Yeah, I know that nuts are caloric–I rationalize that with cutting out other high calorie foods, like bread and pasta.
3. Knock something off of my to do list.    Last week I was restless and wanted something sweet.   I successfully turned my attention to and finished filing all of my healthcare receipts for my FSA.   Great use of time that burnt a few calories.
4. Let go of the adult beverages.    Unfortunately I like Scotch, martinis, margaritas, champagne and wine.   Not good for the hindparts or the gut.   Now I am allowing myself no more than two glasses of red wine a day and save my grown-and-sexy-beverages for my Saturday binge.
5. Reserve a day to let loose!  That is what my Saturday’s are for.   I save up all of the things I wanted to eat during the course of the week and tear it up!   Of course it seems my appetite has reduced significantly–my showings on my first two Saturdays have disappointed me.

Bad Habit:   Severe procrastination  Remedies:

1. Turn off the freakin’ TV!   I really want to get rid of my television, however I recently purchased a fairly large, microscopically thin model chock full of the latest features. I kind of like the device.  I have opted to switch to the Music Choice: Jazz channel for more of an intellectual soundtrack.
2. Trying to manage the abyss.   Often times I have lots of things I need to do floating around in the abyss of my  head and I don’t take the time to document them.  They will get done only if a reminder crosses my mind at the exact moment I can do something about it.   Unlikely.   I am better off writing things down in a list.   I have started using Evernote to capture everything.

Bad Habit:  Not enough sleep.

1. P90X has started to take care of that.    I can’t stay up past 11pm any more.   However, I have noticed that I don’t need as much sleep as I thought.   Over the past 77 nights, I have averaged about 5.5 hrs of sleep.  I usually log this using the Sleep Cycle app for the iPhone.   It not only gives you an idea of your sleeps duration, it also provides an assessment of sleep quality.   Pretty cool.
2. Cut back on alcohol in general.  It’ll put you to sleep, but getting up is much harder.

I have many more habits I need to work on–this is merely a start.   At least now I have put these ideas on paper and now I wield these weapon against that bad habits that stand in the way of me and my goals.

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