Well, I'm halfway to completing one of the 5 goals I've set myself over this five years: learning to ride a bike!
Halfway because I've now got a bike, for free! Out of a skip! Life is good. Gonna ride that badboy tomorrow afternoon, so if you see word of a ten car pile up and milk everywhere, know that I've failed my TYSIC. I'll report back with more word tomorrow!
Tuesday 16 March 2010
Sunday 14 March 2010
Mark Watson's Ten Year Self-Improvement Challenge
Although I’m technically ten days late, I’ve been doing some stuff for this already since slightly before the opening date. Also, it’s ten days late for a ten year project! Cut me some freakin’ slack.
It will be interesting to see what I can achieve in ten years’ time: I've never really attempted anything of this magnitude before so I'm pretty excited about it. Having others view this and viewing others' efforts is surely going to provide an added bit of somethin'-somethin', as they say.
Hopefully, whatever format this will be in in ten years’ time (maybe I'll blog straight into your bloody minds!), I’ll be able to look back upon this and see just how far I’ve developed, with some degree of self-satisfaction. Yeah boi!
Without further ado, here are my goals:
* Become physically strong
* Become much physically fitter
* Learn guitar to a competent standard
* Become fluent in French
* Learn to ride a bike!
Become physically strong
The goal here seems obvious: I want to become physically much stronger over the next ten years. I’ve already started getting stronger, and if I can keep this up for a full ten years I will have seen a dramatic improvement.
Obviously, I will enjoy the fruits of my labour in everyday life through the ten years, but I feel it’s also important to set mini-goals for myself. These goals have no further time constraints, but obviously I set them with a view to meeting them and then setting further goals.
To start with I have two goals in this category. First of all I want to be able to do 100 press-ups. Secondly, I want to render my current set of weight plates insufficient.
Become much physically fitter
The aim here is slightly different to my strength-building plans. I generally want more stamina and energy. The ultimate aim is to be able to run a marathon, though the goal is not necessarily to have completed and entered a marathon in this time. Though, I could raise some money for charity and achieve something pretty big in one fell swoop. Yeah, fuck it. 10 years to have entered and completed a marathon!
I will not start trying to achieve this goal until more significant gains in strength have been made: My body has a pretty high metabolism so I think I should meet my first mini-goals in strength before starting training for this.
Guitar learning
I would like to become functional on the guitar; as much so as I am on the bass. I think it’s most important to have fun so I’ll just pick a song I like and try and learn both parts of it. And practice, practice, practice.
My first step is to learn Modern Swinger by the Pink Spiders.
Bike!
If I’m going to Holland in September I’d ideally like to be able to ride a bike before I get there, though I technically have ten years to achieve this :P.
Clearly, the first goal to meet is to get a bike. I’m gonna keep my eyes open to see if I can get one for free. Maybe I’ll borrow one!
I can’t imagine it will take too long if I put the time in: there should hopefully be less fear involved this time…
Je voudrais apprendre le français
I’ve done French at A-level and now it’s fallen by the wayside. However, if I want a career in European law I’m gonna need to learn, and preferably be fluent.
I have the books and I have the internet: these can be two very good resources. I will just have to immerse myself a little, formulate plans of action and I’m sure I’ll not only remember what I have, but will improve also.
Since I need to learn it all, I’ll start by relearning as many grammatical things I can get my grubby little hands on and do all the exercises and so forth.
It will be interesting to see what I can achieve in ten years’ time: I've never really attempted anything of this magnitude before so I'm pretty excited about it. Having others view this and viewing others' efforts is surely going to provide an added bit of somethin'-somethin', as they say.
Hopefully, whatever format this will be in in ten years’ time (maybe I'll blog straight into your bloody minds!), I’ll be able to look back upon this and see just how far I’ve developed, with some degree of self-satisfaction. Yeah boi!
Without further ado, here are my goals:
* Become physically strong
* Become much physically fitter
* Learn guitar to a competent standard
* Become fluent in French
* Learn to ride a bike!
Become physically strong
The goal here seems obvious: I want to become physically much stronger over the next ten years. I’ve already started getting stronger, and if I can keep this up for a full ten years I will have seen a dramatic improvement.
Obviously, I will enjoy the fruits of my labour in everyday life through the ten years, but I feel it’s also important to set mini-goals for myself. These goals have no further time constraints, but obviously I set them with a view to meeting them and then setting further goals.
To start with I have two goals in this category. First of all I want to be able to do 100 press-ups. Secondly, I want to render my current set of weight plates insufficient.
Become much physically fitter
The aim here is slightly different to my strength-building plans. I generally want more stamina and energy. The ultimate aim is to be able to run a marathon, though the goal is not necessarily to have completed and entered a marathon in this time. Though, I could raise some money for charity and achieve something pretty big in one fell swoop. Yeah, fuck it. 10 years to have entered and completed a marathon!
I will not start trying to achieve this goal until more significant gains in strength have been made: My body has a pretty high metabolism so I think I should meet my first mini-goals in strength before starting training for this.
Guitar learning
I would like to become functional on the guitar; as much so as I am on the bass. I think it’s most important to have fun so I’ll just pick a song I like and try and learn both parts of it. And practice, practice, practice.
My first step is to learn Modern Swinger by the Pink Spiders.
Bike!
If I’m going to Holland in September I’d ideally like to be able to ride a bike before I get there, though I technically have ten years to achieve this :P.
Clearly, the first goal to meet is to get a bike. I’m gonna keep my eyes open to see if I can get one for free. Maybe I’ll borrow one!
I can’t imagine it will take too long if I put the time in: there should hopefully be less fear involved this time…
Je voudrais apprendre le français
I’ve done French at A-level and now it’s fallen by the wayside. However, if I want a career in European law I’m gonna need to learn, and preferably be fluent.
I have the books and I have the internet: these can be two very good resources. I will just have to immerse myself a little, formulate plans of action and I’m sure I’ll not only remember what I have, but will improve also.
Since I need to learn it all, I’ll start by relearning as many grammatical things I can get my grubby little hands on and do all the exercises and so forth.
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