Exercising the muscle of “Awareness”
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| GretchenRubin.com |
I have started
reading this wonderful book by Gretchen Rubin, The Happiness Project
and I can affirm that it have come to my life at exactly the right time. This is like one of
those books that you read and you start nodding all the time and
thinking, ” ummhummm”, “this make sense”, “I’ve always thought about
that” when reading about those topics that will help
you achieve a better life. Right now I am in the second
chapter, the one i can summarize as the awareness chapter.
reading this wonderful book by Gretchen Rubin, The Happiness Project
and I can affirm that it have come to my life at exactly the right time. This is like one of
those books that you read and you start nodding all the time and
thinking, ” ummhummm”, “this make sense”, “I’ve always thought about
that” when reading about those topics that will help
you achieve a better life. Right now I am in the second
chapter, the one i can summarize as the awareness chapter.
We live our lives in
a fast track between a house, taking care of family, job, schedules,
groceries and all those tiny activities in between that will swallow the twenty
four hours of the day in a blink of an eye.
a fast track between a house, taking care of family, job, schedules,
groceries and all those tiny activities in between that will swallow the twenty
four hours of the day in a blink of an eye.
Trying to have an
idea of what happened in my day -by- day life, where I was, what I was doing; I
started to look deeper into several aspect of my life and came up with the
following list:
idea of what happened in my day -by- day life, where I was, what I was doing; I
started to look deeper into several aspect of my life and came up with the
following list:
- How active am I?
- How healthy am I eating?
- How do I use the 24 hours of each
of my days? - How am I using my money?
- Am I been a team player or a
lonely ranger. Am I letting the team to play their roles? - Am I doing what I love, even a
tiny thing I love at least once at day? - Am I hanging with the people I
like/love? - Am I
taking responsibility of anything in my community? - Am I having a positive approach
toward life? - Am I listening to what my guts
have to say or am I listening to the voices from outside.
The list might change
for each of you, but once you figure out which lines are important in your life
and you start working on each one of them you will realize if you were doing
better than you thought or if there are some things you have to adjust.
for each of you, but once you figure out which lines are important in your life
and you start working on each one of them you will realize if you were doing
better than you thought or if there are some things you have to adjust.
When I started with my list,
I started with a simple question: how active i am?
I started with a simple question: how active i am?
Did i mention that I
work in an office where one third of my colleges do some type of sport?
Between running marathons, swimming two/three kilometers per session,
badminton, basketball, bicycle, cross country skiing, etc. I will just
say that with my little walks to the metro and walking my dog to the park, it
was to laugh for to think that i was remotely active. So, I decided to take a
look at the facts.
work in an office where one third of my colleges do some type of sport?
Between running marathons, swimming two/three kilometers per session,
badminton, basketball, bicycle, cross country skiing, etc. I will just
say that with my little walks to the metro and walking my dog to the park, it
was to laugh for to think that i was remotely active. So, I decided to take a
look at the facts.
As one of the things
that Gretchen mentioned in her book, the use of a pedometer to count her moves,
I decided it was an easy way to start. Next day I downloaded a pedometer
application while I was at lunch time at the office and set a goal of ten
thousand steps per day. Since the World Health Organization (WHO)
advise for eight to ten thousand steps per day is a number for
a physically healthy adult, ten thousand looked like
an approachable number to start.
that Gretchen mentioned in her book, the use of a pedometer to count her moves,
I decided it was an easy way to start. Next day I downloaded a pedometer
application while I was at lunch time at the office and set a goal of ten
thousand steps per day. Since the World Health Organization (WHO)
advise for eight to ten thousand steps per day is a number for
a physically healthy adult, ten thousand looked like
an approachable number to start.
After two weeks of
playing with this and carry my cell phone with me even to the bathroom,
it turned out that I wasn’t doing too bad. I was able to reach to
my daily goal relatively easy and sometimes when I was doing groceries,
going to the museum or an extra walk to the dog, I was reaching up to twelve
thousand steps. Then I thought, not bad for a person that does no sports, no
bad at all. I know this not represents that much of a “Wao moment”, after
all that was just my daily routine.
playing with this and carry my cell phone with me even to the bathroom,
it turned out that I wasn’t doing too bad. I was able to reach to
my daily goal relatively easy and sometimes when I was doing groceries,
going to the museum or an extra walk to the dog, I was reaching up to twelve
thousand steps. Then I thought, not bad for a person that does no sports, no
bad at all. I know this not represents that much of a “Wao moment”, after
all that was just my daily routine.
The big impact
is that it has just changed the way I see myself and from that point, it
changes everything. It’s like the memo or the email running through the whole
system was completely different. Once I knew I was active, I start feeling active and looking for
extra little things to do to reach the 13 thousand steps. My body start feeling
with more energy, it like the placebo effect, the message you put in your brain
will have an effect in your whole body.
is that it has just changed the way I see myself and from that point, it
changes everything. It’s like the memo or the email running through the whole
system was completely different. Once I knew I was active, I start feeling active and looking for
extra little things to do to reach the 13 thousand steps. My body start feeling
with more energy, it like the placebo effect, the message you put in your brain
will have an effect in your whole body.
As they say, God
is on the details, once I started exercising the muscle of
“awareness” it looks like I was able to transfer the same process to
other aspects of my life. I think I am ready to move on to the next subject on
my list: How healthy am I Eating?
is on the details, once I started exercising the muscle of
“awareness” it looks like I was able to transfer the same process to
other aspects of my life. I think I am ready to move on to the next subject on
my list: How healthy am I Eating?
I think this will be a good subject to
write about for tomorrow.
write about for tomorrow.
I should
finish with a nice invitation for a coffee, but this is a wonderful afternoon
of on this fourth day of fall in Montreal, so I would suggest some wine.
Why not some Niagara’s local wine, a red one for instance, as the
sun goes down.
finish with a nice invitation for a coffee, but this is a wonderful afternoon
of on this fourth day of fall in Montreal, so I would suggest some wine.
Why not some Niagara’s local wine, a red one for instance, as the
sun goes down.
See you tomorrow,
