Another Year of the Non-Marathon – 8 Anti-Pandemic Motivating Ideas for YOU…

It’s spring, at least for us northern hemisphere’ites… and all feels blissfully… normal…

… the birdies are totally randy and twitterpated (way too many PDA’s! even PDF’s!)… houses are selling above asking price within milliseconds of being listed for sale… daffodils and snowdrops and daphne are all in sunny rainbow bloom …

Springtime, and the acacias are blooming”… (The Eagles)

… but of course, not EVERYTHING is normal, not anywhere, at least not on this small blue planet that Elon Musk is trying to escape. Dark ominous shades of COVID clouds persist, for a little while more anyways.

We’re all finding NEW adventures and new ways of doing things we love because many of the old adventures and old ways have been subtracted from our daily arithmetic.

Maybe you’ve made 5,000 sourdough loaves, or crocheted 75 doilies, or binge-watched Bridgerton sex-scenes 6 times, and ZOOM’ed 10,000 work meetings or chatted with family members…

… in my case, I’ve spent my COVID sabbatical year writing and recording probably a dozen new songs, which is WAY above my normal productivity.

Sure there have been changes, and I really do miss helping out at the soup kitchen, but… most of the things I love to do haven’t been profoundly affected by this year of closures and partial re-openings followed by more closures, and then more re-openings followed by… you get the idea.

However, the one thing that I’ve missed the most is external motivation.

I thrive on motivation which is why I’m constantly searching for mentors and leaders and thinkers who inspire me to get off my butt and JUST DO IT!

Once again this year, for the second year “running” (thank you COVID), I’m missing my spring Half Marathon race in Vancouver (first Sunday of May) that typically pushes me hard – physically and mentally hard – in training from January to May each year.

It’s a beautiful spring run – surrounded by 10,000 other crazies like me – with fresh, early morning ocean air, and gorgeous snowy mountain vistas that blunt the mountain of advancing pain in the waning kilometres of the race.

Training preparation is the motivational voice whispering in my head that tells me to run a little farther, a little faster. I’m the dog with his ear listening intently to his master’s voice on the RCA Victrola machine.

Now, if you’re a strong self-motivator and don’t need a looming deadline, I hereby award you a gold star and applaud your discipline and energy; I bow to you humbly.

You’ve already graduated and can leave the classroom now. But, if you’re at all like me and need a reminder and a push… especially in viral times like these…

… well, let’s work together and push ourselves forward until this pandemic is in our rear-view mirrors!

In the “tips and pushes” I’m listing below, I’ve largely focussed on physical exercise for my examples… but they can just as easily apply to gardening or reading, piano or sewing, or a hundred other pursuits that get your heart rate or enthusiasm gene excited…

*8 Ways to Inspire and Motivate Your Way Through A Terrible, Horrible, No-Good, Very Bad Pandemic*

1. My biggest personal item… JUST start. Don’t wait and wonder when the motivation or inspirational moment will arrive. For me, the stimulus occurs when I decide to make it occur. It ain’t magic, it’s simple (but ironically difficult) perspiration and dedication.
2. EAT the elephant one bite at a time. Sure, a terrible cliche, you say? So true. It’s super easy to be dissuaded from starting a big project because it’s … well… BIG! Broken down into a bunch of tiny steps, it’s amazing how the big can be tamed by focussing in on the small stuff and taking one teensy step after another. When I run a half-marathon, I don’t cross the start line with the entire 21.1 kilometres coursing through my head… instead I focus on one kilometre at a time… first kilometre goal in 5 minutes and 15 seconds. Kilometre 2, can I closely match the first kilometre time? When I reach the final 5 or 6 kilometres, my mind tells me to try and only slow by no more than 5 seconds per each kilometre. Yup, one bite or kilometre at a time.
3. FIND your focus – it’s easy (so so easy) to be distracted by a dozen or more things on your TO-DO list. It takes a lot of discipline to narrow your focus and decide on the most important stuff to tackle. This is why I usually do my run training early in the day, so I’ve accomplished this and can let my TO-DO monster go wild for the remainder of the day.
4. TALK up your ideas and desires – by sharing your goals and plans with others you build in a voluntary “peer pressure” system for yourself. Many of us like to show our relatives and friends that when we say we’ll do something, we follow through and do it. YOU have sticktoitiveness… YES!
5. MUSIC – this works even when I’m looking to motivate myself to write… music! Listening to music we love has a magical power to excite, energize, and motivate us when we need a lift. Today, 30 years after I first heard it, John Parr’s song MAN IN MOTION (also the theme song for Rick Hansen’s wheelchair-around-the-world-tour to raise money for spinal injury research) still pushes me to go much harder than I would otherwise, when running a track interval training session. Music is a genie in a bottle that needs a release… if you only let it…
6. FIND your competitive spirit – no, not in the way we normally think of competitiveness. The approach that I’m looking for here is the internal drive to go beyond what we have done before. Maybe a friendly competition with yourself to, for example, finish a boring or routine task. Repeating a single line of a guitar lick in practice literally 100 or more times isn’t always fun, but eventually carries me to where I want to be. The routine things are often what we have to surmount to get to the greatness of our overall goal. Call it a necessary evil.

7. AVOID the ruts… yes, ruts can and will kill motivation. And ruts, like SH*T… happen. Change and variety can bring you a freshness and new approach to your task, so mix things up. Try varying what you do instead of just going through the motions. As an example, when preparing for a half marathon, I mix up my types of exercise so it’s not only running. I bike or swim, or play some soccer for the mental break away from only running. Try listening to music and podcasts that you usually don’t listen to. A refreshed mind is a good way to keep the enthusiasm up. Rah rah!!

8. REWARDS – this is the super fun part. If you’re really looking forward to a nice reward after you’re done with a task or a project, then your motivation tends to go up. Tea or latte break. Exercise break. CBD or THC oil break. Cookie or ice cream break. Martini or Margarita break. One minute “self-appreciation” break. OK, a Bridgerton sex-scene break! During the half marathon run, I readily admit that I begin to hallucinate and fantasize about the food table set up after the FINISH banner… cookies, muffins, donuts, bananas, juices. Dangle those carrots *ahem, more like chocolate Larry* in front of your nose and celebrate to keep your motivation up.

Congratulations… we’re fired up and ready to get going. Let’s not let this golden moment pass us by while we await our “old” world – somewhere over the rainbow – to return…

Are YOU a Success or SUCKCESS?

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I wanna be a rock star like Elton John!

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This is what the insistent voice in my head whispered over and over to me when I was 16.

I listened to John’s Yellow Brick Road album like it held my very own magic pathway to riches and fame. Oh I’ve finally decided my future lies, beyond the Yellow Brick Roooooad….

Crazy! Of course I had NO idea what this meant in real life day-in and day-out terms. NADA!

Even today, I don’t truly know what it would have meant. And just imagine all that nose candy.

But even still, Elton was an inspiration to me.

Are you an aficionado aka sucker of motivational and inspirational music, books, memes, and talks?

If so, you’ve landed at the right place today…

And full disclosure here:  I AM the biggest “sucker” out there for this kinda stuff.

I constantly play Inspector Clouseau, seeking out the motivating tools (those that make some sense) that make me jump up and down inside like a puppy at your front door when you come home from a tiring day at the office. Woof!

It’s probably why I’m so goal-oriented, reaching towards the stars with the assistance of talented, spirited others.

I spent a pretty significant portion of my younger days pondering my so-called “achievement and success”. You too? Good, I’m not alone.

Over the years I’ve leaned heavily on real-life successful motivators (like them or not in today’s world) such as Lance Armstrong, Melinda and Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Elton John, Aaron Sorkin, Steven Spielberg, Stephen King, Wayne Gretzky, Sheryl Sandberg, Michelle Obama, Carole King, Harry Chapin. The list trundles on and on.

But the reason I’m even thinking about what I’m thinking about this week is because of a single word I read in a small motivational book by a young fella, Austin Kleon, titled, KEEP GOING.

SUCKCESS.

Kleon brought me this clever word that makes so much sense…. in talking about success, he insets the letter K, spelling the word SUCKCESS.

Of course, success can mean a million different things physical, material, and spiritual – you have your own unique definition of the word –  but for many here, at least in North America…

Success= Riches and Fame

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It begins day one in kindergarten when the teacher stands towering before you like God and asks what you want to be as a big person, the real underlying question being:

How will you become rich and/or famous?

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WAIT… what’s this? Mommy said I was coming here to play games with other kids…

So what’s “suckcess”?

Kleon describes it as:

Suckcess is success on somebody else’s terms, or undeserved success, when something that sucks becomes successful, or when success starts to suck.”

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The question we might be best asking ourselves? Is the success I’m looking and hoping for an exhilarating airplane journey or a suffocating cage?

It’s a simple question with a difficult and life-changing answer… if you follow the correct trail.

Does the endorphin rush I’m looking for come from what I truly love to do – an internal drive – or is it the push from someone else’s voice or wish for me?

My Dad wanted me to become a doctor one day. He would glow when he mentioned to the neighbours that his son was thinking about medical school. The reflected prestige was intoxicating. I get it.

My father would have been exhilarated, but I would have been crushed in a vice of someone else’s choosing.

Lucky for me, I was uncharacteristically self-aware enough to know that while I was interested in the notion, I wasn’t willing to make the lifetime of sacrifices needed to make that success goal possible.

Nope! That would have spelled SUCKCESS for me.

 

I’ve been writing this weekly blog journal as the Man On The Fringe for more than 8 years now. WOW!

Now if my definition of success was to gather a million or more weekly readers, or to amass Jeff Besos-sized sums of money from my writing… well, I botched it totally on those measures of success.

Here’s a little insider secret. Each day, my blog readership generally lands in the range of about 40-60 views.  Some days a little higher, some a little lower. That isn’t remotely successful by almost any blog writer’s dream of success. And money? Don’t interrupt my laughter please…

And yet.

This blog is a big success in my own little mind because it allows me the gift of spending a few focussed hours every week thinking and sifting and measuring the ideas and thoughts that are important to me.

It’s a morsel of mind discipline the way you might derive yours from regular yoga practice, or the New York Times Crossword, or Sudoku, or catching flies with chopsticks (thank you Mr. Miyagi)

Every week, I find myself in my writing. I come across surprises constantly. So, to my thinking… YES, Virginia, this is SUCCESS.

Returning to my teenage roots and becoming a musical success through fame and fortune… well… that was never realized, at least not in the way I was thinking at the time.

The consistently successful musical artists out there pay a huge personal price on a daily basis. Loss of anonymity, constant pressure to promote, multiple hours of performance multiple nights each week. Do I really want to play Hey Jude or Fire and Rain 300,000 times in my life?

Any “success” I found in fame and fortune in the world of music would have been realized at a cost I was not willing to happily pay.

Money… fame… misery… honestly, it does sound kind of appealing (not the misery part), but… The end result? For me? SUCKCESS.

I choose to write this blog on my terms (although I thank you for reading too!). I choose to write songs that have meaning to me (and I thank you again if you choose to listen and find some meaning in my tunes for yourself).

My version of success has no “k” in the middle…

My Yellow Brick Road to success doesn’t mean I have to fly far away to Kansas on a whirlwind.

My Island of Lost Focus

The bloody epic battle between knowledge, education and understanding vs Trump World idiocy and xenophobia will end soon.

I have to have hope.

Reading leads me to greater understanding. Reading takes concentration and focus.

Educated (Tara Westover) and 21 Lessons for the 21st Century (Yuval Noah Harari).

These are the books I’m currently “reading”. They’re both excellent, somewhat disturbing books for our disturbing times. But ultimately they offer hope.

Hope is a human joy and strength.

Some people read a book or two each week. I’m lucky if I get through one per month (or 3 months).

I don’t read enough to truly satisfy my quest for greater understanding of humanity and I probably never will.

You see, I hope that if I read of someone else’s effort and expertise I can shorten the 10,000 hour requirement of getting weally good at something.

But I don’t seem capable of juggling my desire to participate in 10 activities simultaneously with any aplomb. Sad.

The clutter in my mind is a blessing and a curse. You too, right?

My daily to-do list starts as a focussed, “I’ll do these 3 things… well” affair that evolves into a list of a dozen items. It’s my pseudo-ADHD gene acting up.

Focus Lost.

Which brings me back to reading because reading demands focus and attention.

I just hate it when I’ve read a page of great writing only to discover that I’ve totally not absorbed a page of great writing. My mind has moved on to the next item(s) on my daily list. Squirrel!

Yup, Focus Lost.

Reading is only one example of My Island of Lost Focus.

Today I’m using you to help me focus on FOCUS.

So, what are 8 things I can do to re-establish focus in my daily world?

1. Be ruthless in making a daily to-do list that doesn’t exceed 5 items. I’m sorry, but anything else will just have to wait (or be lost forever). Example from today’s list: 1. Write this blog post 2. Research and write up a list of potential investment choices for a friend who’s asked for my help 3. Write an e-mail of condolence to an old friend whose Mom died recently 4. Work on developing an introductory instrumental for a song my duet partner has written lyrics for 5. Investigate the purchase of an inexpensive used laptop for my Syrian student.
2. Always do the most challenging point(s) early on in the day (before 11 am). Anything I do after the witching hour of 11 am or noon is just sheer gravy. Peak productivity for me happens for only a half dozen hours after my 5 am internal alarm rings. I admire those who have power surges in the evening, but when the sun sets, so does my kinetic energy.
   
3. Take a short break every hour. Make a cup of tea or latte and then return to the task with a refreshed outlook.
4. Or change tasks for the next hour, not all points need to be completed in one go so long as I come back to finish it the same day.

 5. Be sure to share the important things that you want to do with your family and friends so that your feet are held to the fire. Motivation comes from the energy and input of the ones you admire and mirror. Remember you’re the average of all the people who surround you.

 6. Listen to some bright, peppy music to get the energy flowing back to its peak. Beach Boys, Eagles, even an old ’80’s song I listened to while run training by Wayne Gretzky’s former girlfriend Vikki Moss.

 7. Stay focussed on the bigger picture. A life can pass by so easily by doing only the tiny everyday items (laundry, vacuuming, washing the car) that obstruct our view of what we truly want to accomplish with our time. We’re all working in a world of limitless possibilities but we’re also in a world of limited time.

8. Finally, I must remember, like in Desiderata, Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself … And whatever your labours and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace in your soul.

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Whew… that was a mere 8 Lessons for the 21st Century for me … OK … item #1 knocked off my to-do list (of course I got diverted while writing and have already completed numbers 4 and 5!).

Latte time, then it’s back to #2 and #3.

Oh, and thanks for keeping me from being a forlorn castaway on My Island of Lost Focus.

 

 

 

 

 

It’s Been A Pretty Fine Dream Life

Daydreaming is better than Daydrinking.

When I was 10 I wanted to be a doctor.

A rich doctor.

Don’t believe me? Here I’ll prove it to you.

When I was 20…

I wanted to be a singer/songwriter star. Maybe a Cat Stevens wannabe… again, let me show you.

When I was 30…

I wanted to be a blueberry and sheep farmer.

When I was 40…

I wanted to own a BunsMaster bakery franchise.

When I was 50…

I wanted to be an Entrepreneur that helped older folks write their memoirs for their kids and grandkids.

When I was 60 (now)…

I still harbour songwriting and rock star fantasies like when I was 20. Some of us never grow up, right Peter Pan?

None of those fanciful dreams were ever totally fulfilled.

No doctor… no bakery… no sheep… no Groupies.

A lab tech… some cinnamon buns… a few chickens… and Open Mic’s.

Am I disappointed? Nope…

My happiness and success aren’t measured by the end result as much as the process.

A life of failure? Nope…

It relates to Robert Louis Stevenson’s quote:

To Travel Hopefully Is A Better Thing Than To Arrive”

Wants and dreams are the summer clouds that shift and re-shape in the sky when we lay on our backs in the cool, soft grass. One moment there’s a T-Rex, the next a leaping horse.

What’s wrong with chasing after dreams from cradle to coffin?

I’m very aware that life is finite.

Yes, Santa Claus is actually Mommy and Daddy, and yes, life ends… I’m sorry if I’ve burst your bubble…

Damn Adam and Eve screwed us and immortality all over one silly apple. Snakes.

Philip Roth, the famous, and infamously cranky American writer (Portnoy’s Complaint, The Human Stain) who died this past week said about death:

“Oblivion. Of not being alive, quite simply, of not feeling life, not smelling it. But the difference between today and the fear of dying I had when I was 12, is that now I have a kind of resignation towards reality.”

Reality.

The idea that I’ll melt away into some bone meal fertilizer relatively soon is both scary and motivating.

Scary, well there’s nothing I can do about that… you know, Desiderata’s accept what you cannot change.

But motivating, now there’s something I can participate in.

Reinvention and creativity and self-discovery are themes I come back to again and again in my blog posts because I need to remind myself ad infinitum that life doesn’t end at any particular age.

Signposts like age 65 or retirement are made-up constructs, kind of like legal drinking age. I know the law says no alcohol before 19, but that didn’t stop me and my little buddies from throwing up on homemade red wine beside the elementary school at 13!

I’m gobsmacked when I read of the young age of passing in many famous persons who imagined and created wonderful projects in such a short lifespan.

Sylvia Plath, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, George Gershwin, Martin Luther King, Vincent Van Gogh, Eva Peron, Avicii.

But I’m also energized and stimulated when I see those who created their best in later decades:

Staring out my window on this summer’ish sunny morning, a lemon-yellow Swallowtail butterfly lazily rests on a pale pink dogwood bloom, absorbing energy from the sun’s morning warmth before resuming its purpose. I’ve seen this a hundred, maybe a thousand times and it still invigorates my spirit.

These are the quiet moments that recharge my batteries and lower the temperature of the boil that sometimes brings me close to the exhausted edge. It’s like cross-training my muscles so that I don’t get crippled by laser-focusing only on one area until a hurtful flame erupts. Soulful respite.

Life and vigour move along hand-in-hand for as long as our bodies, and more importantly our minds, remain awake and enthusiastic for the passions that burn inside.

This week I’m reminded of mortality since I’m practicing some music pieces like Dust to Dust (The Civil Wars) and Angel (Sarah McLachlan).

It would be possible to feel despair but what I take away is inspiration to continue daydreaming, searching those fluffy cloud formations for ideas and visions.

Do you think it’s too late for me to become a rich doctor?