Building a strong base

[Mounds]

A conversation with my brother got me thinking...

I live in the country and as a result, I have to use this little internet stick in order to get anything beyond dial up. The speed was still pretty awful when I first got it and the price was high ($70/month). The guys I bought it from told me that if I bought an extra antennae and put it on my roof, I could easily get 10x the speed. Only thing is, the antennae was $300 + installation.
As the conversation went, I wasn't interested in shelling out another $300 anytime soon. But my brother changed my mind in a hurry. He said, "No matter the speed, your still paying $70/month. If it's slow as dial-up or high speed". Since he made such a good point, I immediately bought the antennae and had it set up. Hello fast internet.
So let's apply the same logic to your life in general. I had a hypothesis that eating more healthy food (starting with more fruit) would result in better performance. No matter what I do, I'm going to eat. Whether it's processed trash or lots of produce.
The hypothesis turned out to be in my favor. I think more clearly, I have more energy, I don't procrastinate, I don't bring candy into the house. In addition, my wife and I are both losing weight from the healthy eating. All I wanted was more energy. Now I have that plus a ton of fringe benefits.
A complimentary goal that I set was to pack my lunch the night before work. The benefit I expected was more time in the morning. What I got was more time, healthier food, better rest, less stress and the confidence to achieve more goals.
My theory is this. We all have 24 hours in a day. Some people (dial-up Mounds for example) squander most of their time eating garbage, leaving things to the last minute and lazing around the house due to a lack of energy. Our bodies show the lack of balance in the form of fat and our houses show the lack of balance in the form of messiness.
Dial-up Mounds suddenly realized that he's spending 24 hours a day on mediocre performance. By investing in simple habits and very slowly implementing them (baby steps), he's becoming High Speed Mounds. Still 24 hours in a day, much more efficient.
This has become my new obsession, building a strong base. My base consists of the three currencies in life: time, money and energy. I plan to master all three by mid-2011. Who knows where this will lead?

-Tim

[VinceG]

One of the best threads I've seen here since I started posting.

[James81]

Great post.

But can you fill me in what you mean by "internet stick"? Is that your lingo for satelite internet? I'm asking because my parents have satelite internet and it sucks asscrack. If you have a link, that would be even better.

[James81]

As for your post...I like to think of my "strong base" as my beliefs and values systems. To me, that's as base as you can get (especially when you take it down to identity level stuff). That's why I spend so much time working out the kinks in my beliefs.

Because, like you said, I'm going to be here anyway, might as well feel GOOD about it FIRST, then move without all the resistance back up the layers into more "tangible" stuff like goals, health, career, finances, etc.

[Tanja]

Great post.

I've been doing something similar, chose few areas I consider would make my strong base and now I'm taking baby steps to implement new habits.

As far as efficiency goes, I'm not sure if this happens to other people as well...but the more time I have for my tasks the less efficient I am

[Mounds]

Thanks for the awesome responses guys! I feel like I'm even more on the right track now.
@James - it's an EV-DO stick. It uses the same tech as cell phone towers (3G?). That's about all I know


My brain must be working overtime today because I came up with another insight. For me, deprivation is a fool's errand. I've tried quitting all sorts of things cold turkey and every single time, it failed. Just a few examples:

-over-spending
-smoking
-eating far too much candy

Logic says to simply stop doing the above three activities. Eventually the "cravings" would pass. Fail. Logic is about to take a backseat to the intriguing...

Over-spending - If I impulse buy, I return the item at my earliest convenience. I haven't done any impulse buying since July. I have a small budget for the things I just can't live without.

Smoking - embraced the patch, loved thy nicotine. The only reason I was addicted was because of the nicotine, so I found a new way to get it. Cheaper and health effective! Don't remember how long I wore it anymore, somewhere around three months.

Too much candy - I used to binge on candy, chips, ice cream. $20 here, $20 there. Tried everything to stop and I just couldn't. Started eating two pieces of fruit per day last Thursday... hardly crave at all. (Btw, I'm a lucky bastard with a high metabolism. Years of neglect and I'm sitting at 180lbs)

I have a motto at work, "Work smarter, not harder". In yet another face-palm moment, I am now realizing how often I chose the opposite route, "Work harder, not smarter". It's almost like I was making the journey as difficult as possible in order to prove something to my fellow man. And here's the real kicker: no outsider looking in give's a rats ass about the journey. The only person who saw it was me.
To elaborate further, I once quit smoking cold turkey for three whole weeks. Endless cravings, felt like crap, bad mood, on and on. Finally I fell off the wagon and picked it up smoking once more. No one cared about my personal strongman contest. They only looked at the fact that I was once again smoking. Then I made the plan to use the patch. Mmm... good old nicotine. Before I knew it, months had gone by and people were downright impressed! My old smoking buddies couldn't believe I'd actually escaped smoking's grasp! Heck, I couldn't believe it and I'm just understanding it all now, six years later.
Anyhow, that's all I've got for now. Time to cook a fabulous meal for dinner

-Tim

[Hemlock]

I think this goes along the lines of, find a positive outlet for your bad habit, or another way of putting it, replace your bad habit with a good habit that does the same thing for you. I like it, keep rockin with insight. Hope your base gets big and strong. (That would sound really weird in the health and fitness section)