Today starts November which means October is in the bag. Here is how I things ended up:

1. Hit 190 lbs this month – Success

I did it!

All my practice eating better and figuring out what foods work well for me and I finally dropped below 190 pounds for the first time since high school. My weight has crept up a little bit since then but I now know that eating right + exercising = maintaining my weight.

I also realized that the numbers are just arbitrary. I don’t feel any better, nor do I feel any worse if my weight fluctuates. I plan to continue finding new ways to challenge myself, just won’t be watching the scale as closely in the near term (more on that later).

2. Clean up around the house – Things are better

I tackled several of my more thorny goals in October and I am mostly happy with my progress. I didn’t get a chance to drop off my donations and post things on Craigslist/Ebay but I have them ready for posting in the near future.

3. Finish Spanish Level 1 and make dent in Level 2 – Failed but okay

I only made it to Lesson 27, running out of steam midweek, but I am comfortable with my progress. I slowed down because I didn’t feel like I was absorbing the material as well. I am going to spend some time reviewing my notes from the first 26 lessons then dive back in.

4. Document progress on blog – At least I am making a progress update

Another week without posts other than status updates. I need to buckle down and crank out the posts I have sitting at 50-75% done. I will have a good amount of free time during November so I am excited to put some of my other posts up plus a few new developments that might be of interest to others.

5. Less TV and non-sense reading – Good progress

I dramatically cut back my TV watching during the month. No hard numbers but I spent a good amount of time getting work done around the house and accomplishing other goals. I also had a fairly intense month at work.

I finished the month strong with reorganizing my RSS feeds to eliminate several redundant feeds. The cleanup will leave me with ~300 fewer items each week in my feed and folders that are better organized so I can ignore specific folders until I have time to look over them.

6. Update resume and LinkedIn – Not yet…I’ll get to it though

I have my notes, just need to clean up the wording and post. I will have a lot of time to make the updates over the next few weeks.

Week three is in the books. I had some successes and some not so goods:

1. Hit 190 lbs this month – Fell back

I continued to focus on good eating while significantly increasing my veggie intake. Also I continued walking six days (roughly 3.5 hours of walking) with only one day off due to rain. Even though I was behaving myself and exercising with my weight fairly stable all week something happened from Friday in to Saturday where I put 2.6 lbs on “overnight”. I doubt it was calories doing it, perhaps just water weight since I had soup on Friday. Weighing in this morning, I was down .7 lbs so things are moving in the right direction again.

End result: Gained 2 lbs from last Sunday.

2. Clean up around the house – Big strides.

In addition to the normal around the house clean up items I also finally got all my clothes in to one place and sorted through them. I am writing up a more lengthy post about my process and final numbers but I end up with over 40 items to donate/sale and 13 items to turn in to rags/pitch. The last step is to take a quick photo of the items to donate in case there are any questions around evaluation down the road.

3. Finish Spanish Level 1 and make dent in Level 2 – Made a dent but still room to go.

I took it easy this week with only completing lessons 18-20.That said, I am eager to complete the last ten sessions.

I have some new plans for November and through my trip departure in early December to keep things fresh in mind.

4. Document progress on blog – At least I am making a progress update

Another week without posts other than status updates. I need to buckle down and crank out the posts I have sitting at 50-75% done.

5. Less TV and non-sense reading – Turning the corner

I became more conscious of my reading behaviors and decided to bail on articles that don’t fit with my goals. I have a refined strategy I plan to work on in November to allow me to keep focus. I am also going to focus on honing my reading skills to increase my speed, comprehension and retention.

Goal: Keep focused on only things directly related to what I am working on, shun everything else.

6. Update resume and LinkedIn – Not yet…I’ll get to it though

Same status as the last few weeks. I am going to reflect on each of the last seven years to make a solid timeline of my accomplishments and skill growth. Then next Sunday I will combine them all together to finish the month with the goal completed.

Another week down, here’s where I stand:

1. Hit 190 lbs this month – A lot closer

I focused this week on eating a lot better. I somehow managed to not go “out to eat” at all during the week. I went for a walk six times during the week with only one day missed…not bad. I also peppered in more push ups, crunches and the like.

End result: Only 2.6 lbs to go.

2. Clean up around the house – Bah humbug

With my dishwasher breaking last week I had to do dishes be hand. I also cleaned up my work space plus shredding my pile of papers to shred.

I probably should have got more done but that’s life.

3. Finish Spanish Level 1 and make dent in Level 2 – Not doing so well

Keeping the one-a-day pace is starting to feel a bit grueling. I was able to get lessons 14-17 done though.

I slowed down my lesson plan mostly because I wasn’t looking forward to the sessions and I didn’t want to just go through the motions.

I feel a lot more comfortable putting sentences together and I believe a more reasonable goal is to finish the level 1 course while also looking to reactivate the list of nouns locked in the back of my head. I don’t have to be heavily conversational for my trips, just comfortable enough to get around and ask basic questions.

4. Document progress on blog – At least I am making a progress update

The fact that I set up the site and making a second status update is impressing me so far. I have previously bailed on other writing projects in the past.

That said, while I did start some other posts in draft form I didn’t publish them which is a bit disappointing. Since they aren’t time dependent, I am going to focus on getting them all finished off this week then schedule them to go out every few days.

My goal is to not produce useless drivel so if that means I spend a few extra days honing my thoughts (which are still far from perfect) that is what I will do. I also need to get my various “main” pages done like About, Contact Me, etc that are your standard fair.

5. Less TV and non-sense reading – From mixed bag to fail bag

Ok, so here’s the deal. I did watch more TV this week, however I weaved the majority of it in to “background” noise while I worked throughout the week.

My big time sucks appears to be my Google Reader feed and my constant thirst for gaining new knowledge and validating my approaches. Seriously though, I just need to make a list of what areas I want to focus on and what areas I am successful and stick to it. For instance, I am already proficient at keeping my email inbox under control so why did I spend time this week reading three different articles about making email inboxes much better?

Goal: Stop seeking validating and start executing on my strategy!

6. Update resume and LinkedIn – Not yet…I’ll get to it though

Same status as last week. Its much tougher to look back over my work life from the last five years than I thought. So many projects, so many accomplishments…somewhat hard to choose. I just need to pick myself a nice “middle of the road” look at what I have done and then keep all the other items in reserve as further details of my awesomeness

It’s Sunday so that means I am officially one week in to Awestober. Overall, it was a fairly good week. Trying to balance work and home life is going to be my biggest challenge since I have big plans for both this month. Here is a high level summary of my progress thus far:

1. Hit 190 lbs this month – Right direction

I fluctuated around and actually started the month around 198 due to some bad habits in late September. I knew once I got back on track that weight would come right off.

I did a good job squeezing in exercise with over 2.5 hours of walks, mowing the lawn twice plus an assortment of pushups/crunches/kettlebell swings.

I finished the week at 194.2 lbs.

2. Clean up around the house – Not bad

I didn’t get to cleaning out my closet or putting things up for sale this week.

I did however do a full range of chores around the house and cleared out several problematic spots where clutter was building up. I believe I am well positioned for the remainder of the month.

3. Finish Spanish Level 1 and make dent in Level 2 – Bit behind

I wanted to keep a one-a-day pace going until I leave for my trip in December. I only got Lessons 8-13 done so I am am two behind. My goal by next Sunday is to be done through Lesson 20.

Now that there are a lot more verbs in play, I find myself stumbling occasionally but overall I feel more comfortable. My pronunciation likely isn’t that great but that can always be fine tuned down the road.

4. Document progress on blog – Doin’ it

I set up the site and made several posts. The fact that I am writing a status update post bodes well for my success.

I have lots of post ideas and starting to feel more comfortable typing my thoughts. I am a bit of a perfectionist so I am still finding myself rephrasing and reordering my thoughts. That process should smooth out over time.

5. Less TV and non-sense reading – Mixed bag

I did dramatically cut down on my TV, only watching a handful of progams throughout the week. That gave me additional time to write and read. I am starting to think that watching TV isn’t as big of a hinderance as I orginally thought. I believe my thirst for knowledge and big list of things I want to read is definitely going to be the key area of opportunity.

I am going to work on picking an area of focus for reading then just storing any articles that aren’t related to that topic for a later time.

6. Update resume and LinkedIn – Not yet…I’ll get to it though.

Every morning after waking up and letting the dog out, I pull out my Wii Fit to do my morning weigh-in since it conveniently tracks my progress.

On Wednesday morning, the Wii avatar and I did our cordial back and forth, I jumped on the scale and then he told me how much I weighed. I clicked next and was met with a notice that I wasn’t going to meet my target at my current rate…crap.

This isn’t the first time he did this but in that moment I decided it would be my last.

The Back Story

In the first few months of 2011 I lost roughly 20 pounds. I wasn’t really paying attention to my weight much before May but after seeing my weight loss I decided to pull my Wii Fit out from mothballs and continue measuring my success.

After the initial weigh-in the avatar suggested a BMI of 25 as a target goal. To hit that level I would have to get to 174 pounds which is a weight I haven’t seen since middle school. Clearly he was looking out for my best interests but I knew that losing another 20 pounds wasn’t something I wanted to sign up for.

Instead, I set a goal to lose 11 pounds by July (roughly 2 months away). It seemed like a fairly easy target.

As I approached July I was still 9 pounds away but never fear, the Wii avatar was there to tell me that I wouldn’t make the goal. He proceeded to give me an option to re-define my target goal and timeline. Obviously, knowing that I wouldn’t hit the goal, I gladly agreed to pick new targets. This time, I kept the same weight loss goal, however I cut the timeline down to a month.

In August, I did it again.

September, you guessed it…I reset the goal.

Now back to Wednesday

Being a day in Awestober, I no longer had the ability to keep the lie going and realized I needed to break the cycle.

The hard reality: There is no way I am going to lose those eleven pounds in a month.

I now realize that I have just kept continuing the status quo because the Wii Fit has systematically made it easy for me to break my promise. So, instead of my normal goal, I changed it.

My new goal, 5 pounds…30 days. That is going to put me just a tad over 189 and below my target of 190 sometime this month.

So what’s the lesson

Regardless of who is asking you to keep a commitment: a family member, a friend, your boss or even a cartoony avatar on a gaming console as long as there is an “easy out” you’ll keep taking it until you finally say “enough is enough” and you hold yourself accountable.

Do yourself a favor though, make sure the goal you agree to is specific and measurable.

We all have things that hold us back in our lives keeping us from being truly happy. These are the things that keep us up at night and make us kick ourselves but no matter how hard we try it doesn’t feel like there is any way we’ll overcome them.

As you can see on my barriers page list, I have a handful of things I know are holding me back from living the life I want to live. So, the only way to change that is to start chipping away at the list.

I am committing the month of October to experiment with purging my “bad” habits and spending time forming new positive behaviors. For the purposes of this project, I am calling this Awestober (Awesome October). These are my goals:

1. Get my off my butt and exercise more so I can hit 190lbs some time this month – At my heaviest, I was 236 pounds. Then I went down to 210-215 where I hovered for a few years. Since the start of 2011 I have brought that down to between 193-200 for the last few months. Now I want to get to below 190 with an end goal of getting back to my high school weight (~175-180lbs).
2. Clean up around the house – Sell the stuff I have been meaning to sell, donate the things I have been meaning to donate, pitch the things I have been meaning to pitch.
3. Finish Spanish Level 1 course and make big dent in Level 2 – I studied Spanish in high school and university, but have lost most of it. I have a bunch of trips to Spanish speaking countries coming up and I want to become comfortable with speaking the language.
4. Document my progress via a public blog – That’s here. I need to go big or go home.
5. Less TV and non-sense reading, more reading/learning with purpose – I am going to allow myself to watch “live” events like football games, Formula 1, MotoGP and other shows that won’t be available on DVD later. I also want to clean up my RSS feed to remove feeds with duplicated information. I will continue to read blogs and sites that are important to me while also reading books/ebooks topical to my personal development.
6. Update resume and LinkedIn – Bring them “current” if for no other reason than to just reflect on what I have accomplished over the last couple of years and make sure I am tracking my successes.

Throughout the month I will provide status updates and observations as I go.

I already have a few friends also participating in the Awestober festivities. If you want to participate as well add a comment saying what you plan to work on.