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January 2017 Goals – Getting on a Schedule

Posted on January 3, 2017 by Oden

Well I would like to firmly say that I accomplished my goal in October to start the new year off with a set of life affirming habits but not entirely. Between work and some lovely surgical side effects, I’ve been in maintenance mode, just focusing on getting through the day to day. When I looked back on that post in the process of setting my goals and resolutions for 2017, I realized that I have at least settled on the habits that I feel I need to either make a priority or get in place – things that I should be doing regularly, either on a daily, weekly or monthly basis

Which brings me to January.

This month my goals is simply to get my schedule under control, finding the time I need to do those habits that positively support my goals.

For health, the one thing that I really miss the most about my life since my Cushing’s diagnosis is running. Running every day just got painful as I got heavier and once I stopped my stamina took a nose dive. I picked up a slow start program off of the Runner’s World site that focuses on deliberate progression from walking to running in about 21 weeks. That combined with all of the other activities on my list should help me ease back into running without injury. I’d like to say that it’ll help me get the weight off but I don’t think I’m there yet, at least it’ll halt the gaining (I’m up about 18 pounds since my surgery in late September).

Relationships are a little more difficult to tie directly to a specific habit, I’m thinking that is really more pf a priority shift, spending more quality time with the folks’ I am closest to, making room for new activities and connections and taking time to make sure everyone in my life knows how much I appreciate them.

Creativity, I’m a little ashamed to say, has been put on the schedule. I know if I don’t make the time for it, it just isn’t going to happen. It’s not spontaneous at all but I am going for habits. I have a couple of nights a week to work the craft projects, regular time than I’ve blocked off to spend on writing and some ‘free’ blocks that I hope will turn into more focused expression times… where I can go with my mood or inspirations.

I used to be so tied to my calendar, if it didn’t make it on their it just didn’t get done, and was very disciplined about sticking to it. This last couple of months, I shifted over to just having a to do list and have found that I’m far more likely to put things off that way, or start procrastinating.

So, there you have it, my only real goal for January is to stick to my schedule with priorities in place should I have a conflict. Easy enough!

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Habits – October 2016

Posted on October 6, 2016 by Oden

My goal in July was to end October with a clear set of life reaffirming daily habits: exercise, meditation, mindfulness, gratitude, time devoted to my loved ones and to my writing and creativity, and growth. I think I’ve narrowed down what I need to be doing there and have set up my schedule to reflect that, unfortunately my job isn’t in a place where it doesn’t interfere with everything on that list on a regular basis. I’m also clearly seeing that if I want that to change that I do need to make my career growth and development a priority as well, so I shuffled the deck a bit to reflect that.

  1. My Health
  2. Improving Relationships
  3. Creative Pursuits
  4. Career Ambitions
  5. Purpose

My Health

This past week I had surgery to correct a pituitary adenoma apoplexy during which they removed what’s (visibly) left of the tumor. Once my restrictions are cleared I’m going back to my normal diet and exercise regime and I’m hopeful that this time around I’ll start seeing some results. The last couple of months my ACTH levels were going down pretty steadily and there isn’t any reason why that shouldn’t continue to be the case. Well other than optimism bordering on hubris?!

Improving Relationships

I haven’t done much on this one other than committing myself to two things; no longer assuming or thinking for others and no longer excusing behavior. On the former, I’ve found that I’ve fallen into the habit of deciding what other people mean/intend/want based on their actions. Which isn’t at all fair to them and results in plenty of frustration on both parts – to stop this I’ve just started asking for clarification. For the latter, I’ve determined that I keep too many relationships dragging on an on thinking that ‘maybe they’ll change’ or ‘maybe they didn’t mean it’. Again this isn’t exactly fair to either of us so I’m now simply ending relationships or letting them end naturally as a result. I’ve found that with the four where this came into play that no one questioned or fought to keep things going – a positive sign I think.

Creative Pursuits

Well there is this… and in general writing more… which is a regular struggle but I feel like I’m gaining some ground at least. Along with that I’m doing more and more crafting, photography and in general enjoying, really living in the moment, with everything I do that has a creative aspect. I’m hoping to expand my scope as I go but at this moment, I’m very happy with what I’m doing.

As to the rest, well those are both TBD right now. I feel like I have enough on my to-do list with the above and the thought of adding time or cycles to the other two just causes anxiety. My plate is pretty full! That’s about all I’ve got for this month, I’m going to continue on with the plans I have and see how I feel at the end of the month about what I’ve accomplished and learned along the way.

 

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July – Shifting Priorities and Perspectives

Posted on July 5, 2016 by Oden

I wrote this back in January:

“Living with Cushing’s requires a significant amount of acceptance and patience; you don’t have much control over your body and every treatment is followed with a wait and see what happens.”

That’s certainly true. In the almost four years that I’ve been struggling to get my Cushing’s back under control, I’ve had many setbacks, stalls and a general state of ambiguity. You never really know what’s going help and for many of the positive results, you end up sliding right back where you were.

I also wrote this:

“I guess I’d have to say that the most important and perhaps more difficult resolution I need to make is to not get derailed by work, my volunteer commitments, feeling defeated by lack of improvement in my condition and the depression that can follow.”

All of the above = Check! It’s so easy for me to ignore commitments to myself for those that I’ve made to others. Procrastination via productivity 😉

Here I am, six months later and largely in the same early stages with all of my personal goals. Two things have changed though; I’ve put the majority of my volunteer commitments on hold and I’ve learned that my ACTH levels are steadily declining. As I start looking at my list, I realize that I’m now in the situation where my free time is unencumbered and that any changes I make health wise will have tangible results.

Last week I caught this video in my feed that really hit home for me: Ryan Carson’s – Begin with the End in Mind. In it he talks about having a personal priority list to check obligations and/or anything on your to-do list against. I’ve decided to try this for the month of July, with my list being:

  1. My Health
  2. Improving Relationships
  3. Nurturing My Creativity
  4. Career Ambitions
  5. Enhancing My Life

Everything I do for the next four weeks will have to fall into one or more of these categories or it won’t be given priority. I must do something every week that contributes positively to these priorities and when a conflict comes up, I can either pick the one that fills more than one category or chose which one has a higher priority. I like to think this is a brutally efficient method of enforcing my own personal life balance.

My goal is to end July with a clear set of life reaffirming daily habits: exercise, meditation, mindfulness, gratitude, time devoted to my loved ones and to my writing and creativity, and growth. A month that I can look back on and think of all the accomplishments and not wonder where all the time went.

 

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January Goals – Diet and Exercise

Posted on January 5, 2016 by Oden

Living with Cushings requires a significant amount of acceptance and patience; you don’t have much control over your body and every treatment is followed with a wait and see what happens. Last year I started off with quite a bit of optimism, what followed was frustrating – radiation and surgery without any significant changes. I ended the year with six month check up where instead of celebrating success, we talked about my options going forward.

It hasn’t been all bad news though – I have maintained my weight during the last year, my ACTH levels are steady, I’m not seeing any additional side effects from the extra weight, and my headaches and muscle aches are still infrequent. These are small wins but they are still wins.

This year my only resolution is to push harder. Regardless of the state of my disease in the coming months I want to work on my endurance, my strength and flexibility while preventing any further weight gain and hopefully keeping my blood pressure and blood sugar in check.

Alright, on to the specifics…

Diet

I’m happy with the 1800 calorie diet plan my nutritionist and I settled on last year, the only change I’m going to make is to reduce it to 1500 calories and effectively eliminating a cheat day – I do this because I find that cravings are progressively so much worse as that day comes around and I feel it’s better to maintain moderation than go crazy once a week.

Exercise

For endurance I’ve decided to work on progressively more challenging hikes, I really enjoy hiking and pushing myself while enjoying a new environment sounds like the perfect combination. I also really miss running but every attempt I’ve made in the last two years to get back into the routine has resulted in pain. This year I’m going to follow a program I found through Runner’s World that over twenty one weeks get’s you back into running four times a week.

Strength will be tackled through a combination of adding more weight to my current program as well as adding in a couple of mini workouts throughout the day – I’m going to try out 7 Minutes for the first month and see how that works for me.

Flexibility is all about getting my yoga routine back in force. Years ago my practice consisted of Sun Salutations every morning, a twenty minute flow midday, a restorative flow at night and three 90 minute classes every week at an Anusara studio. I’m positive I won’t be able to fit in the classes but I can certainly do the rest.

Meditation

About a month ago I joined Headspace, a site that helps train you in mindfulness meditation, trying to fit that in every day over the holidays proved difficult, something I’ll need to work on during the next month. I’m shooting for every morning but I’ll take 4-5 times a week as success.

 

I guess I’d have to say that the most important and perhaps more difficult resolution I need to make is to not get derailed by work, my volunteer commitments, feeling defeated by lack of improvement in my condition and the depression that can follow. Procrastination via responsibilities?! Well, balance hasn’t traditionally been my strongest skills, here’s hoping I can find the right mix this year.

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