JoeSoChallenges Update: June Rewind

I don't think I've given a 30-day challenge update since May. Although I decided to skip July, I did have a pretty successful June -- See a Friend a Day. Whether I met them for coffee, a passing handshake, or a weekend road trip, I resolved in June to see a different friend every day (with no repeats). "New friends" counted toward the goal, but strangers did not. In other words, if I didn't meet up with a friend somewhere I couldn't just say hello to a stranger and count that as meeting a friend. This one started out really easy and ended up really hard (because I couldn't use any repeats). I succeeded 24 out of 30 days, with 5 of my 6 misses coming over the final 8 days of the month. That final week I had a very busy time at work, and, well, I just kind of ran out of friends.

JoeSoChallenges Update!

Let me update the world at large about a few things happening in the world of JoeSoHeady. As you may know, I started 2014 by identifying some habits I wanted to add, drop, or change, and came up with a monthly 30 Day Challenge plan to take me through 12 months of self improvement. January -- no alcohol; February -- read for pleasure every day; March -- no caffeine and stretch every morning.

Welcome back coffee to my life! Wooo!
Dunkin' Donuts original, whole bean

I powered through January without a sip of booze. February flew by, my nose e-buried in an e-book most waking minutes. Then came March. Cold, gloomy, will-spring-ever-arrive March. Oh, beware the ides! What a month to drop caffeine! What a time to rely solely on sleep, nourishment, and sunlight for energy. The first week came and went. Oh how I yearned! Just a sip, just a taste, just a hint of a warm creamy cup o' Joe. 

Now, granted, the tone of this post might lead you to believe I strode through March like a (decaffeinated) Clydesdale coming down the home stretch, but I did not. I had my first JoeSoChallenge violation last month. In fact, I had exactly two and a half violations, and when April 1st hit I drank a whole pot a coffee, but I still call it a great success. Since March ended and I've allowed myself to return to caffeine, I can proudly say that I've skipped it at least 2 days, had decaf or half-calf a couple of times, and only brewed myself 1 cup at a time rather than the whole pot. Hopefully I can keep forming good habits in this department... Wool Sea.

Kickball season returns!

Heading into April I have daily exercise planned for myself every day this month. I designed my monthly challenges with this in mind. I figured I would drop caffeine in March, and added in the daily morning stretch to help replace that morning coffee routine. (You can't change a habit without replacing the old routine with something else.) Plus, doing the stretching every morning would start to prepare me for the daily exercise challenge coming in April. Kickball also started this month, so that gives me a planned exercise at least 1 day a week. I can count (serious) yard work or gardening as exercise too, so April made sense for that reason.  So far, I've had significant exercise every day!

April 1st I did major yard work; on the 2nd we had our first kickball game (and won 12-2); on the 3rd and 4th I rode the exercise bike for at least half an hour (and watched Sal Khan's talk at CMU); Saturday morning I went for a jog, followed by throwing the ball around, with Clay and Dan, and today I did a bunch of yard work and gardening again.

Yard work and gardening counts as exercise if you do a lot. Prepping the garden!

JoeSoChallenges Update -- No Caffeine!

Joe's last Cup o' Joe

Holy smokes, I just realized tomorrow I must stop drinking caffeine for 30 days! Actually, I did not just realize that. I have, in fact, had my eye on this moment all month...no, all year...dreading it. Every digital page I turned during my 30+ minutes of daily reading moved me one moment closer to this decaffeinated month. I had no problem whatsoever going alcohol-free in January. I had even less of a problem reading for 30 minutes every day in February. I relished it. I relished both of those challenges. 

To succeed in doing what I refer to as a "negative" challenge, you must replace whatever habit you intend to "negate." When I say "negative" challenge, I mean trying to NOT do something -- e.g., no alcohol for a month; quitting smoking; or giving up processed sugar. You can't just stop drinking beer. You must consider what reward drinking the beer gives you, and find something else to do instead of drinking the beer that rewards you in the same way. I discovered two drinking triggers during that month -- boredom and socializing. For the "boredom drinking," I found a simple substitute would suffice: coffee, soda, weed, etc. For the "social drinking," I discovered that I could enjoy the same social scene without having alcohol. I met friends for happy hour three times, went to two parties, and out for dinner dates a handful of times without touching a drop of booze. The cue and the reward stayed the same (in this case, "socializing" represented both the cue and the reward), but the routine (drink alcohol) changed (drink ginger ale or smoke herb). 

sad face :-(

Anyway, what did I want to say? Oh right, I call that a negative challenge. A "positive" challenge means trying to add a new habit, create a new habit, start doing something you've always wanted to do, rather than replacing or dropping an old habit. So I made sure to do a positive challenge for my second month -- 30 minutes of reading for pleasure. 

Now as I head into the third monthly challenge I decided to package a negative and a positive challenge together -- to drop one habit and put something else in its place. So I intend to both consume no caffeine and do a bit of stretching or exercise in the morning instead. So the cue will remain the same -- waking up in the morning and thinking boy I need some coffee. The reward stays the same -- a feeling of stimulation and wakefulness. But what comes between the cue and the reward -- the routine -- will change. When that cue goes off -- waking up and wanting coffee -- I'll hop on the exercise bike or do some yoga instead of brewing a pot. This new routine -- getting my blood flowing in the morning -- will hopefully yield the same reward -- feeling stimulated.

As a side note, I've struggled to address the moral, academic, physiological, and intensely personal debate over whether or not to drink decaf coffee during this month. Regardless, carry on!

One more side note! For posterity let me list the reading material I devoured this month...

• The Power of Habit
• Man in the Dark
• Black Hawk Down
• My Father's Dragon
• Coraline
• The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
• The Little Prince (English version)
• George Carlin's Brain Droppings

Probably something else...

Sweet Coraline

I finished reading Coraline last night, Neil Gaiman's fantasy horror novella about a little girl who explores the dark corridors of her peculiar house and the very farthest reaches of her imagination. I got to read the last few chapters out loud, which I love doing. Hooray for books! As I mentioned before, I counted how many times I LOL'd while reading it. Well, more precisely, I noted how many times I laughed out loud, but I haven't gone back and counted them yet.

JoeSoChallenges Daily Reading Update

I love books that make me laugh. Books that make me laugh out loud, LOL, as it were, I love even more. I just started Neil Gaiman's Coraline and the first chapter made me laugh, out loud, exactly four times. I'll try to count how many more times I do the same. 

Paul Auster's A Man in the Dark, the first book I read for my challenge remains with me. Truly delightful to read, Auster's novel unveils three generations of a family -- daugher, mother, and grandfather -- each grieving for their own loss, the loss of a loved one, and then healing, healing through the power of story telling. 

For a quick 30 minute read the other day I grabbed Ruth Stiles Gannett's classic children's tale My Father's Dragon. This tale of adventure and ingenuity on Wild Island puts a smile on my face and a sparkle in my eye.