Creating Lena » challenges

I’m Getting Fit – A Sixty Day Challenge

Helena — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 05:05:19 +0000

Well, this ought to be interesting. I just had a cool conversation with my accountability partner, and we decided that sixty days from today – April 2, 2012 – we would go and get new pictures taken for business purposes. I haven’t had a professional picture done in years because I’ve always been convinced that cameras don’t like me.

So, in the interests of giving myself the best possible advantage in front of that camera I’m embarking on a 60 day challenge to get fit, lose some weight and inches, and really step up my game when it comes to taking care of myself.

I am getting better at taking care of myself, but still catch myself sliding back toward old habits when things get a little stressful. It’s just so easy to get sucked into staying inside my comfort zone even when I know I need to be pushing my boundaries and learning how to get comfortable with being uncomfortable.

Over the next two months, I’ll be blogging about building up not only my fitness levels, but my confidence as well. I’ve dedicated this year to rebuilding my self-esteem, something that has been lacking in my life for the last several years. Between divorce and illness it’s so easy to lose track of yourself and to just let go of everything.

Self-care is an important part of getting back to myself and stepping up my game. I got off to a slow start in January, but I think that was meant to be, to show me what exactly I was supposed to be doing this year. I had an idea but it wasn’t developed enough at the time for me to hit the ground with the speed and confidence I had intended.

If you’d like to follow along, or maybe even join me, stay tuned. Besides talking about just getting fit, I’ll also be sharing on topics such as building your self-confidence, creating self-care rituals, and talking about the mountain of self help books I’ve lined up to read this year.

Because when you get right down to it, it’s not just about getting fit to have a picture taken. It’s about become a better me … in body, mind AND spirit.

I look forward to sharing the journey with you.

Week in Review – 3 September 11

Helena — Sun, 04 Sep 2011 02:53:20 +0000

Wow, I can’t believe that summer is on it’s way out of town already. It seems like it just got here. And while I’ll miss the blue skies and the sunshine, I have to say I won’t miss the humidity and the high temperatures.

I haven’t done a “week in review” post in awhile because, frankly, I wasn’t getting enough done to warrant it. But since I’ve restarted The Acorn Stash newsletter, I’ve noticed that I’m also getting a lot more of other things done too.

On this blog, there’s a new post in the “Taking Care of Yourself” Series titled Tips for Creating Healthy Eating Habits which goes over some of the things that you need to be aware of when it comes to diet and healthy eating.

The whole series started as a way for me to talk about things you can do to take better care of yourself so that you don’t end up with type 2 diabetes or heart disease. And talking about them is a good reminder for me too, because I pay a lot more attention to how I’m caring for my self when I’m telling you what you should be doing. :)

If you missed any of the previous installments you can find them here:

1. 5 Baby Steps to Putting Yourself First
2. Six Tips for Creating Me Time in Your Busy Day

Be on the looking for a new installment this week.

And on The Acorn Stash,

Issue 24 was all about change and how we can deal with making changes in a more user-friendly way instead of getting all stressed out over them. You can read that article here: User Friendly Change: 5 Ways To Make Dealing With Change Less Stressful.

Issue 25 focused on happiness and gratitude and how they go together. The full article is here for your reading pleasure: If You’re Happy and You Know It.

I’d love your feedback on the articles, so feel free to leave a comment or drop me a line.

Challenge Updates

I also detailed the challenges that I’m participating in this month. You can find that list here.

So far I’ve managed a post every day for Nablopomo, even if a couple of them were kind of short. I’ve got my PLR goals for both the seller’s and the user’s challenges laid out on the forum there. And today I got set up on The Challenge forum with a team and downloaded the Manifesto to read through.

So it’s shaping up to be a busy month, and I’m excited to be back at it.

Enjoy the long weekend!

Thanks for being here. :)

And on Day 2

Helena — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 03:45:58 +0000

Did we write?

Of course not! I find that I am at my best for fiction and creative stuff first thing in the morning, and I had an early morning appointment so my work day didn’t even start until almost 11 a.m. So working on my novel was pretty much a wash today, right along with going to the gym. I did come up with a title for the book though, so that’s a baby baby step in the right direction. Graspin’ for straws here ain’t I? :)

On the work front, I did get a fair amount of technical stuff done this afternoon. My Christmas site is up and running again, although I’ve decided now I don’t like the theme so that’s on the list to change tomorrow. And I got some more articles written for my PLR site. There’s still a few more to add to the pack before the next one is ready.

I’m pretty slow when it comes to writing articles because I have real problems turning off the inner editor. Lately I’ve been using the 10 minute method that Ed Dale taught in the Challenge this past summer, and that helps but I’m still way too tempted to stop and fix things up as I go. So today I tried writing my articles with the monitor off, and let me tell ya… it really worked! I shut the monitor off, set the timer and just started typing.

Ten minutes later… 716 words, and I still had more to say. If I had tried that with the monitor on, I probably would’ve been lucky to get 300-400 words down because I’d be forever going back and fixing up my spelling or changing things around as I go.

Now, mind you, it may all be gibberish when I go back to edit it in the morning but the quick peek I snuck as I was saving the draft didn’t look like it was totally covered in spelling mistakes. If it turns out okay, then I’m going to work my way up to where I’m doing a minimum of five ten-minute sessions every day, and that, theoretically, means I would have a new mini-pack of articles for sale every day. And that’s a very exciting prospect. :)

The word count for today is Fiction: 0, Non-fiction: 1498

Seems like I might have to work up a bit of steam here to hit 10,000 words a day. :)

Oh well, we’ll try again tomorrow. I’m outta here for the night.

The Insanity Begins

Helena — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 04:16:58 +0000

It’s that time of year again…. time for me to step beyond the boundaries of “must research and write only the facts” and pretend that I actually have an imagination, and that I know what to do with it. :) Yes, it’s day one of National Novel Writing Month, and I am determined to write my 50,000 words of semi-coherent characters and conversation over the next 30 days. Who knows… at the end of it I may even have something that doesn’t beg to be deleted on December 1st.

I’m not sure why I do this to myself every year. I’m not a fiction writer, and I know it. Stick the word “challenge” in front of me, and I’m there even if I have no hope in hell of ever completing it. But I do, and I love it. It’s something I do just for me, that gives me pleasure (along with the fits of temper when things don’t flow just right) and stretches my creativity way beyond the comfort zone I’m used to.

And so the insanity begins again… balancing the need to write fiction and non-fiction together on the same day, every day. The goal is 2000 words of fiction and 8000 of non-fiction, ie. work (just so no one thinks I’m slackin’ off on the job here). Have I mentioned lately that I’m the queen of unreasonable goals? :)

Dealing with Self Sabotage

Helena — Fri, 08 Oct 2010 03:43:04 +0000

I’m gonna make this really short and sweet tonight. I’m dealing with some pretty huge issues of self sabotage right now and since it has to do with business and marketing, I wrote about it over on my other blog. Instead of reposting the whole thing here, I’ll just link to it:

Productivity Challenge – Battling Self Sabotage

Must Be More Productive

This Week in Review: November 15 to 21, 2009

Helena — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 21:53:24 +0000

So, the idea behind the Monday outlook post was to set myself up for a more productive week. Now that the week is over, I can report my results to you…

I failed.
Miserably.
Brutal would be an understatement.

Out of the eight challenges I set for myself, I met two and a half:

1. There is new content on the Thoughts of Christmas blog. (challenge #3)
2. I went wandering down one of the river paths and took some new photos. (challenge #8)
3. There is new content on The Acorn Stash blog, and on this blog. (challenge #6 – considered only half done because there are still more blogs that need new content.)

It’s an improvement over last week since I only completed two challenges last week. But it’s still brutal.

Am I embarrassed? You betcha. But more than that, I’m seriously ticked off at myself. Mostly because I have no excuse other than that I was totally, utterly, and completely unmotivated to write. And so I didn’t.

It’s not even like I can say I had a ton of other stuff to do because I didn’t. In fact, I didn’t even step foot outside the house all week until I went out Friday morning to take pictures and get groceries.

If I’m really honest with myself, I think I have to say that I’ve lost my passion for internet marketing, at least the way I’ve been doing it for the past several years. The whole keyword and market research thing has left me thinking that there has to be something more. I think for awhile I’d much rather write on the topics that interest me and make me happy, and hope that they interest you and make you happy too. I realize that I won’t be able to please everyone, and quite frankly, I’m okay with that.

And now on a more positive note…

I had no problems being motivated to train this week. With some great results, I might add! After just one week of weight training and cleaner eating, I managed a 4 percent reduction in body fat. So the week wasn’t a complete loss. :)

And I do plan to do better on both the challenge and content creation fronts this week. I’ll post my plans for the week as soon as I have them figured out, so stay tuned.

And have a wonderful week!

Here’s a summary of this week’s content:

Some Thoughts of Christmas Traditions
Christmas Shopping Survival Tips

New Wallpapers For You

Monday Morning Outlook
Order and Chaos Side by Side

Monday Morning Outlook

Helena — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 16:45:00 +0000

This started out yesterday as a “week in review” type post, but I kinda got sidetracked. (Story of my blogging life, it seems :))

There are times when I really wonder if I should be posting a week in review, because I don’t always get a lot done in a week. And this was one of those weeks. But then I thought that this is really when I do need to set out in writing what I have done so that a) I can see exactly how much or how little I have accomplished, and b) it will serve as a good incentive to do more next week.

One thing I’ve found that helps me in getting more done every day is to set myself a challenge for the day. It’s a tool I borrowed and adapted from a post by Robert Plank some time ago. Sometimes I make it, and sometimes I don’t but it really helps to have a focus for the day and to set my priorities. It’s way too easy for me to get sidetracked and end up doing a lot of little things, without actually finishing any one major project. This week I met two challenges, and have five more that need finishing up.

The two challenges that I did finish were:

1. Set up Lena’s Creations store and add four different designs of Christmas cards featuring my own photography. This is something I’ve wanted to do for a long time now, and I’m really pleased that I’ve finally taken the first steps to getting it done.

2. Made an original video and posted it on youtube. It’s a short affirmation video and it’s also posted on The Acorn Stash blog. At the risk of sounding pathetically whiny, it hasn’t had very many views yet so if you could check it out and rate and/or comment I would be eternally grateful to you. :)

To keep me accountable this week, I’m posting my challenges here:

1. New products to be added to the Cafe Press Store
2. A new video
3. New content to be added to the Thoughts of Christmas blog.
4. A new issue of The Acorn Stash
5. A new issue of The Ritchie Report
6. New content on all of the blogs
7. A new Friday Special
8. Take some new pictures

I plan to write my little fingers off this week creating content. If I have to post my results here every day, then I figure that will go a long ways to keeping me on target. Then maybe my “week in review” post next Sunday won’t look so pathetic.

On the personal front, I’m still plugging away at my novel for NaNoWriMo. I’m way behind with only about 7000 words written so far, but I’m having fun with it. I went to a write-in on Thursday night and met a few of the other local authors who are participating. That was a really big step for my hermit self.

Oh, and I decided that I would set my fitness goal for next year to participate in a sprint triathlon. So I’ve been researching training tips and clean eating habits in order to get myself ready for that.

And that’s it for me this week. How was your week? Did you get everything done that you wanted to last week? What do you plan to accomplish this week? Leave a comment and let me know!

Have a great week!
Thanks for being here,

I had to open my mouth

Helena — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 17:20:06 +0000

… or at least let my fingers do the talkin’ without talkin’ to the brain first. :)

Wondering what I’m yammering about?

I’ve been working at getting more productive, and creating more quality content than a post or article every few days. My writing lacks consistency and I’ll be the first to admit that it’s my own dang fault.

So yesterday on twitter, someone said to post your goal for the week. And feeling totally exhausted and feeling guilty for it, my fingers (with no input from the brain, I swear!) typed in real quick … My goal this week is to write 50 original pieces of content.

When I actually thought about it after, I realized it’s not that bad. That’s only 10 posts and articles a day for the next 5 days. Which means I could, theoretically, take Sunday off. And it’s totally doable … except that I’ve only been able to manage one a day (and sometimes not even that) for the past couple of weeks. The huge list I posted for the next three months is in serious jeopardy of not getting done unless I can pick up speed here.

If I had thought before I wrote, I would’ve said I would commit to getting done one article a day. But where’s the fun in that? One a day is the very least I should be doing, and so that’s no stretch at all. I love to challenge myself and setting the bar really high is the only way I know how to do that.

Will I make it? Who knows, but I’m certainly going to work my butt off at it. I opened my mouth, and I’m not backing down now :)

(And yes … this counts as 1 of 50, and the official start of my writing week! )

What do you think? Did I bite off more than I can chew this week?

No related posts.

Reflections on a Wonderful Week

Helena — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 15:59:59 +0000

It’s been a very strange week, but a wonderful one nonetheless.

On Friday afternoon I ended up with some time to kill whilst waiting for my son and so used it to reflect a bit on my week and to jot down some thoughts. Any other time I would have been late for picking him up, but that day I planned for the traffic, and the roads were pretty much empty. Coming home was a different story though… got here and the police had our street blocked off. Don’t ask me why though because I still haven’t found out what happened.

Anyways, it was just another one of those things that made this week so strange. It started out great. Sunday and Monday were really productive, and Tuesday I spent a lot of the day watching the inauguration and indulging my inner historian. But after that it was like experiencing a serious let down. I felt like I was in a fog for most of Wednesday and Thursday, and was hardly able to do anything but sleep.

But even though it was an unproductive week, it was still good I didn’t get stressed out over anything, and that’s a major accomplishment for me. I paid attention to my body and gave it what it needed, allowing myself to sleep as and when I needed. I did all my Wonder Woman Challenges this week with the exception of an Artist’s date yesterday. I’m going to have to pick another day besides Saturday to do that one because Saturday just isn’t working out for me as a day when I can get away on my own.

If there was a downside to the week, it was the problems I had with wordpress not accepting my posts. That threw my whole writing/posting schedule off, and although I didn’t stress over it, it did affect my mindset for the entire week. I didn’t want to take the risk of writing something and losing it when I tried to save, so I just didn’t write at all. And that got me a bit frustrated that my business building isn’t going according to plan this month, and is not as successful as I’d like it to be at the moment. My first big goal of the year is to move at the end of March, and I will admit, I’m already getting anxious about it.

One thing I’ve noticed this week is the definite relationship between mindset and physical health. I always knew it was there, but I’ve had proof in spades this week. I’ve been unfocused and in a daze mentally, and at my morning weigh-in today my weight was up, and my glucose readings have been on the high side all week.

Another thing I’ve noticed this week is that I seem to be developing a pattern of withdrawing in the middle of the week. This was the second week in a row that I didn’t talk to anyone, didn’t play on twitter, check emails, or do anything that required communication for a couple of days. And it’s not a pattern that I want to develop. This week was even harder to turn everything back on and jump back into the fray.

A big part of my challenge is to be more open and allow myself to connect with others. I can honestly say that I didn’t realize how hard it would be. I think deep down somewhere I figured that it would be just like flicking a switch and I’d turn on the extroverted part of me. Only it really doesn’t work that way. It seems to me that even though humans are social creatures, being social does not come natural to everyone. It’s like any other muscle development. You have to use it to build it, and when you don’t use it, it weakens and atrophies pretty quickly. And I can honestly admit that my social muscles need a lot of strengthening. :)

This week I’m making a conscious effort to not withdraw at all; to develop my social muscles a little more, and to not allow the little setbacks to ruin my plans for the whole week. The month isn’t over yet, and although I realistically have to say I won’t meet the goals I had set for myself this month, there’s still a week to get something done so that it’s not a total loss.

Here’s to a wonderful week!

What are you doing to make sure your week is wonderful?