'The List' - Week 4

Photo Credit to Erica Nilsson on Unsplash

1)      Always be learning a new skill – Podcasting, Greek, using AI for resume building

2)      Improve my current home – Starting to plan small improvements

3)     Maintain weight or weigh less next year at this time – Eating has been great.  No alcohol this week. Weight has not moved much.

4)    Continuously read – Dead Wake by Erik Larson

5)    Create content relating to this journey whenever it feels authentic and necessary – This was challenging this week because there was so much amazing snow to ski on

6)    Improve health – Exercise and movement almost everyday

7)   Simplify belongings – Purging and organizing.  Slow and steady

8)    Earn enough money to be comfortable and reduce unnecessary expenses – More work on this. Eliminating unnecessary things in the house daily

9)    Make writing a habit – Daily Journal is normal now, failed a bit on the blogging

10)  Seek out all kinds of social opportunities – This needs more effort

So this week was interesting, but also a challenge. This is the week I realized that I will absolutely have to forge my own path forward. No one is going to give me a job, nor a chance, so I had better figure out how to do this. I did get some great ideas though....:)

I like the picture of the #4 sign this week....it's slightly askew, but still there. Just like the progress on my goals. And that's ok.

I honestly was a mess keeping the dry erase board up to date this week and was pretty much of a disaster. Why? Well one day we went overnight to a larger city for an outdoor film festival, and most other days, we finally got snow so we wanted to ski. It really is challenging getting your normal tasks done when the allure of the outdoors is calling you.

I did have a really interesting moment this week where I was overwhelmed by the fact that in spite of all of my efforts nothing seems to have changed. I had a moment of being upset and angry, and then I went out to exercise and get fresh air.

I have learned that my circuit breaker is movement.

When I feel overwhelmed or anxious, I can now recognize that am going into a spiral, and that I need to get that energy out. That is a huge win.

My other lesson of the week is that:

There is no perfect week

The whole idea of this experiment is that as the weeks go by, there are no good weeks or bad weeks, they are just weeks. And the 'good' or 'bad' are just data points to make adjustments. All in all, my week was great, but I didn't do a great job keeping track of my progress or creating content.

So what?

So this week, I will catch up, refocus and try and figure out how to get more balance in my day to day. I am late writing this update, big deal. It's getting done. I think this is where so many people get messed up. As soon as things go sideways a bit, they just take their hands off the wheel instead of trying to course correct.

My mindfulness of my goals and their supporting actions did not change. And the things that used to need my focus, are now standard parts of my day - like not defaulting to drink alcohol, or reminding myself to move - those feel natural now.

So maybe that's what will happen. The use of 'the list' will make 'the list' eventually unnecessary? Or maybe life is an evolving list and it will always be there in one for or another.

Let's find out.

© Intentionally Unfocused 2025