Growing Into You

“First, we make our habits. Then, our habits make us.” -Charles C. Noble

When I was a kid, one thing sticks out in my mind. My father was a great motivator. Starting at a very young age, my dad always gave me motivational talks about what I needed to do in order to achieve great things in life. Being young, I would always shoot out of the box right after one of these speeches. Then, my mind would wander, and the fire would dwindle down.

There are two different points from my father’s speeches that I will never forget. The first, which came when I was slumping in baseball, was an acronym. He told me that that when I am getting ready to do a task, repeat the word “K.I.S.S.” in my head. I’m sure many of you have heard this acronym before. “K.I.S.S” stands for “Keep it simple stupid.” What he meant by that was don’t over think the situation, and most importantly, don’t over complicate it.

After my dad got tired of having his great motivational speeches work for about one week, he began to stress another point that has stuck with me. He told me that it takes 21 days to make a habit stick. So, after his speech, we would sit down and make a plan. No longer would I sprint out of the gate on a 400 meter dash only to run out of gas 300 meters in. Each day, for the first 21 days, I would focus solely on doing one or two habits differently. Any more than that and I would have been breaking the “K.I.S.S” code.

So here is the challenge I will set for you and myself. I will have my 21 day cycle running on a tab on the top of my home page. Each 21 day cycle, I will post no more than TWO habits that I am trying to form (or break.) Each day, I will report back to that page and let everybody know where I stand.

I encourage each one of you to do this with me. You can e-mail me what your habit is or you can post it through the comments section. The more times you e-mail me throughout the 21 days, the more likely you will make it through. You will be able to get encouragement and be held accountable from other readers and myself.

I am counting on each one of you to hold me accountable. Together, we can change our habits.

First, I would like to thank EVERYBODY who has subscribed to my blog over the past week. Seeing my subscriber numbers go up as quickly as they have has really come as a shock to me and it tells me I must be writing about something that is clicking with you.

I have been having some problems with my RSS Feeds. So to fix these problems, I just went ahead and started a new feed. So in order to fix the problem and get everybody on the same page, I am asking any person with a subscription to re-subscribe to the new address. Here is my new feed. The one that I had previously was http://feeds.feedburner.com/growingintoyoucom.

I am unsure what caused these problems. Being so new to blogging, I still have quite a few wrinkles to work out. I am learning quickly though.

So in a nutshell, could you please unsubscribe from the old feed and re-subscribe to the new one located above. I am TERRIBLY sorry for this inconvenience, but I want to make sure everybody is able to receive the articles. If you have any questions just e-mail me at tad@growingintoyou.com. I really enjoy hearing from each and every one of you. I hope you all have a great weekend.

“Anger will never disappear so long as thoughts of resentment are cherished in the mind. Anger will disappear just as soon as thoughts of resentment are forgotten.” -Buddha

Have you ever accidentally cut somebody off on the highway, and then about three minutes later they come flying by you like a bat out of hell giving you the bird? What about the person that just looks for fights over the smallest things? As bad as those hot heads are, there is a type of person that is much worse. This type of person will stay mad for hours, days, or even weeks at their good friends for the smallest fight. We all know these people. They are known as grudge-holders.

Believe it or not, at a point in my life, not long ago, I used to be a HUGE grudge-holder. Looking back on it now, I am embarrassed how I used to act. At one point in high school, my best friend and I got in a fight about what to do on New Year’s. We had made a plan to go over to one of our friend’s house. Then, when we got in the car, she mentioned to me that we were changing plans.

I did not get visibly mad at her then, I just said O.K. and went our way. We had a decent time with our friends, but that was the last time I spoke with my friend for three weeks. That’s right; I did not say ONE word to my best friend because of one stupid night. I did not confront her about it, I did not even bring up why I was mad. I completely ignored her. Finally, after three weeks she came up to me to see what was wrong. I finally had gotten over it by then, and so we talked about it. After we talked, we were fine and have been good friends ever since. (more…)