Hamenopi

This is part of a series, the previous post is here . Overcoming F.E.A.R. False Evidence Appearing Real The issue now is How to Overcome Anxiety. In particular, I'm talking about the anxiety or F.E.A.R. of failure. Understand failing is just an event and failing doesn't make you a failure. Thank of it this way: You are an archer shooting at a target. If you miss the target, you failed to hit the target. It does not make you a failure at archery. That's why quivers have 20 arrows! Learn from your miss. If the arrow veered to the right, adjust to the left and try again. That's called adapting your strategy. Keep adapting your strategies until you find your mark and hit your target. From there, consistency is King. Just because you hit the target once doesn't mean every shot afterwards will hit! Falling Off The Wagon I think this is what gets people most people. They have a few good weeks, fall off the wagon and miss their mark a few days in a row. They then gi...

While losing weight I found something very peculiar. Not all weight I needed to shed was physical. Stay with me here. I was carrying around a lot of emotional baggage. I still thought negatively about myself. I still considered myself fat. I wasn't confident I could lose the weight. I didn't believe I could I could truly be healthy. Basically I was balancing a 10 ton bag of lies on my shoulders. The name of that bag was F.E.A.R. While fear is an emotional response to an actual threat, F.E.A.R is an emotion response to False Evidence Appearing Real. I think many of us struggle with this. F.E.A.R. is an illusion. there's no real threat of immediate danger. A tiger's not jumping out of the bushes to eat you. F.E.A.R. is just a horrible fairy tale we tell ourselves where we don't live happily ever after. F.E.A.R. is anxiety. It comes from our own perceived thoughts, not reality. And even though we can't always control our feelings, we can control how we respo...

(Excerpt of a larger post) One symbol gesture I use is a simple 3x5 note card with my goal on it. It says states my goal weight and my deadline. "I, Justin Hamilton, will weigh under 200 pounds by December 31st, 2016." It has my name denoting ownership, it has my goal weight and it has my deadline. Who, what, and when. If so inclined you could even add a why, where, and how. My why is to be healthy, my where is anywhere, and my how is anyhow. One interesting thing I find is with this card, I'm better able to overshoot my capabilities. From June 2015 to January 2016 I lost 30 pounds. Following the trend, I surmised I'd get to 210 by the new year so I challenged myself that extra 10 pounds. Well by April I hit 230 and I'm already in the high 220s. Sticking to my new trend, I should by under 200 by July which would be amazing. Using my note card definitely helped me do this. How? For the first 3 months, in the morning I'd look at it. When I was shopping g...

Several Christmas' ago I received a pair of pants that were too tight for me. Ashamed of my weight, I just hid them in the back of my closet. Every once in a while I would come across them and remember just how overweight I was and just feel a deep sadness before pushing them once again to the back of my closet. Thankfully I woke up and grabbed control of my life. My autopilot was heading straight into a mountain of sickness and disease. Remembering the pair of pants in the back of my closet, I moved them front and center so I'd encounter them every time I was in my closet. Each time I saw them, I told myself someday I'd fit in those pants. Some days it was easier than others. More than once I wanted to hide the jeans again and forget about my mission. But as time went on, it got easier to see the jeans and what was once a negative trigger became a trigger of hope. Still I could not button the pants but now I could at least get them over my thighs. I could see progress! T...

The aim for perfection has sabotaged many people throughout history. Why? Why do we strive for perfection? If you know, please tell me. Perfection is reserved for the Gods, it doesn't exist for us. If anything, it is an illusion, right? Instead Let's strive to do our best with what we have. Not THE BEST but rather OUR BEST or THE BEST "WE CAN" AT "THIS TIME" . If it isn't our best work, are we just then wasting our time? Aren't we also wasting the time for others? And definitely share your best works with others. It will: Help others do better best works Help you do better best works Because when you share your works, other may share their thoughts. Take that those thoughts and test them against your heart. The ones that ring true may help you produce your next best art. Of course who you share your work with matters. Stick figures are masterpieces to 5 yr olds and object oriented design patterns is greek to most people. Missing Your Mark ...

You don't need to know Rocket Science to lose weight. Of course, it helps to become knowledgeable in nutrition if you want to go far. But if you're just looking to lose 20 pounds, it's pretty easy. Eat Less Do More ZenHabit's summed it up even better in this article . A diet is healthy when it: gives your body nutrients it needs, without giving you too many calories (too many calories leads to obesity over time), or unhealthy things (like too much saturated or trans fat, nitrates, excess sodium, unhealthy chemicals). It's that easy... in the beginning. Of course the next natural questions are How many calories should I consume daily? What nutrients do my body need? Great news! There are apps for that. I use MyFitnessPal. Another great one is LoseIt. They are both free and help you track calories and nutrients. Of course, they only work if you use them.

Today at work I'm trying to encourage someone to recursively call design patterns. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, you are not alone. Many people will be happy to never learn highly adaptable application strategies. It honestly can provoke headaches just from thinking about it. I find the same about health and nutrition. People get a headache just thinking about it. There's just so much info and half of it contradicts the other. Which end is up? Just tell me what to EAT! Right? But once you break through the terminology and get your hands dirty, you realize it really isn't that hard. It's just accounting for your variables and tracking them for a while. Manipulate Your Variables Once you know what to expect, you make minor manipulations to aforementioned variables. Record the new values and verify they are heading toward the right direction. So many times in programming and in weight loss, people are trying to write one application that covers e...