Day: June 1, 2014

AJ

Day 1: Define Your Core Values

 

30daysbmlogo

These have gone through several iterations in the past, but having taken time again to consider this the five below stood out as my core values. It’s obvious I need to work on several of these to make them front and centre, given the  reality of my life in certain areas doesn’t reflect these values. But don’t they say a problem identified is half solved?

  1. Faith: God, faith and how these interact in the real world and translate to personal and worldview integrity.
  2. Family : Nuclear and the future family 🙂
  3. Continuous Improvement: In three main areas – professionally, relationally and in delivering on the stated objective of contributing to life in the civic space. The intent is to actively seek out opportunities to learn both formally and informally for self improvement and a broadened knowledge base; challenging myself in the three main areas identified above.
  4. Mentoring: As someone who has benefitted greatly from the input of knowledgeable others both in my personal and professional life, taking an active interest in the lives of others with the aim of improving them is something I want to do more of.
  5. Health and Healthy Living: The ‘rigours’ of being a hands on rustgeek demand that I pass a medical exam every two years. The numbers from the last check in 2013 were a real wake up call – no thanks to shed loads of pizza and salt. That prompted a rethink and serious action to get the weight and junk food binges down to good effect. Getting healthy, staying healthy, leveraging technology to identify and eliminate risk factors and all the little decisions that feed into that has to be be more of a focus going forward.
AJ

Intermissions….

Time and time again one finds himself back here, searching for what, one knows not. Between life, work and the issues inherent in them, my big resolve to do life in 30 day chunks limped along before dying in March. What little time to breathe I had was spent swotting for a couple of exams, critical components of the personal development plan for the year.

Coming into June, I thought the Better Man in 30 days challenge from the Art of Manliness represented a good, meaty challenge to get my teeth into, a potential keystone habit if you like. For one, manliness and man-making represent a key strand that runs through and undergirds the Life Plan.  In addition, blogging for an entire month was also one of the ideas for a thirty day challenge at the beginning of the year. Thanks to the two twitter BFFs – OluSimeon and SingleNigerian, any doubts I might have had about going through with the plan have been nuked thanks to public accountability.

Alongside this, I will be giving focus to four other challenges through June – Whole30 where I give up dairy, grains and such for a month, daily journaling, a re-commitment to daily prayer and bible study, and complete abstinence from coffee and fizzy drinks. Two or three of these are a rehash of things I tried to do earlier in the 30 day challenge cycle.

Fingers crossed though.. Fight this!!!