Early Start Boot Camp Update

Motivation, , , , ,

It’s over a month since I first started my early start boot camp experiment. In that time I have tried all sorts of variations of it ranging from regimental fixed start time to downright random and spontaneous.

I’m not much wiser really, although I’ve done a lot more walking, taking photos and seabird-worrying. One of the complications is that we have just finished the annual ‘summer arrives in March’ thing (which was nice, especially on the tennis courts) but we have now moved into the predictable ‘April showers’ season.

With this, we often get very nice periods in the mornings where the weather can fool Easter tourists into getting ready, packing all of their beach gear up and making sandwiches only to find that once they hit the beach at ten-thirty it turns into a hailstorm or a sideways rain ‘blow your brolly inside-out’ type of affair.

So the problem for me is that even though early start boot camp is great, it’s a bit dark and cold but as soon as I get back, it turns into summertime for about an hour or so before the inevitable grey clouds and hailstorms arrive and as a sun-lover, I like to feel the sun on my skin and to make some vitamin D, so I don’t like missing that sunny spell.

I’m still having early starts, but the boot camp (walk) is either delayed or sometimes cancelled. Although there’s not as much blogging going on here as I would like, I’m pretty busy with work and when I get into productive mode, I don’t like to snap myself out of it for a walk.

So as I said above, overall it’s a bit unorganised and difficult to draw too many conclusions about the long term plan at this stage but one thing is for sure – it’s been a fun and beneficial experiment.

After the initial boot camps, I had taken a short break from it to see how I felt in comparison to just previously when I was getting up early and going straight out (well after a cup of tea of course, that goes without saying around here) every morning.

No surprises, I felt tired, demotivated and unproductive without the boot camp and by contrasting the two experiences directly, it provided a very clear lesson – early starts and brisk walks as the sun rises are excellent for providing the right mindset for working from home and getting things done.

I’ve built up a couple of galleries that I’d like to post here, so here’s the first one which is from the sixth of April when it was high tide and therefore I couldn’t actually walk along the seafront walkway without getting soaked, but it provided some different photo opportunities.

It’s really awe-inspiring experiencing the power of the sea as it continually splashes, slurps and explodes onto the walkway, then drains off again down the steps with a rushing/sucking sound. There’s quite a loud booming sound as the waves break onto the steps all of the way along and you can’t help but imagine how mangled you’d be if you fell in and got smashed onto the steps over and over – it’s a bit like a washing machine, but you’d probably end up dirtier rather than cleaner, I guess.

You get to see some funny things down there, especially at the moment (winter season) when dogs are still allowed on the beach. The other day there was a small, yappy dog who obviously had a problem with the waves breaking on the walkway steps and as well as barking at the sea (surprisingly, this didn’t scare the sea away), each time the sea receded in between waves the dog would run down a few steps and try to bite the incoming wave and then run back up the steps, just about managing not to get soaked and dragged into the swell.

Then it would do the same all over again with the next wave. Silly dog, but funny and cute. Unfortunately I didn’t have my camera handy that time for a ‘dog bites wave’ and ‘wave tries to soak dog in revenge’ gallery.

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Back to the boot camp – I need to find some kind of routine with the boot camp which is kind of half and half in terms of being regimented but flexible and variable. Doing it at the same time every day just gets boring and tedious.

I’m not sure yet, but I suppose the ideal solution is to have a set amount of boot camps per week. For example, three or four days of early start boot camp (up at 6 AM, leave at 6.15AM) and two or three days of variable times (but must be sometime in the morning) and one day off.

I’ll let you know when I have come up with something concrete along with any lessons learnt. Here’s the next gallery from the twelfth of April –

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Finally, a big shout out to the best son in the world, (my one and only son, well as far as I am aware) Jamie, who becomes a man today on his sixteenth birthday. Unfortunately, I can’t be with him today but I had a chat with him earlier and he was chuffed to bits that one of his mates got the people on Kerrang Radio to give him a birthday shout over the airwaves. Happy birthday son!

The last gallery is a handful of photographs I took showing the view from here in ExRat Towers.  They are mainly the sea-view as I see it from over my computer monitor except for the fourth one which is the side-view looking towards the main town in Torquay. The first three are at night, with the moonlight lighting up the sea and the last two are in the morning. On photograph number two, you can see the lights of Torquay harbour area on the far left plus the lights of Brixham on the far right, in the distance.

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I’ll be back soon with some proper work related posts, I’m just in ‘the lab’ making some business plans at the moment and planning to get out of there soon and to start making some posts which are more in line with what this blog is really meant to be about – helping others to escape the rat race.

Rob Newman’s ‘The History Of Oil’

Critical Thinking, , , ,

I came across this video on Sunday in my bookmarks, where I had saved it for watching at a later date after finding it via a link somewhere. It’s a live performance by Rob Newman, in which he couples his sense of humour with a political/historical message.

I chose to post it here because I think it’s excellent, educational, amusing and a great example of how to keep the interest of your audience while making a serious point.

If you can spare forty-five minutes for something a little different, I hope that you enjoy it. If you want to skim it quickly to see if you like it, try jumping to 17.50 where he does an impression of Tony Blair in order to answer this point –

“Of course, Blair can’t actually be a war criminal, can he? He listens to Oasis.

He can’t be a war criminal because we know what war criminals look like, they look like Goebbels.

But what did Goebbels look like to the Germans?”

Even Earlier Start Boot Camp And A Round Up Of The Week’s Lifestyle Experiment

Motivation, , , , ,

After trying to get some decent photographs for a few days, I got up on Thursday morning and had my usual cup of tea at about 6am before leaving for my walk. At one point while briefly perusing the news on the internet, I glanced over the monitor and noticed that the sea in the bay and the sky were presenting the kind of photo-opportunity that I had been craving – but I was still in my flat!

I think it happens mainly before the sun has visibly risen, but it is rising from behind the town and creates that ‘red sky in the morning, shepherd’s warning’ effect. This in turn makes the sea and part of the sky go all sorts of purple/mauve colours and they appear to blend into one and it looks absolutely gorgeous.

Unfortunately, by the time I had raced down to the seafront with my camera about fifteen minutes later, the opportunity had gone.

I was trying to find some sort of purpose to my walks alongside the obvious benefits – mental stamina, fitness, health and a good start to the day, so the photograph quest had become kind of important to me.

I decided that ‘early start boot camp’ needed to evolve into ‘even earlier start boot camp’. On Friday I left even earlier, but to no avail. The photographs were OK, but nothing special. Here is the gallery for Thursday and Friday –

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On Saturday morning the weather teased me a little by providing a tiny glimpse of redness on the water, but again it was nothing to write home about. I hung around for a little longer than usual and thoroughly enjoyed myself, but the pictures were just average – here are Saturday’s photographs –

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On Sunday I decided to give myself a rest from the early start. But we were blessed with the arrival of the most amazing summery weather (considering it is early March) so I took the camera out in the daytime, had a long walk and loitered around in the sun for some time, getting the rays on my skin and boosting my vitamin D levels and the start of the 2012 suntan.

Here is Saturday’s gallery –

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I also decided to have a complete break from the early start and the walk today (Monday) although I got up at 7am anyway. I’ve enjoyed this experiment and learnt a few lessons and reminded myself what it feels like to be highly motivated and energised in the mornings.

I’ve enjoyed taking some photographs and posting them online. I’m trying to make a decision about how I should proceed in the long term, because I don’t always want to be walking in semi-darkness now that the sunny mornings are back, but at the same time I want to stay disciplined and sometimes have to do things when I would rather not. I’ll keep the blog updated with how I choose to proceed.

If nothing else, I hope that anyone who may come across these posts is inspired to attempt some ‘lifestyle experiments’ of their own and to push themselves a little harder to see what they can discover about themselves and the things they have around them.

As always, all comments are welcomed, except spam of course 😉

Early Start Boot Camp With Inclement Weather Challenge

Motivation, , , , ,

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Today is day three of my early start boot camp, although it’s kind of day two. On Sunday I came up with the idea after starting the day poorly and then proceeding to do the walk mid-morning, but it wasn’t an early start that day. On Monday my sleep had been disrupted and boot camp was called off. So Tuesday (yesterday) was the first real day, with the early start included.

As I mentioned yesterday, the idea is to get into the swing of this and then step it up somewhat. Currently, I am just going for a fast walk, but as soon as possible this is going to be converted into a jog so I guess that there will be less photographs taken, unless I buy some kind of mini-camera.

Today I was presented with an interesting new challenge that I had been fully expecting – inclement weather. I’ve always noted since I relocated to the coast that poor weather feels different here. Back when I lived in a built up area, close to a large city, poor weather was utterly depressing, not least because I was visually presented with wet concrete and glum faces everywhere.

On the coast, poor weather can be quite exciting with rough seas and strong winds and instead of being a hindrance, it just feels more bracing and refreshing. Of course, it was always harder to get up and out of the house back in the days when I worked a J.O.B. that I hated in the old area – often having to brave the elements on the way to work and then try and make myself presentable for work once I got there all bedraggled.

Working from home, I now have a much more private and comfortable environment to work in, but this is precisely why it is important to get out and face the elements and do some physical exercise coupled with an early rise. There is no boss to tell me off when I’m slacking (except me) and it’s too easy to slip into the comfort zone – hence the early start boot camp.

Well this morning I woke up to high winds and sideways driving rain. In all honesty, once I got out in it, it wasn’t that bad. The weather can be deceptive when you view it from indoors. I did get soaked (ending up like a drowned (ex)rat), but it was fun and I made sure I came back to warm central heating, a cup of tea and a nice hot bath.

I’m thoroughly enjoying the boot camp. Yesterday, my mood was excellent and I was highly motivated. I slept much better and went to bed earlier. I did some jobs I had been struggling to face up to for some time, including some decluttering. I have more of these jobs to clear from the list and more decluttering and D.I.Y. as well as work tasks but I’m well up for it.

My attitude is much better, I’m more energised and positive and I’m aware that I don’t have to do this – I’m doing it through choice, which is an important point to note. One of the key reasons for this boot camp is to develop more mental strength and self-control.

As I progress, I will continue to share the lessons I am learning and of course, any new photographs. Today’s selection includes one at the end that I took from my window after I returned, when we had a new guest parking in the bay. I’m not entirely sure why some of the photographs came out with a blue tinge to them (I used the same camera settings for all of the photographs) but I presume that it’s got something to do with the rain.

As you can probably tell, I’m not the world’s greatest photographer, but the best way to learn anything is to just have a go and to try and improve thereafter.

Early Start Boot Camp

Motivation, , , , , ,

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As you can see from the archives, I’ve had a two month or so break from posting. These have been tough times, with many lessons learnt and lots of challenges faced – some conquered, some failed and some ongoing. Life’s like that – well mine is, anyway!

After hitting the bottom – hard, I decided that I needed to work on my motivation, so I came up with a plan – the early start boot camp. I had been starting my days totally the wrong way and this new plan is much more like the right way.

Five years ago I ‘upped-sticks’ and moved away from my hometown to somewhere a lot nicer, by the sea (Torquay, in Devon – England.) I realised recently that I was still taking too much for granted and was failing to appreciate many of the gifts that the local area has to offer along with the benefits to my mindset from indulging in the best that nature has to offer.

In the past, on random occasions, I would get up early and walk down to the seafront when most of the town was still asleep and take photographs of the sunrise, the sea and anything else that caught my attention – for example, the abundance of wildlife that is highly active at that time in the morning, seeking out their breakfast, or trying to avoid becoming someone elses breakfast!

So I decided that I would make a plan that involved doing this on a daily basis as a way to start my day off on the right foot. I’m still adding to and tweaking the plan, for example when I return to my flat I do some exercise with my home gym equipment before starting work (mainly gym ball and simple abdominal exercises using a 10kg weight as if it were a medicine ball.)

The rationale behind this is that if I can’t drag myself out of bed at silly-O’clock and get some exercise while appreciating the stunning wildlife and beauty on my doorstep, then how can I possibly face the challenges that life and business are going to present to me? Answer – I can’t. So there’s no excuse.

Initially, I’m focused on regularly doing the walk down to the seafront, nice and early, in time to see the sunrise. This morning I took my camera along and went crazy, taking 128 photographs. After editing, I got this down to 66 decent ones. I’m probably going to do this every time because I enjoy it, it’s creative and hopefully it will inspire someone who bothers to look through them on this blog. This is why I chose the career I have (to live where I want and do what I want, when I want) and it was clear that I needed to remind myself of this on a daily basis – ideally first thing.

I hope that anyone who has a peek enjoys the photographs. They are a little bit random – I snap anything that appears in my field of vision that’s interesting. By the way, the boot camp is a fantastic idea and I feel totally different to how I usually feel at the start of my day, so the boot camp is a keeper. It will be interesting to see if I can keep it up and if I still enjoy it some time from now, but in all honesty I just have to change boot camp locations regularly because the local area is packed with stunning views and great things to see and experience.

You can click through the different pages of the gallery using the numbers underneath. If you click on a photo it opens in the lightbox view, enabling you to see larger images and click through them one by one. But for the best hands-free experience, just click the ‘click to switch to slideshow’ link and enjoy.