SMART Goal Setting

I have kickboxed/boxed for nearly all my life. I was also certified as a personal trainer. And I know that sometimes goal setting is tough in all facets of life.

Here we go:

SMART.

S - Specific
M - Measurable
A - Action Oriented
R - Realistic
T - Timed

Specific:Goals should be as specific as possible so that you can picture exactly where you need to be heading. Skills in questioning are really needed to set specific goals. If your current goal is to "Get in shape" or "feel better:, ask yourself how you want to feel or what you want to change. Once you ask questions like this you'll have a better idea of what you want.

Measurable:
This is a great way to get feedback on your goals. Say you want to lose weight and have more energy, well once you decide how much weight you want to lose that is a specific goal. However increasing your energy is a little tougher goal to set, but not impossible. For example, ask yourself where your energy is now on a scale of 1 to 10. With 1 being a slug and 10 being Superman or Superwoman.

Action Oriented:
When you are setting a goal, you should associate a specific action with it. If you want to lose 10 lbs then you should set a plan to meet with a trainer or your workout buddy 3 times a week and at least once by yourself to workout for 30 minutes to an hour.

Realistic:
In my opinion this is the most important part of the goal setting process. It has to be realistic for you and you alone. If it is not realistic you will not be able to accomplish it and thus become very uninterested in your fitness journey. And please don't do any of these "I want to lose 30 lbs in 30 days and I'm 160 lbs now". That is just far to much body mass for you to lose in that short amount of time.

Timed:
This part is easy, this is how much time you will dedicate to this goal.
You can also use this entire SMART method to set a short term and a long term goal.

More on Motivation

I know I posted yesterday about my lack of motivation as of late. It is probably related to the increase in my medication my doctor told me to do before Christmas. I had an increase of 50% on both Prozac and Lamictal. It has sort of knocked me on my ass, the general apathy is just a bit much. Although that could be due to it being winter and the lack of daylight hours here. The sun does not rise until around 9 am and it sets before 5 pm. We do have one of those natural light thingies and we do have it on after the sun sets, it is sort of helping to get me back into a more regular sleep/wake cycle.

I see my doctor again on the 23rd of this month so we will see how it goes.

New Age Bullying

There has been a epidemic of suicides by teens and pre-teens who were pushed to it by classmates, and general creeps in Canada. The most infamous case is of a 17 yr old girl named Rehteah Parsons in Dartmouth Nova Scotia in April of 2013.

This girl went to a party when she was 15 (2011) where there was excessive drinking and four teenaged boys forced themselves on her. They raped her. They even took pictures and videos on their phones and they used these photos to harass this girl. They sent these images out to everyone they could think of which resulted in the distribution of them growing exponentially. She ended up with countless texts and facebook messages either calling her a slut or asking for sex.

Police investigated it and said there was not enough evidence to press charges since it was a "he said, she said" incident.

Ok, now let me get this straight; a 15 year old girl was raped multiple times by four teen boys while others recorded and photographed it? And there is not enough evidence to charge anyone? What about manufacturing and distributing child pornography? She was 15 which is under the age of consent and they took media of it, regardless of if there is not enough evidence of sexual assault, these little bastards are guilty in my opinion of child exploitation.

There are countless other stories of kids and teens killing themselves because of "bullying". I'm 26 and when I was in elementary school I was bullied by a couple of boys because I had a speech impediment (I have since out grown it.) This went on for years, until one day in sixth grade I had had enough, turned around and punched the guy out. I was not bullied again. That was bullying.

What these little sociopaths are doing is not bullying, it is as close to criminal harassment as you can come. You push someone to killing themselves, at least when I was a kid, there was utter hell to pay. People looked for answers, cops came and the entire population of the school got hell bent on finding the culprit.

Now? It is a constant turning a blind eye to it until it is far too late. Then it is a slap on the wrist, if the perpetrator gets any sort of punishment at all. Or parents say that it wasn't their kid or their kid is an "angel", sorry to say it but your kid is a sociopath.

I used to work in corrections and I had to deal with young offenders on a daily basis. Dealing with them was the single worst aspect of my job. And that is saying something because I also had to interact with adult offenders who were in a severely altered state of mind (drunk or high) or infected with god knows what. In one instance, I had a woman grab the front of my uniform when I was handing her food, she pulled me into the bars and smashing my face into the bars. This knocked out one of my teeth and broke my cheek bone, I had to have surgery to fix it.

Young offenders are worse, they are vicious. The females more than the boys. These little sociopaths could murder someone and be kept in custody until they are 18 or 21 and get released with a clean record. I saw the list of charges for all of the ones I dealt with, it ranged from theft to break and enter, through to physical and sexual assault and murder. When the parents came in, they acted like it was MY fault their little "angel" was in detention. I'm sorry, but your little "angel" is a violent criminal punk that you are guilty of not disciplining at home for far too long until I have to deal with them.

I know this post is making me sound old or old fashioned, but if I had ever gotten arrested when I was young, I would have done anything to stay in police custody rather than dealing with my Mother or Grandmother.  I would have had hell to pay from both of them for doing it.

Of Employment and Interviews.

So earlier I had an interview for an office coordinator job that was setup through Randstad. Permanent type of deal, pretty sweet salary and not that far from my home. Sounds great right?

Except for one thing.... the place of employment is a funeral home. Sure, although the work is very fast paced which I can handle, I really doubt that I am qualified for it nor do I think I have the sort of personality they need.

They need someone who is very low key and can project an air of quiet empathy. While I can be very empathetic when the need arises, I am just too much of a loud mouth. I come from a big loud hectic family, where I am actually considered to be the quiet one. Which if you have met me in person, depending on where my bipolar cycle is, I can be very big and grandiose or quiet and reserved bordering on shy. Probably the best way to describe what I am generally like is this personality profile that I got from some quiz a while back.

With the number of interviews I have gone through, I could probably start an interview "tutoring" service.

Anyway, I also have an interview tomorrow for another placement. This time for another non-profit, heart and stroke federation, for the role of Volunteer Coordinator. This sounds like fun, since I have done something similar when I worked elections for the two levels of the Liberal Party. Then I think on Friday I will have another interview for a gig with the Government of Alberta in the department of education as an application appraiser for teachers. Or something akin to that, I am not 100% certain on what that role entails, but the person I would be working with sounds like I could really get along with and enjoy going to work. So hey, let's see what happens. 

Motivation.... or lack there of.

I have just had zero motivation to do anything the last three weeks. It is almost like I can't be bothered to care about much. My Christmas was fine, my fiancee got me a sweet God Father print type of deal. It's one of those rigid type of print deals. It is awesome, the God Father, in my opinion, is a cinematic masterpiece. Totally my favorite movie.

Anyway, I finished my placement with Randstad on December 20 and I have been off since. I did have an interview for another placement that was tailor made for me. Non-profit, full time, ongoing and doing multiple different things at a fast pace. A $7/hr pay raise from what I was making at the last placement.

Got the call about it yesterday, she was going to offer the job to me. She loved my technical abilities and my personality. Job was mine; until someone internal got it. I was right there, I had it, I was in the doorway and the door smacked me. That was disappointing, but it is the nature of the business. Still though, I had it. It was mine. Story of my life lately, but hey have to move on.

Back to the point of this post, the longer that I am on "vacation" I tend to get more and more depressed. I've started sleeping up to 12 hours a night. I know there are multiple things that I should be doing, like exercising but I just have zero drive or interest in doing that. Trying to be social has gotten to be exhausting, but hiding in the apartment all day for multiple days on end isn't good either.

I might start scheduling posts leached from my fitness blog that I do not write in anymore. Just the posts that relate a little bit.