Reflection has been a part of my life from a young age, but the last few months have felt different. Yesterday, I blew out 29 candles. Maybe because I’m nearing the end of a decade, or maybe because I’m feeling my body ache for the first time, I can’t help but feel disappointed.
In exactly 364 days I’ll cross the threshold into what I once thought was the oldest anyone could ever be. The pinnacle of one’s life. Thirty.
Let’s jump into the time machine and review the goals young Brooklyn prominently touted as what she would do before being the ancient age of thirty.
- “Grandma, I will retire when I turn thirty. Thirty-five at the latest. I’ll retire you too.”
- “I’m gonna buy that big house at the end of the road, fix it up, and turn it into a homeless shelter.”
- “Dad, I’m not ever going to have debt. Watch, when I’m thirty I’ll have bought a house in cash.”
These goals professed somewhere between the years of 2004 and 2008 might have come from a naive place, but are rooted in the heart of who I am today.
No, I won’t retire at thirty or thirty-five. Turns out the house at the end of Colfax was purchased, fixed, and is being rented at a reasonable rate. Buying my first house cash is not quite out of the picture, but is not grounded in reality. Especially in today’s real estate market.
What’s been discovered over the last six months of being retrospective, and using these silly goals as a yardstick, I’ve been coasting through my twenties. On a scale of Zero to 100MPH, I’m on cruise control set at 55.
This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. In the parable of the “Tortise and the Hare”, slow and steady wins the race.
However… your version of slow and steady can change. The more momentum you have, the baseline will adapt.
The Challenge
Today, June 3rd, marked the beginning of my first improvement challenge of 2024.
Every year, like clockwork, we complete a challenge – write every day for X days, drink a gallon of water every day (indefinitely), exercise every day for 75 days straight.
These little hits throughout the year have aided in adopting new habits into our daily lives, but also give us a mental boost to what we can do if we stay determined.
We are jump-starting the new age by wrapping a few habits together into a 30-day challenge.
My first habit is this website. I’ve always wanted to have a website and offer what I’ve learned to those interested.
Secondly, our health has taken a back seat. With my new schedule and commute time to the office being 2 hours a day, I’ve allowed myself to get lazy. It’s harder to change your health tomorrow than it is today. The older you are the more difficult the bad habits are to break.
So with the preamble out of the way, the 30-day challenge will include the following:
- Write Every Day. The goal is to publish a solid article once a week. The Journal style articles – like this one – will be limited to challenge check-ins and big events.
- Exercise Every Morning – Yoga or Weight Lifting every morning. No excuses. Building muscle and having mobility as I age is extremely important to me. If It’s completed first thing in the morning, it’s hard to miss every day.
- Whole Foods Diet – For the next 30 days, no sugar or alcohol. This will be a whole foods-based diet, if I can’t read the ingredients list It will not be consumed.
We’re going to focus on these three things to start. Re-building the daily habits of exercise and writing is what is most important to me, and we all know the importance of eating your fruits and veggies, hitting your protein goals, and avoiding ingesting toxins.
This post will be updated as we progress throughout June.
Thanks for indulging me!
BK