Themeattics

Lack of direction, not lack of time, is the problem. We all have twenty-four hour days.

Zig Ziglar

Greetings, Dwellers! Happy December, happy Thanksgiving, happy soon-to-be close of the year, merry Christmas in advance, etc., etc. It’s been a busy time both personally and career-wise, with what one should expect from the season and by a surprise early birth of my new nephew who came just a day before Thanksgiving. Really incredible time to bring the family to see the new little guy, give best wishes to the family, and just generally be involved with family life. An amazing capstone to the month – God bless the new family, I know we’ll be around helping a ton over the next several years, just as they’ve helped us in our journey.

All that said, the time between my birthday and now flew by at roughly 88mph (Ayy, references) and in doing so almost made me overlook something important. Vital really. See, I’m 39 now, which means next November is the big one. The approaching tick of the decade. We all know what that means – it’s the time of midlife crises and far be it from me to not jump on the bandwagon. But, again, me being me, this particular crisis is going to look a little different.

I’m not at the place I want to be when I’m forty. Most of that is physically, but it expands to spiritually as well as “professionally.” So, being the overcommitted goal setter that I am, I realized I was really missing the mark by not giving myself a slate of targets to hit by the time I turn the big 4-0. Not to sell myself short, I’m also a stickler for repetition and theme, so I couldn’t bring myself to settle for three main goal categories. I needed a fourth, which brings me to the 4×40 (Four by Forty), my four-pillar plan.

Because I thought of this literally last night while I was having trouble sleeping at 1am, it’s still in its crude form. Some of the pillars will have incomplete sub-goals, some things I’m going to need to / allow myself to run catchup on for back dates that I missed simply by the target not existing on my last birthday, and some will simply be empty while I work out exactly what I want to do. That’s all fine. It’s early yet, and this is going to be a living, breathing thing for a bit, but it gives me a place to start and get my ideas in check. So, without further ado, the pillars of the 4×40:

Forty by Forty

This was the simultaneously the first goal, the simplest, and the progenitor of the entire 4×40 concept. It’s straight to the point – I want to lose 40lbs by the time I hit 40. Simple, yes, but it’s going to be hard as hell for me. I’ve been stalled at best and gaining at worst for the better part of the year, and my food discipline is miserable. No excuses, it’s just time to fix it. So, I will.

Fit by Forty

Weight loss is great and all, but I don’t just want to starve myself skinny for the first pillar. It’s not truly about the weight, in the end, but overall fitness, so I wanted to be sure I made these two pillars distinct. Each works with the other, but is uniquely important to me. This pillar is much more like the others, with a bunch of sub-goals that each have their own steps and stages to complete with target dates and the like. This is, however, the most difficult of the bunch for me to get in line. I can invent a whole slew of goals here but its hard for me to say what’s actually reasonable in a single year, let alone when interlaced with all the other goals. Plus, there’s a lot of nuance in how to measure some things I want to do. Lifting, for instance – if I have a goal for lifting X over Y reps and Z sets, how long of a break do I allow between sets? Do I have to do some of the other goal sets between them? Stuff like that. That’s something to figure out as I go along, though. Also, some of the starting values are coming from a place of ignorance. I haven’t really put any effort into running in years, for instance, so that’s going to be a place things need tuning. In the meantime, here are some examples of goals in this pillar:

• 40 consecutive, unassisted pull ups.
• Run a 7:30 mile.
• 100 consecutive push ups.
• Complete a 5 mile run without stopping.
• 40x10x3 curl block.

Finished by Forty

Hey, did you know I’m trying to be a writer? Wild, right? Who’da thunk it? If you didn’t surmise, yes, this is what I meant by “professionally” earlier in the article. And, to long-story-short this particular pillar, I want Residuum to be “done” by the time I’m 40. What does “done” imply? Well, it goes a little something like this:

• Finish the current rewrite.
• Do a polish pass of the manuscript.
• Get that read over by 5 different beta readers.
• Make tuning edits based on feedback.
• Get that version beta read 5 more times.
• Make a polish pass.
• Send it off to agents.

Faithful by Forty

The whirlwind of this past year – or maybe these past few – has continually led me farther and farther from the path I need to walk with my faith. Nothing sinister about it, I’d just allowed everything else to take precedence. That has to end. Like the Fit pillar, this one is still in flux, but I’ve got a clearer grasp of what I want to do for most of it to start, so that’s a plus:

• Listen to the Catechism in a Year by Fr. Mike Schmitz.
• Become a lector at the church.
• Learn the Rosary in Latin.
• Complete a yearly devotional.
• Never miss a Holy Day of Obligation.

I made a Google Sheet to track all this and keep it updated as things are achieved or more comes to mind. Of course, it wouldn’t be me and my new overwhelming urge to overshare if I didn’t link it to the lot of you as well. I don’t expect anyone to hit that link, but putting things public does actually help me stay on task. If you do happen to click through and have any thoughts about how I could improve it, or just want to tell me I’m out of my mind, that’s great! Please do. Also, feel free to copy a version for yourself if you just want a very basic goal tracker with some tabs and whatnot to fill in for your own needs. I love spreading the plague of goal setting.

Until next week, my lovely Dwellers. Love you all. Get out there and do!