practicing the process

Since I'm a little rusty with writing and posting to my blog, I decided to sign up for National Blog Posting Month, a site that asks bloggers to post once a day for a month. I rediscovered this site through my friend Rachel's blog and I'm excited to see if I can "find the time" to blog once per day. (I placed 'find the time' in quotes because I know I have the time. It is not hiding from me, unless it truly did find a hiding place behind bejeweled and the wii...)

I'm in a privileged place this summer so I am trying to maximize the (potential) benefits. Last week, I relocated from St. Louis to Washington DC to enter a PhD program in the fall. I am working as a consultant for the summer, which means I am working out of the home and can set my own hours. I have several goals for the next three months until school starts. My goals are centered around one theme: self-discipline.

As a consultant soon-to-be PhD student, self-discipline is key. Those that know me will know that I am a hard-worker (which usually means workaholic) and might be surprised to read that I feel I am lacking in self-discipline. It's really in my non-work life that I have trouble. I am hoping to start to do the following things regularly: biking, yoga, reading, writing (blogging and not) and cleaning.... while fulfilling my commitment to my consulting client. I have trouble balancing my work and non-work activities, it seems that I can only do one (i.e., work work work or play play play).

So, like anyone looking to learn something new, I bought a book, entitled The Practicing Mind: Bringing Discipline and Focus Into Your Life, that promises to help. Despite the bougie assumptions of the author (e.g., "at the age of nine, like so many kids growing up, I began studying the piano"), I believe I will take something from the book. So far, it highlights our societal expectation and habit of multitasking and the pitfalls of a culture of instant gratification. (Get it. As I write this, I have itunes, an instant messenger, gmail, facebook, twitter and google reader open)

The second chapter is focused on encouraging the reader to focus on the process not the product of any endeavor. This is something I'm will ruminate on this week. I enjoy riding my bike (a lot) but I want to do the AIDS ride one day. I want to do yoga because I want to get rid of my chronic back pain. I write because I want to write a book. I want to learn to enjoy biking for biking, yoga for yoga and writing for writing. When I find myself saying, "ugh. I only rode 10 miles today, I'll never be able to ride 545!" or "my back still hurts" or "I can't write a chapter let alone a book!" I will attempt to check myself and remember that

"the paradox of patience and discipline is that it requires both of them to develop each of them" (p. 29 of The Practing Mind).

Hopefully this daily blogging challenge will be the first step in the process of the end goal of being more disciplined.