Walking makes you walk better

Set goals for yourself in terms of your own conduct – that define the type of person you want to be. Challenge yourself to do this by making some appropriate changes in your daily routine. 

 - Stoic Week 2014 (handbook pdf)

The thing that stuck with me most from today's reading of Stoic Week 2014 is that you can become whatever it is you want to be by acting it out in some small way in the present - and that is truly the funniest and I would say most effective way to achieve your goals.

So, what do I want to be and how can I achieve it?

1. Relaxed - deal with daily perturbances by remembering that what has already happened must be accepted and that which is in the future cannot be fully controlled.
2. Playful - I am very competitive and instead of trying to suppress this trait, I will channel it towards myself and and make achieving goals mini-games. I will do this by thinking of the smallest, non-obliging step I can take towards my goal and then do it, always wondering How can I make it fun? In this way, I will never feel overwhelmed by the size of some future challenge. The first steps might be ridiculously small, but anything is better then being stuck in situ.
3. Balanced - there are many things that steal my energy and I would like to avoid them. These are coffee, gossip, chit-chat, group work (turns out grad school is all about group work, unfortunately), darkness, and sitting down for too long. As much as I feel that I don't have enough time or that I need to do more work, it is absolutely necessary to invest time in activities that replenish my energy and make me feel more connected. These are reading books, taking walks, doing yoga, listening to music, and learning something for fun
4. Consistent - this simply means sticking to something by doing it even when I don't feel like it. Success is sometimes a matter of discipline rather than motivation. Motivation comes and goes, waxes and wanes, depending on mood and energy level, but discipline is much more stable and can be used at any time when one finds it necessary. For example, I am really happy that I am going through Stoic Week by contributing almost every day.
5. Accepting - being accepting of things that go wrong, plans that fail, people that annoy, imperfections that mock effort, and some of my own feelings that come up and I know don't have a rational basis for them.
6. Peaceful - I am always so loud and fast, perhaps it is time to learn how to be slow and more measured. As the Swedes like to say, lagom, lagom...

It will be interesting to see whether I manage to apply these to some of my personal goals :)

How can I make it fun?