The Growth Project: Day 1

The first day certainly wasn’t a very successful one. But this is all about being honest with myself and meeting my goals.

Photo by Sushobhan Badhai on Unsplash

It Wasn’t A Very Successful First Day

Sometimes we don’t accomplish what we set out to do. Unfortunately, it happens to be the very first day of my challenge.

The silver lining, however, is that I still accomplished most of my growth objectives.

As a recap, this daily growth project is a challenge with myself to complete five separate things each day in addition to having to work my 9-to-5.

Those 5 things I need to complete each day are as follows:

1. Exercise: 45 minutes per day.
2. Writing: 45 minutes per day.
3. Programming: 1 hour on projects per day.
4. Music: 30 minutes per day.
5. Youtube: 30 minutes per day.

All in all, it only amounts to 3.5 hours of tasks each day. Even with a 9-to-5, this shouldn't be too hard.

What I Managed To Complete Today

1. Exercise: I did a very difficult variety of HIIT workouts today that had me exercising for a little over an hour. I used to be big on running and weight lifting, but a few weeks ago I was introduced to HIIT workouts on Youtube and I gotta say, they’re great ways to stay motivated while you work out. You won’t believe me until you try it, but it’s seriously going to change the fitness game for me. Just type ‘HIIT workout’ into Youtube and you’ll be hooked.
2. Writing: I managed to write for about an hour today. I wrote a draft about creating custom Vue directives and I also wrote this blog post. I’m hoping to finish up the Vue directives article tomorrow and post it on Medium.
3. Programming: Today, I actually chose to stay an extra hour after work to help get some things done. In the end, I get to bill for that extra hour so I don’t mind sometimes staying late. However, it means I was short on time and didn’t really get to do my hour of programming on projects outside of work. I did, however, get about 30 minutes of programming in.
4. Music: I did no music today. I have a guitar and a ukelele that I regularly pick up and play some chords or little short tunes on, but I really want to start committing 30 minutes each day to playing them and learning them. I like using the Yousician app for learning these instruments. You can get 15 minutes of lessons free each day and then the other 15 you can spend just rehearsing what you learned in the first 15 minutes. Check it out, they even have singing lessons too. Basically, the app listens to you play and makes sure you are playing the right notes as you play along.
5. Youtube: I did no Youtube today. I really want to get in the habit of writing scripts for videos or at least doing quick short screen recordings for programming stuff. It just makes sense to both write about programming and create videos about it too. The eventual goal would be to create a lesson program.

Glad To Be Doing This Challenge

I can already tell that doing this daily challenge is going to help me stay on track with my goals and hobbies. It’s a great way to hold myself accountable and to practice the habit of writing each day. I actually feel guilty for not finishing my goals, which is good because it will motivate me to get them done. Let’s see how tomorrow goes.

Thanks for Reading! Have a wonderful day/night.