I’m not always fantastic at practicing what I teach.
For instance, a number of my classes have to do with modifying your own behavior (time management, giving feedback, verbal communication, how to not be a pain in the ass for everyone who reads your email, et cetera), so when I talk about what needs to change, I also talk about how to change that habit or, more to the point, how to make the change stick.
Failure to form this habit will result in the tape-and-body-hair punishment.
Changing a habit is always the hard part, after all, and it’s why people fail at things like ‘keeping the house clean’ or ‘saving money’ or my personal weak spot, ‘maintaining a healthy weight.’
Usually, this failure stems from one simple thing: none of those goals involve changing just one habit; they require changing a lot of habits and frankly people aren’t very good at changing a lot of habits at the same time. In order to make progress, you need to pick one habit out of the whole mess, and focus on that.
There are, in fact, steps.
1. Commitment. Commit yourself to a habit change, big time. Make your commitment as public as possible. 2. Practice. Changing your habits is a skill, and like any skill it takes practice. Commit yourself to a 30-day Challenge and try to do your new habit every single day for 30 days. 3. Tracking. It’s best if you log your progress every day. This will make your habit change much more likely to be successful. 4. Rewards. Reward yourself. Do so often, early on — every day for a week or so, then every three days, then the end of every week, and then at the end. 5. Focus. It’s hard to do more than one or two habits at a time — you can’t maintain focus.
This is basically what I tell people. I even coach them through it.
Sometimes, I make use of this for myself.
— I wanted to find the time to do at least a little creative writing every single day. This led me to the Adrift story, via twitter, which I’ve now written an entry on every day for the last three months. This simple fact makes me goofy-grin happy.
— I went a long while without blogging very regularly, and I wanted to change that, so I told myself I’d try to write a blog entry every single day in April. With the exception of this last Saturday, I succeeded, and I believe I can continue that habit. (I didn’t write every single blog entry for this blog, but I did always write one.)
Sometimes, I don’t do this for myself, when I should.
As I’ve already mentioned, one of my personal goblins is weight gain. I don’t gain weight fast by any means (I kind of wish it did, as the problem tends to creep up on me, unnoticed), but over the course of the last two years I’ve managed to put on roughly 1 pound a month. I’m nowhere NEAR as bad as I have ever been – my Medium shirts and some slacks have just gotten snug, but that’s it – but about two months ago I decided enough was enough.
So… it’s been two months. And I’ve put on two pounds.
*shakes head*
I’m failing at this because I’m trying to re-institute all the habits I had two years ago – tracking my intake and daily exercise and all that – all at once. It goes for a couple days, and then it falls off my radar for a week. Not for lack of trying, but just because there’s too much “Habit” there to handle all at once.
So, here and now, I am getting a Habit going: During the month of May, I’m going to get back to tracking my food intake. As I have said before, paying attention to what you’re putting in your mouth is far and away the most important thing you can do for yourself, so I’m starting there.
1. Commitment. Well, this is about as Public as I can make this commitment. You can also expect me to add little addenda to my regular posts, mentioning my point totals for the day. (Or possibly tweets.) I use Weight Watchers (the online service – which I’ve been paying for and not really using for over a year). *shakes head* 2. Practice. As I said, every day in May. For June, I think I’ll … well… let’s keep that for June. 3. Tracking. This shouldn’t be a problem as “tracking myself” is actually the point of the whole project. 4. Rewards. I’m a little hazy on what I’m going to do for this, but I *think* what I am going to say is “no computer or TV after work until you log your points.” 5. Focus. I will worry about getting back to a regular exercise schedule until June, though I have some small hope that the points tracking will also remind me when I need to do a little something extra.
And that’s it. Is this an interesting post for you? I can’t say – in this case, it’s really all about me; taking that first step of commitment and aiming the giant whupping stick of PUBLIC FAILURE at my ass.
If nothing else, watching me slog through this process should carry a faint whiff of schadenfreude. Enjoy!
In the coming apocalypse, you will still be fined double for speeding in construction zones. We have to have order, dammit.
There are doubters among the readership, but I’ve long-since agreed with the theory that zombie movies, stories, and games flourish when the chips are down in the real world. Lots of wars going on that no one wants to fight? Zombies. Economic Uncertainty and Upheaval? Zombies.
Vampires are a monster that comes out when smooth and shiny predators are on the loose in the real world. Werewolves… well, when was the last burst of werewolf horror? It’s been far enough in the past that I think it’s engendered by something we don’t fear much anymore.
But when there’s upheaval and collapse? Zombies.
Now, I’ll admit that I play the genre of zombies a little loosely here and essentially mean Survival Horror (whose main concept can be summed up as “they just keep coming, and we’re running out of ammo.”), but the basic conceit holds, as does the trackable correlation to real world events.
Then again… what if it’s predictive? What if the zombie outbreak is imminent?
*long, uncomfortable pause*
Okay: no, not really, but… come on; we’re all geeks here. Who among us has NOT contemplated, at least briefly, a survival plan in case of a zombie outbreak? Show of hands.
Those of you who did not raise your hands are either fibbing, or you’re my wife. She’s apparently counting on me to get us out.
And, to be fair, I’ve given it some thought.
Variation A: I’m at work when we hear the news.
This is actually not a bad option, due the fact that I work with a lot of gun-toting libertarians that take their families to the shooting range for Quality Time Night. My first order of business would be to raid their F-150s for a spare rifle (no shotguns, please) and ammo.
Step Two, depending on panic level, is to stop at the Army Surplus store and grab a few things like jerry cans and a machete or two.
Step Three, get home.
Variation B: I’m at home when we hear the news.
Step One: curse myself for not stopping and replacing my long-lost machete and/or hatchet the dozen times I’ve thought of it.
Either Phase A or B: Hold up
The whole thing might not be that big of an outbreak. Wait and see. Stay quiet. Luckily, we can barricade the front of the house fairly easily, using spare lumber in the garage that can be moved to the house via the backyard. Our dried goods supply is solid for a week or so, and by then we should be able to tell the way things are going. We lock up and shut down everything upstairs and get into the basement, which has most everything we need for the time period, plus an escape route that leads right to the garage.
Last Phase: It’s bad: get the heck outta Dodge.
If the outbreak is going wide, or even looks like it is, we leave. We can stock up Sherwood (Kate’s Forester) without going to the front of the house. While the gas mileage is much better on my vehicle, the Subaru’s all-wheel drive, sturdy construction, ability to swing weapons at attacking undead while standing up through the moonroof, and increased storage space makes it a no-brainer. Don’t forget to pack:
The gas jerry cans I *do* already have.
A couple baseball bats and the semi-truck “Tire Tester” for melee weapons. Also, the two aeration forks, for simply shoving creatures away from the car as we flee.
Once again, bemoan the lack of appropriate edged weapons – and the fact that I don’t have a firearm in the house at this time.
The goal: get to my family’s house in South Dakota. The (lack of) population density is a benefit (unless the outbreak goes extremely wide, at which point hordes of the undead will sweep across the great plains like pre-colony herds of buffalo), and all the things I *don’t* have close to hand (ammo, weapons, defensible positions with self-sustainable food supplies) they do.
The trip needs to avoid major highways, so it’ll probably take about 15 hours and we’ll need at least a couple stops to refill gas – events which will be fraught with peril, unless I was able to snag those extra jerry cans – so figure it’ll take a full day, which I already know can be driven without rest if necessary.
This route is one of several that avoids interstate highways, which will become zombie buffet lines within the first few days. As an added bonus, we'll be able to visit the World's Largest Ball of Twine.
Now, if things are getting REALLY bad and those buffalo-herds of zombies are coming, we head north as a group, armed to the teeth and aiming for tundra. The frozen winter months will give us respite from daily attacks, and if we get REALLY remote (an environment I fully trust my family members know how to survive) we won’t have to worry about the other major threat – desperate strangers.
WOW, that’s grim.
PROS: Flexible, with enough detail to hang other plans on.
CONS: We lack sufficient supplies to make it to the boonies without stopping for gas and other necessities, thus increasing our danger by exponential numbers.
How about You?
Don’t tell me I’m the only one who’s ever given this more than a few seconds of passing thought. Reveal your plan for surviving the undead plague in the comments.
