Day 646, A Template for Our Success

Photo by Peyton on Unsplash

 

“Failures, repeated failures, are finger posts on the road to achievement.  One fails forward toward success.”  — C.S. Lewis

 

If there was one template for success, we would all use it.  However, I believe we must keep discovering our patterns through repeated failures.  Here are some ideas of where to look.

 

 

Since returning home from the Santa Fe House, my weight has been on a bumpy, mostly down-ride.  Two kilos down, in two and a half weeks, I am reaping the rewards of intermittent fasting.

 

 

My productivity level has done almost the inverse.  It is going up and up except for a brief dip shortly after my weight went up temporarily.  Overall, these scores have been up compared to what they were after the pandemic started before Santa Fe House.

 

I think I can conclude that my new antidepressant is working.  It is too soon to tell what its long-range effects will be.  Whatever adverse effects it could be having on my weight are offset by the intermittent fasting discipline, which I plan to continue indefinitely, even after I reach my ideal weight.

 

Last night, fasting was much more pleasant than it has been.  I noticed the welcome feeling of fat being pulled out of my fat cells.  If you are trying to lose weight, I encourage you to be aware of that feeling and invite it.  I noticed it, especially in my thighs and hips.  Feelings of joy accompanied that.

 

Last night, I also felt feelings of joy regarding my increased activity level.  The pace has not been hectic.  I have just been more focused.

 

 

Yesterday, I was reading a cookbook, A Good Food Day by Marco Canora.  The post-workout salad recipe caught my eyes.  It was not just a recipe; it was a salad template.  I thought, “I can make a salad like that.”  So I got up and made one for lunch with my ingredients on hand.

 

Here are the leftovers which I will enjoy sometime today:

 

 

Here is the recipe:

 

 

Template:	For example, I used:
1.  One leafy green	spinach
2. One animal-sourced protein	sliced, cooked grass-fed sirloin steak
3. One tender bean or grain	cooked quinoa
4. Crunchy vegetables	sliced yellow squash
5. One to two onions	sliced green onions
6. A handful of herbs	chopped parsley
7. Slices of avocado	half an avocado
8. One or two types of seeds or nuts	pumpkin seeds
9. Extra virgin olive oil and vinegar or citrus	extra virgin olive oil and apple cider vinegar
10. Fine sea salt and freshly ground black pepper	sea salt and freshly ground pepper

 

Think of how many combinations you can create with this template!  I look forward to other possibilities in the future.  I hope you will experiment with Marco’s formula.   Marco Canora is a chef who was forced to change his eating habits due to poor health.  I think his template belongs in my DelectaBalance Diet.  I am grateful he provided a template, not just a recipe, in his cookbook.

 

 

Another day has passed, and I reached a new record high in JV Life Tracker.  Yesterday, a maid came over, and she transformed the place into a “castle fresh.”  My husband was so pleased he said we could do it every month.  That will make the condo much cleaner all the time.

 

 

Yesterday, I also made some breakthroughs with my app development.  My mental energy has increased.  I attribute this surge to my new antidepressant, Imipramine, and what I learned from The Happiness Trap by Russ Harris.  If you have difficulty making yourself do things, I recommend that book.  It was a life-changer for me.  I talk more about it in Nine Tips to Help You Act When You Are Not in the Mood and Joy in the Morning.

 

I still want to break through on areas that have stumped me, such as doing the promotion work for my blog and app.  However, I need to concentrate on one baby step at a time.  I first need to focus on self-care so that I am healthy.  Many of my activities in JV Life Tracker are self-care activities.  I have been doing more of them lately, and they are helping me.  Later, I will add activities that break my promotion work into small bites that can be done daily.  The only way to get major projects done is to do the job a small task at a time.

 

I have already added tasks such as checking my voicemail and texts on both phones.  That alone is quite a bit to keep up with.

 

 

As always, the practice of gratitude daily tends to increase positive feelings.  Here is my entry from yesterday using a template.   You are free to use the template I have here.  I encourage you to establish a gratitude practice if you have not already.  It will train you to observe what is going well in your life.  

losing 2 kilos since getting out of Santa Fe House my walks to the library and park.  (The park is in bloom right now with yellow flowers and fuchsia roses.) time spent talking on the phone with a friend I met at Santa Fe house the beautiful June weather here feeling good–my new antidepressant (Imipramine) is working my Achieve 50 kg mindmap my Top 5

 

I have not felt this good since before December 2019!

 

	0-100	comments
mood:	100	feeling good
energy:	95	feeling energetic

	accomplishment
1.	I lost 2 kilos since Santa Fe House.  Now, I am losing my pandemic weight gain.
2.	I have established the habit of getting out every day.
3.	I created a new salad using a template from a cookbook.

 

 

If you want to make a template yourself, The Journal offers a simple way to do it.  My ebook, Joyful Vibrance:  Transform Your Body Image, Energy, and Mood!, which you can download for FREE just for reading my blog, discusses creating temples in The Journal.  Get the application for yourself, if you have Windows, and enter a world of creativity.  I use it to develop and organize my blog entries.  I have only scratched the surface of the power of a template.

 

One template that seems to be helping me is the progress notes for my Top 5 scores I introduced in Number Our Days.  I have a perfect score so far!

 

 

 

This afternoon, I discovered a new (initially released June 2018) productivity app that is FREE for personal use, called Notion.  It is an anything-and-everything organizer and journal program.  Use it for notes and docs; wiki’s; projects and tasks.  You can choose a template to begin your exploration.  I have not explored it entirely, so check back as I learn more and possibly link my blog entries to it.  I did not want to fail to mention it when discussing the power of a template.  There may be something in Notion for you.

 

 

MORNING PRAYER

Dear Lord,   “Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours” (Mark 11:24).   You have given us this promise.  You do not say when it will be ours, but I understand that we have to trust your timing.  I feel I am receiving answers to prayers of long ago.   John said, “This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us–whatever we ask–we know that we have what we asked of him” (1 John 14, 15).  From this, I have the understanding that we need to ask according to your will.  Help me to understand your will.   I pray, Lord, that I can stop this roller coaster ride I have been on for 35+ years.  I want to become a contributing member of society.  Things go great for a while, then I become discouraged or fall off the tracks.  If the answer is to get my train cars back on track each time they come off, perhaps that is good enough.  However, I would like to figure out how to keep from getting derailed in the first place.   Lord, help me find the right template or set of templates for success.  I keep trying things, and I have made progress.  You also said, “but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life” (John 4:14).  I would like to know how that water works because I am usually burning up with thirst from lithium and Imipramine, and water never seems to quench it.   I am grateful for water; I explored some aspects of water in Water Wonders.  Lord, I thank you for how well I feel at this time.  Maybe I cannot cling to it, but guide me into greener pastures from this time forth.  Bless my readers with success also.   Amen.

 

If you would like to join me on this journey from the beginning, please start with Day One.  If you wish to download a FREE copy of my ebook (with no need to enter your name or email), click on the book below.