TYSIC
Ten Year Self-Improvement Challenge
It’s the blog’s first anniversary today! (In the UK at least, that why’s it’s 1 Year, 1 Day for me.)
We were asked to make cakes in celebration, but as I had no cake mix, I made the next best thing: cupCAKEs!
Om nom nom.
And it’s time for a round up of my challenges.
A pretty dismal effort on my part this past year, but at least the only way is up from here. SELF IMPROVEMENT!
1. More self-confident. This overall challenge is progressing nicely. I’m less nervous when I have to give presentations at uni; though there may be a little nerves still present, it’s definitely an improvement.
3. Get my license. Regularly driving to and from the train station a few times a week for uni, so the hours are slowly climbing up to the magical number of 120 hours. Still a long way to go, however.
6: Stop procrastinating. I set myself an assignment task for uni which deals with this exact issue. We have to solve this ‘wicked problem’ and I’ve delved into every detail in my pursuits of procrastination and even held a time experiment without all forms of procrastination. I’ve gained a lot of information about why and how I procrastinate and do have a solution. We don’t have to initiate this solution but I think I might. In the long run it’s logical to do, and it is a pretty major problem. Progress!
7: Read more books. I can safely say this challenge has been partially, if not fully, achieved. My love for reading has returned due to the TYSIC. I’d stopped reading during the HSC as I didn’t have enough time due to study and exams, and never got back into the habit. But, when I picked up my first book and started reading that spark came back and I haven’t stopped. In a very short space of time I’ve now read:
Wil Anderson - Survival of the Dumbest
QI - The Noticeably Stouter Edition Book of General Ignorance
Charlie Pickering - Impractical Jokes
Mark Watson - Eleven
Mark Watson - Bullet Points
Russell Brand - My Booky Wook
And I still have:
Stephen Fry - The Fry Chronicles
1/2 of Russell Brand - Articles of Faith
Russell Brand - Booky Wook 2: This Time It’s Personal
Corrine Grant - Lessons In Letting Go: Confessions of a Hoarder
Julia Morris - Don’t you know who I used to be?
And I need to borrow Mark Watson - A Light-Hearted Look At Murder off a friend.
AND I’ve even now (finally) joined our local library. BOOKS OVERLOAD!
Now books have become another form of procrastination; I’d rather read a book on the train to uni than my readings. And so the cycle begins all over again.
Progress non-the-less.
These goals below are obviously still under the ‘More Self Confidence For Hannah Scheme’; each in their own way I see helping me overall.
However it seems my mind is a devilish thing and can break free from the group, wandering out on its own to my surprise. Let’s read on.
In one of my tutorials for uni we had to do a non-verbal performance of the actions of an endangered animal we’d chosen (yes that seems very strange to be doing in a Design course, but it’s all about thinking through different methods, so relevant). In the past I would have been a teeeny bit shit scared on the inside and really nervous about doing it in front of a group. But nay more: I wasn’t overly nervous. Our group was wonderful which helps a little. We practiced, refined and all were positive.
I thought we ripped it up. Yup. Say what you like, 5 girls can make pretty impressive Tasmanian Devils.
All in all, I feel a pretty big step towards self confidence. Next on the agenda, getting over fear of public speaking. I may not be able to overcome this totally, but I will definitely try to manage it!
Well it’s been, as the title suggests, 5 months and 10 days since the start of the Ten Year Self Improvement Challenge, and I’ve come to the conclusion that I have strayed. In a mammoth ten year challenge it was most likely inevitable that this was going to occur, but it’s tremendously sad to think it’s happened only 0.045% (to the nearest 3 decimal places) into the challenge.
STEP UP HANNAH!
Time for a new set of goals with achievable results.
Although I have to say, I haven’t strayed completely off my TYSIC. I still read Mark’s blog everyday, although I may not comment as often as I like. Shall have to remedy this as well.
I was in a dilemma on Thursday which the TYSIC helped me overcome. The situation was: go into the city by myself to (hopefully) see the Philly Jays (Philadelphia Grand Jury) in their second to last Sydney show, or miss seeing them for ages as they’re heading over to the UK for 6 months. There were a few things which I had to deliberate.
Positive:
Negative/Possibilities:
I wasn’t too concerned about going into the city by myself; I for one am rather optimistic about the city and don’t live by the motto that everything is dangerous and you will get killed if you’re alone. I was rather more worried that I’d be bored if I was alone.
Due to the fact that I really wanted to go; could go; should go; that my TYSIC thoughts kicked in and said, “You’re going.”
And thank fuck I did. I got to see an AMAZING gig (blogged about fully here); went to some lovely bars; scored free drinks; and had a wonderful time. The only downside was that I did miss the last train (I was resolved beforehand that the gig would go overtime) and had to wait till 5AM. A small price to pay for a night of insanity.
As it has been just over three weeks since the start of TYSIC, it’s time that I wrote about my experience up until now. These are the notes I’d written about challenge #1 and the overall concern of becoming more self-confident.
On a related note: I feel more confident talking to new people who I feel ‘superior’, well not superior, but feel more authoritative over (and yes I realise that these two words essentially mean the same thing). It’s stupid, but if I feel I’m on the same level or above, either intellectually or appearance wise, I’m not nervous or anxious. Usually it’s with people who are younger than I; I feel like I’m the cool older person mentoring the younger ones (again, stupid I know). However, if I’m introduced to a person who I deem far more attractive then myself, my mind immediately comes to the conclusion that they judge me and therefore despise me for my appearance. Anxiety and nervousness sets in and I recoil into a shy state, not saying much. This is also why I hate public speaking; I feel that people aren’t interested in what I’m saying, but instead are laughing at and judging me. I really shouldn’t worry what other people think; generally I don’t, but it’s mostly when I’m required to speak in front of people; especially those who I don’t know.
Well that was the total of my notes, but I feel the challenge so far has gone quite well. I’m: conscious about what I eat, trying to exercise more (something that I need to refine and continue with) and I guess slowly pushing myself towards a state of confidence.
Actually there was one more (trivial) example of my nervous lack of self-confidence.
I said I would push myself to doing things that I felt I couldn’t, or was nervous about doing, and I guess it all has to start with a newspaper. I must get over my nervousness sometimes, well actually, all the time.
My whole objective of the TYSIC is to simply become more self confident. I say simply, it won’t be that easy. I’ve always been plagued over the years by my inability to see myself in a positive light and always doubt my ability to achieve, even mundane things.
Hopefully I can overcome my self-criticism. I’m going to be setting 3 month goals in order to achieve this: 3 months because I’ll have to constantly come up with new ideas for the TYSIC; I’ll get to (in theory) improve in 4 ways a year; doing a new challenge every three months will keep reminding me of the TYSIC and will be more likely to stick with it for 10 years; and the 3 months will be a sort of a deadline to significantly achieve that goal.
My first challenge will be to become more healthy. Being slightly overweight is the main reason for my lack of self-confidence. I always think that people immediately judge me for my appearance and don’t respect me as a person: yes, people are that vain. If I can feel and look healthy, I may just just be able to bring about more self-confidence.
I’ve also thought about possible future challenges (a lot about things that I’ve always thought would be great to do, but never result in anything):
Just a few for now; but the list will (and has to) grow in order to keep with TYSIC.
This blog has come into being as a result of a challenge set by comedian Mark Watson; and a ten year challenge at that. Mark, on the back of his 30th birthday and the arrival of his first child, has decided to write a blog for the next ten years and came up with a project which everyone can participate in.
“So, given that I’ve (rashly) decided to write this blog for the next ten years, and quite a number of people are kindly bothering to read it every day – for the time being, anyway – I’m going to try to start a new project. I call it the Ten Year Self Improvement Challenge, or TYSIC, which sounds pleasingly like something invented by scientists in a 60s movie.
It’s as simple as this: you nominate something which, over the next ten years, you would like to accomplish in your life. It could be an aspect of your personality you would like to change (mine is – more of that tomorrow). Or it could be something quite specific, like learning to drive. Or it could be something really stupid. But you have to genuinely want to do it.”
Full details of the challenge and reasoning behind can be found here; I recommend looking through all the comments and follow up blog entries to read what excellent challenges people are setting for themselves. And of course, be sure to check Mark’s blog daily for updates on his TYSIC (to become and optimist) and witty musings and insights.
A lovely Mark Watson fan forum has also been set up, and a separate TYSIC website (still in beta mode); where you can follow other participants and update on your own challenges.
Since the challenge started on the 4th of March, (I’ve not been able to create a blog until now, shh!), I’ve written some notes about my challenges since that date and will be posting them up as individual entries.
Have you started your challenge yet?
