Announcing....The Pursuit of a Better Me

My doctor, my therapist, and I all agree.  I'm a great guy, but I could be better.  This isn't about pride or vanity.  In fact, it is pride and vanity that keeps me from being better; because, I don't want people to see what a mess I am.  Well, in the spirit of my other blog, www.authenticculbs.com, I'm going to put it all out there.  There are three key areas of my life that I want to clean up: my health, my finances, and general organization.

The first arena that I want to tackle is my health.  I weigh more than I have ever weighed in my life, currently 260 lbs.  My doctor also says that my blood pressure and cholesterol or borderline.  I realize as I'm typing this that I don't even know what those numbers are.  I just checked my filing cabinet to see if I still had the test results.  I do.  I'm looking at them right now.  I still have no idea what they say.  I'm going to have to get these in front of someone with some medical training to help me understand where I am starting from.

The second area, my finances, is an area where I have shown some progress and in recent years, but I still have a long way to go before I will feel like I have stability.  Plus, I'm currently in grad school and incurring more educational debt with each passing semester.  I need to adopt more of a long-term focus in my financial planning.

As far as the literal mess of my life, I joke that when I sit down at a table in a coffee shop, I literally explode all over the table.  Within minutes, I will have a laptop out, stacks of books, my planner, magazines, and any multitude of papers all over the place.  The same holds true for my apartment, my car, and my cubicle at work.  I will be working to bring some order to the chaos.  I know, from past experience, that I have to start slowly and get one plate spinning before I move on to the next one.

These are a couple of recent photos of me while on vacation

That brings me back to my health.  That has to be the first arena that I step into.  Without my health, all other areas of opportunity are moot.  I also know that, as I get one plate spinning, it becomes that much easier to start the next one going.  I just have to begin moving forward one baby step at a time.  For this week, I'm simply adding some light exercise.  I live very close to where I work.  I am committing to walk to work every day.  It may seem small, but it's a start.  Next week, I will add another commitment.  I've used this approach with myself before.  If I throw myself into something too hard and too fast, I will become discouraged and give up.  My hope is to be able to show myself, and others, that minute lifestyle changes and produce big and lasting results.

Keep coming back as I continue this journey and share my results!

Culbs

joshua.culbertson@gmail.com

© Joshua Culbertson 2014