Mastery of Nothing




Well, I'm down another pound and a half. I didn't feel well last night and only managed to eat 1,228 calories in total yesterday. I'm still not feeling the best, so I'll just eat what I feel is appropriate for the amount of hunger I have. This also means I didn't get around to moving my coffee table and keyboard yesterday, but I can do that today or tomorrow (I'll be having dinner with one of my friends, so I might not get to it today.)

Facebook reminded me of a post I made on January 9, 2014.

"One of my co-workers added another goal for me this year."

No photo description available.

Those are three (I guess four, actually) way too large goals for one year. And I thought I was going to do all of them in 365 days? I managed to lose ~20lbs of the 50lbs I needed to lose to hit 120, I continually got better at my SQL skills, but it ended up being not knowing what you don't know - there's no way to get true mastery of the entire SQL language unless that is all you do. Six years later, I'm very comfortable writing complex SQL statements and have a lot of institutional knowledge of the company's databases. It didn't get that way in only one year! And, I'm still learning more about the SQL engine, statistics and execution plans. I didn't know any of those things even existed in 2014. Piano lagged and is still lagging, and for the last six years (and really, 11 years) it's been an off and on grind for a few weeks or months, then just off for several months... or years.

I did get to 120lbs in June of 2016, though, and I've been within a range of 118 - 128 since then. (Today, I'm 123.5.) I'm working on my Microsoft DBA certification, and piano is one of the 30 day challenges. So, while I didn't reach my goal in 2014, I am closer, and the failures or lack or progress helps me learn to be more realistic and set better goals. I'm also enjoying learning more about habit making and habit tracking. Setting goals is nice and can be an important piece, but unless you have the skills and gumption and environment to hit your goals, having goals is nearly useless.

Today, I'll be watching a video about SQL Server Security, Compliance and Auditing, and at lunch, reading Chapter 3 of Atomic Habits.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Halloween Party and my costume

Image
This weekend, I attended an awesome Halloween party, and even dressed up as Hermoine Granger. I admit, it was a bit fun to dress up as Hermoine Granger. I took a lot of thought for my costume. I started searching for costumes on August 26th, and found a costume site on September 13th:  https://www.moviescostume.com/harry-potter-gryffindor-uniform-hermione-granger-cosplay-costume-adults-ver.html However, I didn't want to just drop over $100 on a costume I'll likely only wear once. What else can I do? Can I just build the costume from regular clothes? After all, Hermoine mostly wore a school uniform for the first few movies. Certainly I could do that. I set off to build my uniform. I got the skirt from Lands End. The socks , blazer , patch ,  tie  and wand from Amazon. The shirt came from J Jill, but I bought that about ten years ago or so, and the shoes I purchased last year from Belk. I referenced this guide to learn how to tie a Full Windsor Knot, a tie style wit
Read more

Board games and near the end of the gym challenge

Today was another success! Went to the gym after my two cups of coffee, warmed up the rest of the Picadillo for lunch, and finished a few chores. This evening, I was invited to a board game night with a few friends. We played Spinjas and Stuffed Fables. The gym was my last arm/chest routine day until the 31st, where I'll do the full body routine and see where I gained. I'm certain I didn't lose weight - way too many cookies and candies around to snack on, but hopefully I'm stronger. I certainly feel stronger and better, and that is enough to keep going. I'm looking forward to getting a better diet in January by not having sugar for the month, and continuing to go the the gym - just not daily. Stuffed Fables is a really cute game! We played Story 1 where a girl's blanket is stolen from a little girl's bed, and the Stuffed animals characters, Theadora, Stitch, Flops and Lumpy have to travel through the underworld to rescue the blanket and get back to bed b
Read more

Jose and Sons review

 I went with one of my friends to Jose and Sons Mexican restaurant on Glenwood Avenue and Pleasant Valley Road. I picked this place as I'd hear a lot of good things about it, and we were there early before the place got busy.  We were not impressed. The server was slow to get us our drinks, and did not get us chips and salsa, bur I could see his other tables got chips and salsa - turns out it was from a runner. We got ours eventually, (not from the server) but the first five minutes of our meal, we just stared at a bowl of guac and our two waters. No matter, maybe he was new. Maybe the kitchen was frying a new batch of chips. Maybe the bartender was new. While waiting, we noticed that the place looked like it needed new paint. In our booth, the pink paint was chipping off the wall. I was confused, because I thought they just moved here from downtown. They didn't even give the place a new coat of paint before moving in? The chips were warm, not hot, and the salsa was very sweet.
Read more