Visualization go!

As mentioned yesterday, I’d like to try something new: start from kind of an idea of the person I think about when I think about how I’d like to be, and work backwards from there. It seems obvious — it IS obvious — but if I have a list, it’s at least something I can look at. Not, like, to beat myself up over, but to keep myself on track a bit every day as a destination.

What does that person look like?

I don’t know!

That’s kind of the first challenge. I’m going to kick a few things around and see where they land, but I think there’s a bit of a fallacy in trying to figure this out all in one go. And to lock it in too tight.

I like the chimpanzee evolution analogy a lot, and I use it at work a fair bit to describe the wooly nature of how things move forward. Grab a chimpanzee, tell it you can evolve it, ask it what it wants. I don’t know any chimpanzees that I’m on speaking terms with (I refuse to talk to Garbanzo after that thing at the Hallowe’en party last year), but I bet they’d say things like:

* bigger sharper teeth

* stronger

* faster

* better, like, chimp hands for doing chimp things

I doubt they’d say “taller, weaker, bald, pretty brainy.”

But look where we ended up. It’s pretty great. I own a computer and a microwave!

So I’m a bit hesitant to lock things down to a too granular point.

I think there are some good starting points:

* fit: about 20 pounds less than where I am right now

* sober

* eating well! Not perfectly, but healthily

* a job I like and enjoy doing

* lots of time for family and friends

* some sort of creative and satisfying volunteer life

* organized: having and sticking to a daily routine that flexes to life circumstances

…in other words, pretty much where I’m at right now, but really doing what I should instead of doing what I am, most of the time.

This may not be as useful as I thought unless I do get granular. What does my day look like? What hobbies am I really good at? What am I not doing?

I clearly need to spend more time on this.