Getting frustrated at all is a path to failure. Most of us were little kids throwing our NES controllers across the room at one point in our lives. But not until the anger was defeated did we actually increase skills.
On the contrary, I use my anger to fuel my motivation to achieve greatness. I'm usually a happy-go-lucky guy, but once in a while a build up occurs and I turn into seething ball of hate. That would be bad, except that I periodically put my ball of anger and hate into a mental "Mr. Fusion" and turn it into "ORE WA DARE DA OMMOTTE IRU!!!!"
The problem nowadays I see is that many kids just abandon skill games and go to JRPG lala land. Thus, they never defeat that frustration and advance into the skill zone.
This could be an entire separate thread. My girlfriend and I have had some loooong discussions about this very subject.
I don't mean this to be a blame-society maneuver, but I think a lot of folks our age - and I mean that to include a pretty broad age range, from present young adults all the way up to the trailing edge of Gen X - grew up in the self-esteem paradigm of parenting. We've got some pretty good science now, a number of really good psychological studies, that indicate that praising kids for achievement or for intrinsic virtue is a good way to make them brittle and prone to avoiding challenge, while praising them for effort makes them more resilient and more enthusiastic about challenge. I don't know about you, but when I was young, my parents told me constantly that I was "so smart" and that I could do whatever I wanted and that I'd do great things someday. It took me a long, long time to reconcile that with the fact that I still failed at things all the time. For years, I'd avoid doing anything challenging because failure was just so shattering to my self-image. It's still hard for me to overcome the fear of failure in a lot of things I do.
That kind of brittleness is hardly a new thing, but I think it's a human tendency that's exaggerated a lot in youths and younger adults today. I don't think marketers are blind to that, either; it seems to me like a lot of modern games are designed to minimize the consequences of failure and allow people to succeed all the time with persistent but minimal effort and basically no setbacks.
It's pretty relevant to this thread, too, as anybody who's ever failed a diet or quit a workout program can attest.
I guess the takeaway here is: Work hard, be awesome. If you fail, try again. Don't give up.
My parents and teachers also always told me I was so smart. The thing is, I was smart. I didn't fail at school or anything until calculus 3 at RIT, which I failed twice.
Careful with this one. Being female you're not going to be able to build much muscle.
You can totally tone them! I did during martial arts. Sure, I am not going to be huge biceps, but I can get a nice sinewy runners body to go with my legs.
I'll admit I get frustrated if I'm ever running, biking, skiing, or basically doing anything where someone passes me (or is ahead of me, but I find myself unable to pass them). It focuses my effort, and I tend to begin ignoring pain or other signs that perhaps I should slow down. ^_~
You can totally tone them! I did during martial arts. Sure, I am not going to be huge biceps, but I can get a nice sinewy runners body to go with my legs.
Ok, good. Just didn't want you having unreasonable expectations.
I'll admit I get frustrated if I'm ever running, biking, skiing, or basically doing anything where someone passes me (or is ahead of me, but I find myself unable to pass them). It focuses my effort, and I tend to begin ignoring pain or other signs that perhaps I should slow down. ^_~
It was always fun running with Darrel in College.. He would speed up anytime we were going to A. Pass a girl either way or if anyone was coming up behind us.
I'll admit I get frustrated if I'm ever running, biking, skiing, or basically doing anything where someone passes me (or is ahead of me, but I find myself unable to pass them). It focuses my effort, and I tend to begin ignoring pain or other signs that perhaps I should slow down. ^_~
Usually I just keep pushing harder until I run out of talent and spin out.
I have an idea! Post your athletic goals for the next 6 months.
Word!
- Complete my 100 push-ups/200 sit-ups program. I was most of the way there before vacations happened! - Run 6+ miles at least once a week; run 10 miles w/in 6 months. - Start fencing again and be practicing at least twice weekly w/in 6 months; renew my rating w/in one year.
Thing is, I would love to set some new fitness goals for myself, but until I get my elbow fixed I can't do much upper body training.
And before you ask, yes, I've had it looked at, by two doctors. Both said it was just strained and needed time to fix itself. It's been two years since I injured it, so that's a crock of crap. I'll get it looked at by somebody else once I have insurance again (which could be half a year from now). As long as it doesn't affect my daily life, I can live without nice pectorals.
-Strengthen my upper body at least to the point where my climb ups are nice and smooth. -Run 3k without slowing down -Practice both Tae Kwon Do and Parkour at least three times a week.
I'll admit I get frustrated if I'm ever running, biking, skiing, or basically doing anything where someone passes me (or is ahead of me, but I find myself unable to pass them). It focuses my effort, and I tend to begin ignoring pain or other signs that perhaps I should slow down. ^_~
See, but then you understand what I feel, watching your back get further away.
Fitness Goals -Master the culinary arts -Become fat -Die at 40
I'm having a hard time of it. Despite avoiding physical exercise as much as I possibly can, and eating several times a day until I'm physically incapable of further eating, I can't seem to put on weight. I'm 6' and about 170lbs. Just last week, I was forced into breaking my athletic abstinence by having to jog 2.3 miles, but suffered absolutely no pain from the experience. Is this just some kind of age bullshit? Am I going to have to wait until I get into my 30s to get fat? Despite all efforts to the contrary, my Dad stayed thin into his 40s before he could even manage a measly paunch. I was hoping to outdo him, but it's not looking good.
Over the last 10 months I have lost 50-55 lbs (it varies and will vary more are we enter eat'n season). I did this though monitoring my calorie intake and expense. I focus on keeping my average calorie range between 2100-2500 and my daily around 1900-2400 (with the occasional 3000+ day when I am eating out and such). I have also increased my physical activity some by playing more active sports with my wife in our local beer league (New Hampshire Sports and Social Club).
I focus on keeping my average calorie range between 2100-2500 and my daily around 1900-2400
Does discipline with calorie intake ever make you cranky? When I don't eat I get pretty mean, I get headaches; I simply don't like being hungry. How do you balance your hunger with your calorie intake? Do you pace meals, eat specific foods?
I started off by just counting what I was taking in and weighing in daily. I then started to look ate the food I was eating and switched to lower calorie variants. Over time it became a numbers game. My experience with this makes me want to create an MMOG based around calorie intake and expenditure since the same psychological effects are at work.
At one point I estimated my starvation calorie intake way too low. I thought it was around 1500; when it is actually around 1850 for my current weight. This lead to me hitting a plateau at around -40 lbs, thankfully I was able to pull my body through by being active and eating more at the end of the summer and I stayed relatively flat weight-wise.
Bleah. Counting and restricting calories has never worked for me. I just like to eat too damn much.
I can deliberately check myself if I'm eating or drinking to excess, but I just don't have the will to starve myself. I always have to just increase my exercise if I want to trim down.
Yep! Got figure out how to pay for that shit though. They're advertising their Gracie Barra affiliation everywhere, though, so I feel like they're probably for real.
Yep! Got figure out how to pay for that shit though. They're advertising their Gracie Barra affiliation everywhere, though, so I feel like they're probably for real.
I'd say the thing to do would be to find out who the instructor is and look him up. I just did some poking around, and apparently, you can run a Gracie Barra affiliate school at blue belt. I'm a blue belt, and there's no way in hell I'm qualified to be teaching a class.
Gaaaaah, that sucks. I mean, it's not to say that you can't learn a lot from a blue belt -- but I certainly don't think it'd be worth the probably $100 or more they'd be charging.
Comments
Get down to 270 and stay there
Get my diet back on track and keep it there
Bench 300 x 8
Claim victory at my first Kendo tournament!
My goal:
Get rid of mah belly!
I don't mean this to be a blame-society maneuver, but I think a lot of folks our age - and I mean that to include a pretty broad age range, from present young adults all the way up to the trailing edge of Gen X - grew up in the self-esteem paradigm of parenting. We've got some pretty good science now, a number of really good psychological studies, that indicate that praising kids for achievement or for intrinsic virtue is a good way to make them brittle and prone to avoiding challenge, while praising them for effort makes them more resilient and more enthusiastic about challenge. I don't know about you, but when I was young, my parents told me constantly that I was "so smart" and that I could do whatever I wanted and that I'd do great things someday. It took me a long, long time to reconcile that with the fact that I still failed at things all the time. For years, I'd avoid doing anything challenging because failure was just so shattering to my self-image. It's still hard for me to overcome the fear of failure in a lot of things I do.
That kind of brittleness is hardly a new thing, but I think it's a human tendency that's exaggerated a lot in youths and younger adults today. I don't think marketers are blind to that, either; it seems to me like a lot of modern games are designed to minimize the consequences of failure and allow people to succeed all the time with persistent but minimal effort and basically no setbacks.
It's pretty relevant to this thread, too, as anybody who's ever failed a diet or quit a workout program can attest.
I guess the takeaway here is: Work hard, be awesome. If you fail, try again. Don't give up.
Sure, I am not going to be huge biceps, but I can get a nice sinewy runners body to go with my legs.
- Complete my 100 push-ups/200 sit-ups program. I was most of the way there before vacations happened!
- Run 6+ miles at least once a week; run 10 miles w/in 6 months.
- Start fencing again and be practicing at least twice weekly w/in 6 months; renew my rating w/in one year.
And before you ask, yes, I've had it looked at, by two doctors. Both said it was just strained and needed time to fix itself. It's been two years since I injured it, so that's a crock of crap. I'll get it looked at by somebody else once I have insurance again (which could be half a year from now). As long as it doesn't affect my daily life, I can live without nice pectorals.
-Run 3k without slowing down
-Practice both Tae Kwon Do and Parkour at least three times a week.
-Master the culinary arts
-Become fat
-Die at 40
I'm having a hard time of it. Despite avoiding physical exercise as much as I possibly can, and eating several times a day until I'm physically incapable of further eating, I can't seem to put on weight. I'm 6' and about 170lbs. Just last week, I was forced into breaking my athletic abstinence by having to jog 2.3 miles, but suffered absolutely no pain from the experience. Is this just some kind of age bullshit? Am I going to have to wait until I get into my 30s to get fat? Despite all efforts to the contrary, my Dad stayed thin into his 40s before he could even manage a measly paunch. I was hoping to outdo him, but it's not looking good.
At one point I estimated my starvation calorie intake way too low. I thought it was around 1500; when it is actually around 1850 for my current weight. This lead to me hitting a plateau at around -40 lbs, thankfully I was able to pull my body through by being active and eating more at the end of the summer and I stayed relatively flat weight-wise.
I can deliberately check myself if I'm eating or drinking to excess, but I just don't have the will to starve myself. I always have to just increase my exercise if I want to trim down.