Tag: mental discipline

The Habitual Self-Evolution

Hamar WilliamsLeave a comment

Now it’s not that I’m not enjoying this writing challenge that I set myself and thought others might like inflicted upon them, but when I finally decided to check to see when the last day would be and discovered it not in early October or possibly even late September, instead mid November, my heart sunk a little. There was a little glimmer of hope in my mind that I had less than two months left and it turned out I have a full three. As I said it’s not that I’m not enjoying it and I know for certain I’m getting a lot from it, but I’ve almost forgotten what it’s like to not have a day in which there isn’t something at the back of my mind reminding me I still have to sit down and write something. It does feel like my one daily chore and as I write that I realise how lucky I am to have only one real chore. It’s not cool to blow ones own trumpet but for such an undisciplined person it has been a remarkable show of discipline. If only it was possible to transport that into other parts of my life.

It’s also quite easy though let’s be honest. To write four times a week but on any particular day or even at any frequency within the week would probably be more of a challenge than knowing it’s a daily routine of sitting down and doing something. When something has to be done daily there is a lack of opportunity for free thought and potential excuses. If I know I don’t necessarily have to do something today as I still have tomorrow to do it creates a different kind of challenge altogether. Discipline with choice or discipline without. I know myself and it may be a struggle. They do say, whoever ‘they’ are, that if you can do something for a whole year you will create enough of a habit to be able to maintain consistency and practice. I’ll now have a real example to use of whether I believe there to be any truth in that.

My heart sunk then when I discovered I still have a quarter of a year to go. It sunk despite knowing I enjoy and appreciate the benefits of doing this. This isn’t about really refining any styles, although I hope I will have done without realising. I’ll read from the beginning one day and see if my writing evolved over the time. It is about creating the habit of doing something regularly. I know I repeat myself a lot, or assume I do, but certainly I see a huge importance in understanding, observing and changing habit where necessary. So much of our lives are defined by habit. Arguably our actions and potentially even characters are just a series of habits formed from birth. We can say we have both good and bad habits and there would be validity in such a statement but I would like to explore whether it’s possible to challenge all habits no matter how they’re viewed in my mind. Can we be habit free? If habits are character defining then the answer is probably no but it would certainly be fun trying to find out. In the meantime this is simply one more piece closer to a new and hopefully long term habit. I share this with you, and pretend sometimes it’s for you, but let’s be honest I’m just using you all in my quest for some kind of self-evolution.

An Inspiration Block

Hamar WilliamsLeave a comment

I accept they can often not be entirely relevant to what I have written of course but I still enjoy them. I have been procrastinating a little too much these last two days and this blog has felt like a chore. I stepped away from my computer about ten minutes ago after struggling with writers block and thought up a great title. I have subsequently forgotten it. It was really smart though and I was very happy with myself. It related to my inability to think of anything to write about and my inability to stop avoiding just writing.

This blog really is a journey. The initial excitement seems to have gone, as has the secondary excitement when I initially published my first piece after the first month. There have been some pieces I’ve been really happy with and some, I suspect like this, which I have just struggled through. I suggested a few weeks ago that I was looking forward to completing the year so I could just write two to three times a week but with quality. This idea tempts me. It is contrary to the initial challenge though and while I have written after midnight and I have regularly written more that the four hundred word limit, to stop writing a daily piece would challenge the very foundations of this blog. It is a challenge though but that is part of what this is as an experiment. Some days I will have only little time and others little idea, but then as I said I have written some pieces I’ve felt inspired by. These ups and downs are natural in anything of this kind of regularity, nobody can be interesting everyday.

There are possibilities that I need to crack back on with that discipline journey. Maybe it is just down to a lack of that. Certainly the fact I have spent the last hour looking at everything online but this blog, would suggest I have slipped slightly. I doubt I ever had the mental discipline to write something of well thought out quality daily but physically sitting down and just doing it never seemed too much stress. I must commend whoever has continued to read to this point, your dedication to struggle through to this point with me is commendable. It really has been a slog this evening and I still haven’t even thought up a title or looked at images to use. A sleeping man might do the trick for tonight. Maybe I should finish with a lullaby. Fuck it I’m off to bed.

An Unexpected Beating

Hamar WilliamsLeave a comment

Well lads it finally happened, I went and got myself beaten up by a girl. Cheers of delight ring out across the skies from all the girls who have crossed my path and been wronged in the process. That would be silence obviously because it is zero girls. Back to the beating though, I got kicked in the head. Let’s try and create an image shall we. I’m tall, six foot three, and not big with muscle but I can hold my own. Not tonight though, for I’ve been doing some martial arts and attended my second kickboxing class. My New Years resolution involved jiu jitsu but events have evolved into kickboxing instead. I’m not a fighter, my instincts are to talk my way out of the trouble I’ve just talked myself into on the rare occasions it tries to find me. I don’t get the raw angry appreciation of hitting someone but when you see people fighting with talent and technique it feels like a majestic art form unfolding.

I did Krav Maga for eight months when I lived in Athens and I really enjoyed that too even though it was in Greek and I had to guess most of what was being said. You can’t spar in it though because there’s no gloves, it’s self defence and it’s designed to be rapid and brutal. Interestingly enough there are elements of kickboxing involved, I can see this in the technique already, but in kickboxing you spar and you actually need to learn how to defend yourself in a way you can’t in a Krav Maga beginners class. It gave me the taste required to search out more though.

This girl was good. It was the last practice of the session and the guy I had been training with had to leave so I went with her. She was small, reasonable skinny and an advert for not judging people by appearance. Interestingly enough when I kicked her she asked me to kick a little softer which is fair but it didn’t stop her coming in with some crazy combinations. In fairness to her though she never really tried to connect too much, misjudged that head kick though. And in truth she kicked though my pathetically positioned glove and hit me so it wasn’t too painful just a shock. She was all apologetic but I felt I needed to act tough, especially as I had to ask the coach for a sticky plaster in the first class because I cut my finger.

On a more serious note though martial arts are a very interesting form of practice, dare I say sport. As I said I’m not a fighter and I find most people who go to these things aren’t. What they do though is get you fitter, stronger and mentally train your mind in a way few other things do. You need to concentrate on what you are going to do while not letting your guard down, not letting your focus drop for a second. There has been a lot written about it but it creates a mental discipline and if you haven’t noticed by now that appears to be the long lost Holy Grail my life has suddenly started searching for. Maybe next time I’ll put aside my assumptions, learn to defend myself and accept that just this once it may not be an embarrassing thing to be beaten up by a girl.

This Blog

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One thing I have noticed about this blog is that since I started publishing it and not continued keeping it a secret thing like the first month, I have stopped writing about the blog itself. The pieces now seem to be about topics; such as resolutions, Dublin, something political, and other things I can’t remember but certainly in the early days I was happy to write about how this beast itself was developing. Initially the point of the blog was to do an experiment and see whether I could write about something every day. So far I have managed that and it is something that the majority of the time doesn’t take up a disproportionate amount of effort. The articles are not necessarily of the highest calibre, or what I would like them to be, I suspect if I took longer or didn’t put a piece out daily, I could take more time and effort researching and forming something. Instead as is clear I seem to start with an idea and just go from there, which I also really enjoy as a format. I’ve mentioned before about the discipline to sit down each day and the mental discipline to put in effort to write something decent are separate things. Since publishing certainly the awareness of others reading has had an effect on this, but I think I am pushing myself slightly more; fully aware I could go further, which will evolve as time goes on.

What will also evolve though, and has as I said, is what I write about. As I mentioned already I’m not really putting out fluff pieces – although it could be argued this is one – even though it’s a perfectly legitimate topic it feels slightly self-indulgent. I see other blogs and they seem to be on particular issue, like travel, food, mindfulness or politics and I seem to drift into each of those areas when I feel like it. To attract people to this blog it would be good perhaps to focus on a particular area and subject to write about. However I’m not going to as I think that while it will evolve organically, the point is to see if I can write each day about something over writing about something each day, and there is a difference. Equally if it is an experiment to simply write, we corrupt ourselves the moment we worry more about numbers than the actual thing we’re doing. It may evolve organically in a certain direction which would be great and if after one year I am still writing and writing about a particular subject then the goal would be complete with a bonus thrown in.

So this blog is going to continue to be random and off the cuff. I would like it to improve, in the meantime though I’m happy; nothing is ever perfect so it is great that I can see improvement is necessary and hopefully make the effort to find it. It is even greater that I’m still here after what is probably about two months now and not got distracted and sacked it off.

Self-congratulatory piece…tick.

Well done me…prick.