Adam Pedley

One of the hardest things to do, when you are working on something that is either going to make you money, or parenting or another task that you just want to get finished is knowing when to take a break. You will keep in the back of your mind I will take a break when it is done, then once you are finished something else comes up and you continue the cycle. Its a cycle that eventually wears you down until you are sick or that stressed that you no longer function at your best and end up having to take a week or 2 off anyway.

So the options you have are this

1. Keep going until you are no longer productive anyway and then take a few weeks off feeling horrible
2. Feel great and relaxed on a vacation for 1 week and come back refreshed and very productive, always working at your best.

So there are 2 options and its clear to see at the end of the day (or month) which one will produce more results and leave you feeling great.

So why would you take option number 1? I have only started taking option number 2 but still not as early as I would have liked. The key is to find out the early warning signs that you need a break and should take one.

• You start feeling a bit anxious and stressed at tasks throughout the day
• You work 12-16 hours in a day (this one is quite obvious)
• You are not as enthusiastic at your tasks as you once were
• You don’t take at least a few hours out of the day/night to sit down and relax
• Your patience starts diminishing
• You are restless in your sleep
• You don’t look forward to tomorrow
• You get sick (obvious one again). You only get sick when you are stressed. Your body is saying slow down.

While there are plenty more its worth to have a read of this list and keep them in the back of your mind so you can notice them when they start to happen. I always find it difficult to notice my own habits, especially when you are deeply involved in work.

Just remember, very productive and 1 week off feeling great, or slow and unproductive and 2 weeks off feeling bad. Its clear which one everyone should take.

This is more a thought provoking article as I am yet to learn the answer. I also thought it would be great to post this as it shows where I have come from and my own journey. Years from now I expect I will have grown considerably and will not even be able to comphrend this post in the way I do now. So it is my hope to leave a trail of where I have been so that when I acheive my goals and see results, others who want those results can easily follow my mental path. But on with the point..

There are many things in your life you should be doing. For example exercising several times a week, or not eating fast food. And while many of us take note of these we still continue to do something we know we shouldn’t or should.

I used to drink heaps of soft drink, and heaps of junk food, until suddenly I started feeling the effects. I started getting head spins, unexplained by CAT scans, and shoulder/bone aches after drinking many sugary soft drinks. Even after this I continued for a while until I needed to stop. I am proud to say it has been over 5 years since I have even touched soft drink and feel better for it. Then years later I stopped with the fast food as I was getting very overweight (I actually classified as obsese).

Now I am back down to a healthly weight but back to my point, why did it take me so long to do something. Why must I have waited until I was seeing physical signs that I knew where coming before I acted. Even scarier still, why do some people who see the signs still keep going?

If you were at your death bed and someone said would like an extra few years of life or all those memories of chocolate you ate, what you would say? If you chose chocolate memories please leave a comment and tell us why (as I am baffled). I expect most would say I would like the few extra years please.

So why not take that choice now, why wait until its too late and you are only looking back in regret?. I hope to find out soon and I will post my thoughts and hopefully an answer as soon as it comes to me, now that I have asked the question.

I still am yet to figure out as I still do a few things that I know are not completely healthy for me. While my habits have changed so that I am now not going to die when I’m 50, I still am aware they will take some years away. Maybe I am just hoping for something that will make it all better.

Maybe hope has something to do with it. Others may call it delusion.

I am sure many have come across one of these in their life time. I am not talking about where you may get angry or unexpectedly lose control, I am talking a complete break down where you possibly cry, lose all motivation, question everything and just sort of sit there wondering what is going on.

I am here to say these moments, while not pleasant to deal with at the time are actually great turning points. You have reached your limit with a certain way of life and are breaking through it. Something you have always done, no longer seems right and accepting that and changing normally involves some form of break (break apart, break through, break down). It usually occurs when you either burn out from doing something for so long and decide this no longer makes me happy, why am I still doing it, or learning something new that conflicts with a lot of existing beliefs.

Now during these times its great to reflect upon what has caused it and determine your plan of action for the future. It’s also a great time to just rest and do some things that make you happy, whether it be watch a movie, or gardening, or a walk (Exercise actually is great as it will help with your mood).

I don’t know how this affects you, but it normally takes me a few days to get moving positively again and a week or so before I am feeling 100% positive. But things do change for the better. It’s a great eye opening experience. You have questioned a belief or value and broken through it, a tough task to say the least.

I would love to know of others stories and what you have broken through.

Television is something that is in almost everyones home and the amount of time its switched on is getting longer and longer. At my personal worst when I was a teenager the TV would be on as soon as I got home from school until I went to bed and first thing in the morning for a few hours until I went to school. That makes around 8 hours a day in total time the TV is on.

As an adult TV would come on after my children are in bed and not at all in the morning. As my children are still very young I haven’t let them watch TV at all. Yes they will learn about it sometime soon, but it’s much better seeing them in the backyard playing.

While watching TV I was equivalent of a zombie. A blank stare into a small black box or in people’s cases today, a large flat panel on the wall. Using almost no brain capacity and wasting my life away. If I was to look back 50 years from now, what do you think approximately 73,000 hours of tv would have brought me? Nothing much.

So why did I decide to stop watching TV. Big brother 06 was the catalyst for me. I couldn’t take it anymore. Reality TV was doing nothing more than irritating me. So I unplugged the tv aerial (I recently turned it into a phone outlet).

What happened over the next few months. Well I watched DVD’s. Scrubs over and over again (I think I could quote almost each episode). And I dowloaded Stargate and Smallville. On the upside I wasn’t watching any advertisements, which is quite a good thing considering I recently learned that subliminal advertising is actually legal in quite a few countries as long as it is a certain number of frames. These frame rates however still classify it as subliminal and considering the zombie state most people are in, even if it did flash up for a second and was clearly visibile most people would not notice it.

To start curbing my tv watching I would try to put on the tv as late as possible. Each night getting later and later. I also stopped having the tv on if I was doing something else. I know most people like the background noise, but after a few days you easily adjust. Then I was still on my laptop while the tv was on at night. This habit stopped when the tv finally blew up and the only way we can watch tv now is on my laptop. I have decided not to go and purchase another tv.

So now its almost down to just watching a movie on dvd every now and again. Some nights the tv/laptop hasn’t even been turned on. I find I get a lot more work done on the laptop, I play Uno or a board game with my wife and even spend a bit more time cleaning the house. I know the last one isn’t very appealing but I have reclaimed more time to spend with my wife, family and house.

To me the hours I will have spent doing something more worthwhile will be a great thing to look back on in 50 years time, and will give me many more experiences and options. Even if you cut out 1 hour of tv a day, in 50 years time you will save 18,262 hours of your life to something more meaningful.

Well after years of trying I finally did it. There was no secret diet pill, or magic fairy dust. We all know how to lose weight, it’s just the motivation to do it. That’s where the secret lies, in the motivation to change, not how you do it.

If you read my post on forward thinking you will come to realize that time is your most precious resource. On average you live 4000 weeks in a life time. Now that doesn’t sound like much, especially when you might have already used 2000 (40 years) of them.

Now I’m not still motivated, and I don’t have to be. I only used motivation to change my lifestyle not to keep me on this new path. Motivation will come and go, I am yet to be motivated 24/7/365. You just need motivation to change your lifestyle, then there is no more need for motivation as you will just be living your life.

The motivation to lose weight has always come and gone for me. I imagine just like myself you might have said, yes this is it, I am going to be healthy and lose weight, i’ve had enough. 2 days later your in front of the TV eating chocolate.

There was a combination of several things that helped me do this. And I must put emphasis on it was just me, I didn’t have someone there helping me along, or calling me up saying go to the gym. Im most cases I had people trying to persuade me to have a soft drink, lets get take away tonight.

First was a piece of information from Tony Robbins. Imagine your favourite food or drink. I did this with coke as I used to drink anywhere from 2 to 4 litres a day.  Now imagine your worst experience with it. I imagined the metallic taste of the aluminum can. Every time I felt like I coke I imagined this and then would wait 60 seconds before making my decision. Every time I would then decide coke is not good and I would drink water. The first week was the hardest, I felt like I had no energy, I had a headache and as you might have experienced a drink of coke would fix it all. Why does this happen, its caffeine withdrawal symptoms. Yes caffeine is a drug that you get addicted to. The same will happen if you stopped drinking coffee or tea (mainly black).

Is a glass of softdrink good for you occassionaly. No. I haven’t touched soft drink in over 2 years now and it feel immensely better for it. Just some of the other symptoms I had with soft drink are, if I drank coke early in the morning my shoulders would ache. If I drank pepsi max, I would get head spins within 1 minute.

So if  you don’t have a bad experience with your favourite food or drink, make one and think about it whenever you have a craving. You will be quickly turned off the idea of eating or drinking.

I was talking to one of my old friends in which we discuss a huge range of things. We ended up talking about emotions and different parts of the body. When you are nervous or have some emotional issues where do you feel them? Its in the stomach, feeling butterlies when you are nervous or feeling sick when something disgusts you and there are many more. So if you want to get rid of these feelings what do you do. Lets go and keep the stomach occupied with something else, food. You eat when you are upset because you want to stop feeling your current emotions. You need to learn to deal with them. 

If you are feeling down, exercise will cheer you up. Just going for a walk outside or jogging if you are that way inclined will help. There are other ways, that aren’t so good, such as watching tv (shuts down your brain), and getting involved in a project or task. Ever wondered why some people bury themselves in their work?

Many people don’t know what it is like to feel hungry. I know you might think you do, but really, who gets hungry in the morning, lunch time and dinner time every day regardless of activities. Not many. If you were a lumberjack or an athelete then 3 meals a day might be suitable, but not an office worker. Builders or trades people may also require 2-3 meals a day. It all depends on your physical activity.

Now I am not recommending everyone do this, as I do not know your current health state, but I didn’t eat until I really felt hungry, which was in about 48 hours. Yes you think you are hungry to begin with, but that doesn’t last very long. I only knew I needed food when i felt light headed and my hands started going cold.

When you do start to eat food, chew each mouthful until it is liquid. This may mean a mouthful might take 1 minute but just enjoy the flavour of the food. Your stomach takes a while before it even knows it full. Taking your time to enjoy your food will give your stomach enough time to realise when its full.

Another good thing to note is that sometimes thirst may be confused with hunger. So drink a nice cool glass of water and wait for a minute or 2 before deciding on when to eat.

Throwing out or leaving food is by some considered wasteful or disrepectful. But when you consider that if people did do this, they would live longer, be more productive to society, put less strain on hospitals and there would be more left over money to create more food. If you are no longer hungry, don’t eat. Even if there is 1 mouthful left, if you are full, put down your knife and fork (or spoon). If you think someone might be offended, who cares, they will forget within a few days, whereas if you ate the last mouthful your body would still be carrying it around. Think about whether this would really matter in a weeks time, or are you just doing it for instant gratification or pleasing of others.

Just a quick note on calorie counting. It’s a waste of time. Eat when you are hungry not by how much a book says you should eat. Also not by when society says you should eat (e.g. Breakfast, lunch time and dinner).

The subsconcious mind is a large factor in everything you do. To have a quick overview of this, is the subconscious mind details things with things in the present tense only. Going to be healthy and I will be healthy means nothing to your subconcious. It only understands I am healthy. I know it seems very weird to say these things, but when you do it will tell your subconscious mind that you are healthy and to act like a healthy person. The Secret or Psych-K were the two tools that explained this well. This is a huge subject on its own and I will write about this in other posts.

Exercising is the dreaded word most people fear when losing weight. (sorry this next part may be more male specific) It will help you lose weight. Now the secret I only found out later is that you don’t need to do a huge amount. There are four things I did, walked the dog (30 min walk) each night, squats, situps and pushups. Now I know you might not like the sound of those last 3, but just try this. Do as many situps/pushups/squats until it starts to hurt then just 2-3 more. Make your way so you can do 30. Then don’t start doing more, but add more resistance. For situps start putting your arms on your chest or head, instead of your legs and keep working until you can do situps with your arms behind your head. Then add a small weight, and keep building. Do this for the squats as well, keep adding weights. For pushups you might need to buy a bench press. Now do the situps, pushups and squats on different days. Thats right, dont do each of them every day, do a different one each day.

But the secret part here is once you build that muscle, it starts buring energy for you. Muscles use energy even while they are not doing anything. So it means that while you are stationary, you are burning more energy and losing weight faster.

Choice is the final thing that let me succeed. A major breakthrough in my mindset was made, when I realised that everything I did, and that is everything, was because I chose to do so. So I was overweight because I chose to be overweight, I was unfit because I chose to be unfit. You need to make the choice to be healthy. Once you have made the primary choice to be healthy you should notice all smaller decisions to be healthy are also made. You can make the choice to do anything you want and where you are now is because you chose to be there, circumstance has nothing to do with it.

Now is all of the above going to be hard. It was for me, but it’s worth it. Please just try it and you will be greatly rewarded. Remember you are doing this for later not for now. Just keep imagining everytime you make a decision, how good it will be in the future when you are looking great. If you do try my approach I would love to hear if it has helped you, so please comeback and leave a comment or email me, I do read all of them.

You might like to keep in the back of your mind that you never notice a great accomplishment while it is being acheived only once it is acheived.

Here are some resources I read and watched that helped me greatly and are well recommended to read or watch.