Ideal Body Weight

I’m underweight.

My ideal body weight should be 135-lbs but I only weigh 129-lbs (approximately 12.9-lbs of fat and 116.5-lbs of muscle.

I should have about 13.5-lbs of fat and 121.5-lbs of muscle. What does that mean?

I’m weak. I need to put on more muscles and a little bit of fat. How do I achieve that?

By having the discipline to create healthier habits: a consistent amount of sleep and exercise. What about diet?

Well, I’m going to skip diet for now. I’m not saying I’m gonna fill myself up with junk, fatty, or other unhealthy food. What I’m saying is I’m not going to put that much emphasis on diet.

Diet is hard to follow. I’m sure you’ve also tried but failed to follow through. Reducing the amount of sugar I put in my body is a good start (less rice and not a lot of sweet stuff).

I try to go for the “small wins”, those little efforts that create a teeny tiny improvement in my life.

I’m not aiming to be perfect. In fact, I never did. I go for “good enough”. Back in college, I’m happy with “D” (“D” for diploma). Because the truth is…

Mistakes Happen

Because of that, it’s almost impossible to get your number of mistakes down to zero. And that is just how life rolls. You make mistakes even though you’re a grandmaster at your craft. The best you can do is keep it CLOSE to zero.

This week, I’ve made a few stupid mistakes. Those kinds of mistakes that make you ask yourself “WTF have I been smoking?”

I knew they were wrong but I didn’t catch them. Perhaps I didn’t pay close attention. Perhaps I did? I can’t even remember.

This tells me that we get to a point where we lose our laser-focus to details.

Perhaps it’s due to distractions. Perhaps it’s due to lack of sleep. Or maybe it due that kimchi I ate last night. I have no idea but I’m going to further investigate why.

Flow state – it’s something I wanna get a better understanding of. It would help get better at…

 

Working Hard

“Don’t work hard, work smart”, yeah I heard about that famous saying and I believed it for awhile. But guess what? I MISUNDERSTOOD IT.

A lot of people think that you can outsmart your way to a problem. While that is true, if you fail to back it up with action, there’s a chance it will work against you.

I know people who prefer to take “the path of least resistance”,  to achieve things with the least effort, to ask for help without trying to solve the problem TO THE BEST OF THEIR ABILITIES first. I do the same thing BUT it’s on a case-by-case basis, not a standard rule you have to follow.

A lot of times, I see people getting others to do the hard work for them. That’s called “manipulation”. I’ve done it too but it left a bad taste in my mouth. Now I can see them doing it to me too (whether consciously or unconsciously). Ever heard of “you can’t bullshit a bullshitter”? While I can’t call out all the bullshit that comes my way, I can filter most of them.

Whenever someone asks for an advice, here’s what I do:

I answer their questions or concerns with questions. Questions that will drive them (at least closer) to the answer they’re looking for. Why do I do this?  I want them to realize they’re capable of handling their own problem. A lot of people don’t take the time to realize how smart they really are. But of course, when all else fails then you need to ask for help. All I’m saying is: try first, ask for help later.

Here’s a short history and proof why this works (at least for me):

I worked with a Project Manager who turned out to have an expertise in solving my problem. Like most people, I thought,“Why would I waste my time figuring out the answer if I can easily get him to answer it?”. So I did. But instead of handing me the answer right away, he asked me a series of questions.

Those questions drove me to put more effort into thinking about how to solve the problem on my own instead of relying on him for answers. They were a series of “Why” and “How” questions. After a while, I realized that even he did not know exactly what the problem was. What he did was: showed me the approach he would take IF HE was to solve the problem.

Then the light bulb came on. I realized there’s more to it. He’s not only teaching me to solve whatever problem I was facing. What he’s really teaching me was how to figure out the answers on my own. It’s called “self-reliance” – to be independent, to avoid consuming other people’s time because everyone is super busy. And for that, I respected him a lot.

Again, I’m not saying you shouldn’t ask for help. The point is: figure out the problem on your own FIRST, do your homework, do the thinking, do the work, give it your all. Give yourself a time limit. When that time is up, that’s when you ask for help. WORK HARD for it, this is to at least show the helper you are trying.

I also had a conversation with a man who worked in the oil/mining industry for 28 years in the Middle East. 12-hour shifts. Time-off was kept at the minimum.

He talked about “hard work” with pride.

Older folks take pride in working their asses off to live to survive. I understand why. We now live in an age where we’re encouraged to be lazy. I’m sure they are disgusted by our generation today. It’s sad how some of us equate “working hard” as a sign of our inability to find a better and easier way to (in this case) make money. The less the effort, the better.

But I beg to differ. Working with less effort makes you lazy. In fact, I don’t know anybody who is successful and lazy.

Do you?