YoYo’s World

Hello all!

 Last week I decided to do something pretty random. I have set a new goal for myself: run the Oklahoma City Memorial Half Marathon. Not only do I want to finish it, but finish it in 2 hours and 30 minutes. This will be the very first marathon I will have ever participated in and I hope it won’t be my last.

My motivation for this is on the random side and I can’t explain why. I just want to do it. = ) I’ve been exercising regularly ever since last August so I’m used to the exercise. At this point I’m just stepping it up. I didn’t know too much about running and I’ve been reading up and I have to say it’s quite interesting.

I’ll be posting updates each week on my workouts and whatnot. I will even include information that I’ve learned through the process. I have already found a bunch of very useful resources, so I will be sharing them within the next few weeks.

The marathon will take place on April 27, 2008 at 6.30 am so I have roughly 10 weeks to train. Last week I opened a new free account with www.MapMyRun.com. It is an amazing site let me tell you. There are so many resources at your disposal, it’s crazy! (I’ll talk a little more about this site another day.) Right now, for this whole week (four days total so far), I have recorded running and biking approximately 10.67 miles. I don’t know whether this seems like a little or a lot to you, but to me, I’m very impressed. Like I said, this will be my first running program ever, so of course it seems like a lot to me.  Today was my light day of a two mile run or a cross train. If none of this is familiar to you, have no fear! I will write about it for sure.

I will be posting daily workout results, so to give a recap of this week…here it is:

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(A bit of an impulse post right here.) Today I was randomly searching the net and came across a video that may be of interest. This is a video of Will Smith talking about the two keys to life. It’s a clip of him giving his speech at the Teen’s Choice Awards for receiving an award. (I don’t know what he won for though.)

There will be times in life where we when we get to advanced techniques, we find our basics need a little brushing up on. Going back to the basics is never a bad thing because it allows you to learn more and come closer to mastering those techniques.

Here is a bit of those basics to visit today. Try not to get so caught up in what you’re doing that you forget what you learned in the beginning. That has happened to me many times to me and it’s always nice to stop, take a break and do some review.

Without further adieu I bring you, Will Smith, “The Key to Life.”

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I’ve been following this blog called MyPersonalDevelopment.net for a few months now and it is just great! There are so many good reads it’s amazing. I’d like to point out one great post that I just read. It’s a guest post by Eric Zorn and it’s called “50 Things I’ve Learned in 50 Years.” There are so many fun-filled little life facts and it was so enjoyable to read.

As you can see above, there’s a link to go check it out. Here is a mini excerpt of some of the wonder life tips it offers:

“9. Cough syrup doesn’t work.

10. Empathy is the greatest virtue. From it, all virtues flow. Without it, all virtues are an act.

11. The Golden Rule is the greatest moral truth. If you don’t believe in it, at least try to fake it.

12. Keeping perspective is the greatest key to happiness. From a distance, even a bumpy road looks smooth.

13. You can’t win arguing with police officers or referees, but every so often you can fight City Hall.

14. It’s not “political correctness” that dictates that we try not to insult others’ beliefs and identities. It’s common decency.

15. It may not feel like it, but it’s good luck when you have people at home and at work who aren’t afraid to tell you when you’re wrong.

16. It’s 10 times easier to fall in love than to stay in love. And no matter what the sad songs say about romance, broken hearts do mend.

17. Don’t waste your breath proclaiming what’s really important to you. How you spend your time says it all.

18. Keeping an open mind is as big a challenge as you get older as keeping a consistent waistline.”

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As a life-long athlete, I’ve always had those strenuous exercise regimens where I’d ask myself, “Why am I putting myself through so much discomfort?” I’ve loved to play sports, but I’ve never liked to condition. Even though I know conditioning is vital to progression and success in sports, I still never enjoyed it.

Over the years I have learned certainly tricks to help my mental endurance when it came to exercising. First thing to help you push through pain and discomfort is to realize that yes to do feel pain, but another immediate determinant of physical success is mindset. It’s all in your head basically. Your mind can strengthen and also weaken depending on your level of mental discipline and cleverness. I use the term cleverness because you can begin to adapt certain mindsets and thoughts that will help trick your negative thoughts.

Over time consistent application of these mindsets during exercise, will help give you the inner strength and discipline to take your exercises to the next level. (Don’t forget you can apply these to everyday life, but as of right now, that topic will be another day in another post.)

1. If I’ve done this once, I can do it again.

This is a very powerful thought. You’ve done it once, what’s keeping you from doing it again? In the end, what keeps you from taking that extra step is the fact that your body is recognizing discomfort. Since your body is not accustomed to enjoying discomfort, it will try to reject the activity you’re putting it through. If you don’t have strong and hard-set thinking patterns, then you will surely fall prey to your body’s discomfort.

If you don’t have strong thinking patterns glued in your mind, this phrase, “If I’ve done this once, I can do it again,” can help plant a seed for strong thinking. When you begin to feel fatigued or you sense negative talk coming along, repeat the phrase in your head and try to logically come to a conclusion that shows that this phrase is right. This will also help keep your mind distracted and will help you finish your laps and/or reps.

2. What’s stopping me from taking another step?

If you find yourself feeling a little burnt out, ask this question in your head and seriously try to answer it. When I do this, usually I think about the fact that well, there really isn’t anything that is keeping me from making another step and I go through as to why in my head. Sometimes I’ll think, well I haven’t collapsed and fallen to the ground, so my legs must still be able to support me. My arms haven’t fallen to the sides of my body and have gone limp, so I can still do one more rep, or at least push my arms as far as they’ll go.

Walter Payton, otherwise known as “Sweetness,” a running back that played for the

Chicago Bears (da bears), once was asked how he exercised in the off season. His response was, (paraphrased) “I exercise until I’m at the point of dropping.” He means of course that he exercises until he absolutely can’t move anymore. Now I am not telling you to take it as extreme as he does but his response exemplifies the idea, “What is keeping me from taking another step,” perfectly.

3. Count to one hundred

In running, there is a phrase called ‘hit the wall,’ which means the time in which you just want to stop everything that you’re doing and take a break. Ed Bran, a world class runner was asked “when you ‘hit the wall’ during a run, ho do you get past it?” His response was, “I count my steps to 100 and repeat as need.”

This is a very effective method to use because it first helps to distract your mind from negative thoughts and second, it helps you focus on where it counts, your pace. It is easier to motivate yourself to make one more step by counting to one hundred. It’s something you don’t even really think about once you get started. You just count, 1,2,3…and you begin to develop a rhythm that feels more natural and comfortable. You don’t think about the fact that you’re taking shorter breaths, or the fact that you feel fatigued. All you end up concentrating on his 1, step, 2, step, 3, step and so on.

This is my favourite method to use because I have found the best results through this method than any other. Does counting to one hundred sound like a daunting task? Well it my mind it doesn’t, so by counting to one hundred, I make a huge task manageable by separating it out into microtasks. Time management experts will tell you that if you feel overwhelmed with a project, split it up into mini projects and it won’t feel so impossible to overcome.

So the key here is MICROMANAGE!

            Try all of these positive thinking methods out during your next routine exercise and see what kind of results you get. Once you find that these really do work, it will motivate you to push yourself each time you exercise.

Take care, be careful and be safe!

-YoYo

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I have completely revamped my T-Shirt business over the past week. The reason why I have is because I decided to turn my business into a niche business. This means, instead of having multiple kinds of shirts such as music, gaming, pop culture, etc. ones, I’ve decided to keep just one kind of shirt; gaming. I chose to do this for a few reasons. Through experimentation and monitoring my store’s progress, I was getting attention and sales only from my gaming shirts. To narrow down profit, I just decided to keep my gamer shirts and ditch my other designs for another day. (I don’t know yet what I’ll do with them. I’ll probably put them into a basic shop and see what happens.)

One of the biggest changes you’ll  notice is the name. I’ve changed it from YoYo’s Creations, to Gaming Creations. How more specific can you get? = P I’ve always created a logo this time that I’ve put up on www.DeviantArt.com, along with my T-Shirt designs. Look to the top of this post and you will see the logo I concocted. (If you don’t know what www.DeviantArt.com is, I’ll talk about it another day but to give a basic jist, it’s a website to post artwork for other artists to nice. It’s nice for graphic designers and whatnot so you can kind of ’spread the word’ on whatever you’re doing.)

I’ve also revamped some of my designs and made a new one today.

New Design for Saving the World This link (opens in new window) will show you the front and back for my new revamped design. I initially designed it for coloured shirts, but Cafepress only offers the front and back designs for white T-shirts. So I just have to make due with the white. Then again, if I put a front and back image on a coloured shirt, it would automatically go up $3 in price because it costs an extra $3 to add a back image, so maybe it’s a good thing considering my target market.

Here is my completely new design called Aim Here. (Opens in new window) I don’t completely care for how it looks on the coloured designs, but I know it has great potential so I’m keeping it how it is. If you do go on Gaming Creations, you will notice I’ve also tagged the design on a hat and long t-shirt. I don’t care for how it looks on the long t-shirt, but I think my ultimate solution will be to change the graphic background from grey to either a dark red, blue or even green. I haven’t decided yet.

As far as all of that goes, those are my only changes other than organizational and tempalte ones. Those are the most obvious if you’ve taken a look at my store a while back. Hopefully with all this revamping I will begin to make more profit than I am. Right now I’m in the negative in turns of profit covering expenses, but I am positive this will change once I start my poster marketing campaign. I am also thinking about putting adds on Facebook because that would narrow down to my target market even more.

To all, I say adeu and until next time, I will be a much richer person = P.
Take it easy!

-YoYo

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              Happy New Year!! How was last year? What did you like? What do you wish played out differently? What have you learned? What do you want to do differently this year?           

 Yes ladies and gents it’s that time of the year; New Year’s Resolutions!!! Are you pumped? Excited? Depressed? Discouraged? Tired? What’s that you say? Each year you come up with New Year’s resolutions but never follow through with them? Well let me tell you something. Get out a piece of paper and write down a New Year’s Resolution. It doesn’t matter which one you choose, just pick one. Now what I want you to do is incorporate it in the following sentence: “No matter what happens, and I mean ABSOLUTELY NOTHING, within this next year, I will have achieved this desired result: (New Year’s Resolution).      

      Please, please, please remember this statement. Tell it to yourself each day! Believe, feel it, like fire in your veins. Don’t think of the how, think of the what. Don’t over-think this statement because if you do, you may strip the truth in it. I can tell you without a shadow of the doubt it is true!            

Okay folks that was your warm-up/prequel. I wanted you to get pumped because no matter how confident you feel right now, you will achieve your desired results. Before we start trying to achieve our results, we start here with your Dream Contract. This contract stemmed from an idea introduced to me through the Tools to Life program. Today is the day you will sign an official document with yourself. You promise from this day forward that you will stay 200% true to yourself and your dreams. You are choosing to make a commitment to yourself and this is very important.            

Doing this today, right now will give you so much personal power and confidence that each year you will look forward to accomplishing yet another New Year’s Resolution. You won’t know until you try. Stay true to yourself and the world will fall into your hands. READ THE FOLLOWING DOCUMENT AND SIGN BELOW! 

The Dream Contract            

Today I, (Name), unleash the unbreakable person inside of me. I commit to stay true to myself and my dreams 200%. I will never give up on myself and my dreams because I deserve good in my life and I deserve to live the life I want. I hold my desired results in my mind as if they were burned there. I unleash my true self through everything I do.  (Signature)             

 Print this out and post this where you will see it every single day and be reminded of your undying commitment to yourself. I will continue this topic next week.  

Remember, pass it on.

-YoYo

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