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DAY 49! WOW

Nearly fifty complete days of blogging.

Great!

Great progress. It's engrained. It's part of my life. It's good to be here. It's good to share my thoughts. It's really progressing. And I am enjoying most moments.

Update: Sunday, 03-Apr-2005 3:19 PM via the Canary Islands, DAY 2!

I did a lot of walking today. I believe Thomas Jefferson, one of my personal heroes once said the "walking is the best exercise on earth". I few years ago I visited Montechello in Virginia. He had a large farm and estate. Walking around there is it was easy to understand that he'd say something like that. I think of him as perhaps the greatest of the founding father's of America. What a great statesmen!

When you have the opportunity to visit Washington D.C. and would like to experience a bit of the southern hospitality and charm south of the nations capital, this is a great visit for a day.

You can see first hand how a great inventor, scholar and statesmen spent his time. Sure there were some flaws, but who does not?

As you spend time working on your personal success, try to take some time to read about Thomas Jefferson, the 3rd president of the USA and the founder of the University of Virginia.

Now let me get back to why I sat down...

The issue at hand is personal success, and today I'd like to talk about one element of it.

The 'element' that I mention is the desire of 'riding oneself' of bad habits.

I have several. If you inquire with my wife, I am mostly made up of such 'habits'. She'll spend an entire weekend talking to you about it.

But, she'll also take the kids out and go for a walk for an hour or two when I have one of those epiphany of a moment, as I did earlier today.

So, I confess, she's the best.

Now, the 'bad habits' --perhaps, the one I wish to melt away is "my intensity" and what I mean by that is the focus --a relentless focus that I would like to nurture as I work on something. In the past I have had problems where I work on something and as the project nears completion, I tend to lose focus and let it go.

For example, I spent a good part of October and November working on my bookcase and desk. I completed what I called a "functionally working setup" and it has not been left 'unfinished' in the study of the house for 3 months.

I have had several excuses not to finish it, but the bottom line is that it is missing a set of doors along the bottom of the case. The original doors were too heavy and I need to replace them with lighter doors and paint the bookrack and desk once again.

Nearly 3 months have gone, and I have kept using it and didn't' bother to finish the work.

This is the problem.

I was also afraid that the P31 STEP Success Plan might fall prey to that type of lack of intensity as well. However, then it would be an embarrassment, so I have kept up with the updating task.

Then something happened.

If you look at my blogging frequency in October, November and December, it was sporadic. I believe in November, between a trip and Thanksgiving week I didn't do anything.

Then in January of 2005, things picked up. The next month was even better and then finally in March over 25 days of typing.

March had INTENSITY. March had conviction. March had true intensity. And that kept growing each day of the month.

For weeks I had not made any progress with the advancement of the 31 STEP Success Plan. BUT, the blogging and updates were going great in March.

I could feel the urge, I could feel the need in me, I could feel the comfort that it brought me to share my thoughts.

This is intensity.

It has grown. It has legs, and it has energy to keep me going.

That is folks what I wanted the most in my life, and I believe in the past few months I have gotten a few steps closer to having it with everything I do.

Now a tip for you: I've heard in the past that any behavior that you would like to eliminate from you life can be accomplished IF that behavior is suppressed for 30 days. I am not sure about a disease like alcoholism --that is heavy stuff that I cannot say anything about, nor smoking, which I cannot discuss as I don't know what a nicotine craving is like.

But for general ... Great, my son informs me that my typing has woken him. Right...

Back to the discussion: The general idea that if something can be avoided, stopped or suppressed for 30 days, then it can be stopped once and for all.

Give it a try for whatever is holding you down or is keeping you from attaining your personal success.

Give it a try for even the little things that bother you. I personally will try to sleep early for a period of 30 days next and see how that will work.

In the past I have had terrible sleep habits, often working late into the night, only to sleep late the next day. But, for my health that is not good.

A lack of sleep causes a lot of problems and what I hope to accomplish is a good sleep pattern. So, this is a 'bad habit' that I will work on breaking.

I suppose a list of such 'habits' is next. I'll probably list them in my 'To do' list and work on each.

Well, tomorrow is my 50th day blogging. Then "intensity" was a good topic of the day, as I march on my quest to get to STEP 31 in the 31 STEP Success Plan.

Not bad. Keep building from here and I should be there sooner than later.

Hope you're weekend went well. Hope you'll visit again and read my updates. 'Til then, Success! Sam.

DAY 48#2 | TODAY was 49 | NEXT DAY 50