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Godzillavilla

~ The ongoing saga of turning a crumbling Italian ruin into a home

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Monthly Archives: March 2013

The Limits of Will

24 Sunday Mar 2013

Posted by Shelagh in Adventure, General

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

adventure, will power

A couple of weeks ago I found out something really enlightening about will power: it is a finite resource that gets depleted over the course of a day. Of course, dieters have always understood what science has now proven, but the mechanics are still interesting. I was even happier to discover will can also be built up and replenished.

Like a muscle, your will power has the most to give after a good night’s rest. You wake up filled with resolve and energy. Almost immediately, the depletion begins. Like draining the gas tank one drop at a time, it drops when you first say no to a second spoonful of sugar in your morning coffee, again when you resist running the yellow light on the way to work, again when you resist sending that snarky email to the co-worker who is infuriating you.

You see where this is going: by the time you get home at the end of the day, your tank of will is empty. No way you’re going to manage stopping at a single glass of wine or be able to do your taxes instead of watching TV.

Unfortunately, will is also needed to achieve goals. Say you want to take a sabbatical and move to Paris for three months. Somehow you keep putting off the planning of it, and you wonder why you aren’t more motivated to make that fantastic thing happen. You’ve been dreaming of it for years, for heaven’s sake. Here’s the trick: if you feel any fear about it, or find the planning process tedious, bringing it to fruition means using the same will you’ve been dipping into all day. So regardless of how great you think it would be to be there, the process of getting there becomes an impossible chore.

The good news is – like a muscle – you can give yourself little exercises to increase your will power. Things that become habitual, such as always eating carrot sticks at 3:00 instead of snarfing a cookie, actually make it stronger. You can also replenish will by doing things that bring you joy. And sleeping (it’s pretty joyful in its own way).

An obvious tactic to help yourself out: if you’re trying to plan an adventure, do any work involved in getting it off the ground first thing in the morning. Maybe even over breakfast. Make it a habit. Not only do you get the best of your will, but the routine will give you more of it.

Personally, I feel more energized just knowing about this. Any of you have experience with building up will?

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The Practicality of Losing Control

19 Tuesday Mar 2013

Posted by Shelagh in Adventure, General

≈ 3 Comments

One thing is absolutely certainty when doing adventuresome things: stuff will happen as a result that you don’t anticipate. Good stuff too, not just bad stuff. Godzillavilla is a case in point with its unanticipated, heartwarming social interactions, along with its vastly greater than anticipated sucking-up of money.

When I set out on an adventure, even a little one, I try to imagine everything that might happen. The wonderful and the terrible. But here’s what I’ve found I need to wrap my head around most in order to make any leap:

I CANNOT IMAGINE EVERYTHING.

Rocking Bryan Adams is some scary stuff when you sing like a Bach chorister.

Clearly out of control: jamming with a rock band looks a lot like getting a really bad stomach cramp. But is way more fun.

Part of the fabulous, freeing, life-affirming goodness of adventure is that it shows us we can go with the flow, adapt and cope, and – wait for it – give up some control. A lot of practical people are loath to give up control. I’m one of them. But I’m coming to believe that it’s actually infinitely practical to do so.

Truth is, you can’t control everything, and trying to just saps your energy and makes you a nervous wreck. When you give it up, even just a little, you gain time for more important, fulfilling and useful things. Plus sanity, and that’s a big plus. You learn to roll with the punches, which means every time stuff does happen to you that you hadn’t planned on (because it does), you get better and better at dealing with it –speedily and positively.

I’m liking this idea of the practicality of losing control. I’m finding it quite liberating.

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To Boldly Go

13 Wednesday Mar 2013

Posted by Shelagh in Adventure, General

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

adventure

Maybe I watched too many Star Trek episodes as a kid, but Godzillavilla is not even sold yet and I’m already scouring the universe for my next adventure. Think I’d best scale it down a tad given my current circumstances, but life just wouldn’t be the same without some kind of interesting new enterprise to undertake.

I’m not an adventure megastar like the inexhaustible (apparently) author of the Bucket List blog, but I have done most of the daring stuff I’ve personally wanted to do in life, along with being a worker, a mother, a wife, a mortgage-payer, etcetera. Come to think of it, those things can be rather adventuresome, too…but the point is, I’ve managed to juggle. I considered it pretty commonplace, until enough people told me they felt they could never do it themselves. Then I started wondering why. Or rather, why not. And I started thinking, what do adventuresome people do to make their exploits possible?

Yes I was securely tethered but I wasn't letting go of him for anything.

Who doesn’t like to celebrate their birthday by being terrified? I was securely tethered but I wasn’t letting go of him for anything.

Since that little bug started eating into my brain, I’ve been talking with a lot of women, not all of whom are hugely adventuresome, about how they managed to do what they wanted, even when it was scary. A thesis is unfolding from that collected wisdom. It also turns out that clinical psychology studies reflect what successful adventurers have been telling me they do instinctively. The successful ones (as opposed to those who only do things in their minds) simply use tools that others do not. Tools that are teachable and learnable.

That’s what I’d like to explore going forward from Godzillavilla. What makes it possible for a regular, practical person to be daring?

Soon the blog site will move from this one. I hope that many of you who have enjoyed reading about Godzillavilla will stay with me for the next journey. I’ll want your contributions along the way.  Stay tuned!

Yours in adventure,

Shelagh

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  • Moving On
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  • Planning’s Evil Twin
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