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Reaching Milestones
Welcome to Stuff I Learned Yesterday. For the first time today, during my daily exercise routine, I was able to hold the plank position for a full 60 seconds, and I believe if you aren’t learning, you aren’t living. In today’s episode of Stuff I Learned Yesterday I talk about the importance of recognizing milestones.
I hope you’re having a great week so far. I’m doing much better than last week. I’m getting ready to take some time off to go camping with my wife and daughter and it’s always stressful when you’re self employed during those weeks leading up a vacation. But everything is falling in line this time around. All of my clients have been notified and they’re fine with me picking up their projects when I get back. So it will be nice to relax for a few days and not think about work for a while. I have a few books loaded on my Kobo and I think I’ll try to get through one on the trip.
I’ll be busy when I get back, however. On top of my design work, I’m starting up two podcasts. Season 3 of Orphan Black just ended so I’m wrapping up my Orphan Black podcast before I leave. But I just started a new one for the new space bounty hunter show Killjoys and I’ll be back podcasting about Under The Dome again this year. So I’ll have my hands full this summer.
Before I forget, happy belated Father’s Day to all the dads out there. As Darrell mentioned on Monday, we’re a bit late but we would love to hear your father related stories in our Friday Forum. Either about your own father or about being a father. You can send them to us by visiting https://www.goldenspiralmedia.com/feedback All our submission info is there. I had a great father’s day this year. My wife let me sleep in and then made breakfast for me when I got up. We have a tradition in our family that whoever’s special day it is gets to choose what they want for dinner. It doesn’t matter if it’s home made, take out or going to a restaurant. At breakfast my wife asked me what I wanted. I wasn’t sure what I was in the mood for so as a joke I told her I wanted a peanut butter and jam sandwich. Later that afternoon after visiting Kim’s dad and then my dad she asked me again. And you know what? I decided I was in the mood for a PB & J. So at supper time my daughter made me a peanut butter sandwich and that was my father’s day meal. I loved it.
Today’s Fun Fact of the Day: Did you know all the characters on the animated show “The Simpsons” have 4 fingers on each hand except for one. God, whenever depicted on the show God is always drawn with 5 fingers?
Here’s What I leaned yesterday.
What is a milestone? According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary it’s “an important point in the progress or development of something”
Today is a milestone. This is the 300th episode of Stuff I Learned Yesterday. That’s quite impressive when you consider that most podcasts don’t last beyond 10 episodes. But is it a reason to celebrate? In a way perhaps. We should at least acknowledge it. This is a milestone moment after all, and as the definition points out it’s an important point in the progress of this podcast. Just like episode 250 was and episode 200 before that, and so on. That’s what milestones are. Points in the progress. They help us measure how far we’ve come and how far we still have to go.
Are milestones important? Yes, they are. Milestones, both the physical side of the road kind and the metaphysical kind help you measure progress. Without them some journeys would be so daunting as to seem impossible. Milestones help you judge where you are on the road you are taking and take the guess work out of how much farther you have to go.
That’s one of the reasons they have distance markers on highways. They satisfy your need to know that you are making progress. You feel good when you see that your destination is only 50 km away when the last marker told you it was 100 km away.
Alex Rodriguez of the New York Yankees reached a milestone this past week when he hit his 3000th baseball. He’s one of only 29 players to achieve this feat. In an interview he said it was great to get the recognition but his career isn’t over. He still has many hits in him before he retires and he’s aiming for the next milestone.
If you’ve been listening to SILY for a while you know that I’ve been trying to loose weight. I started in January weighing 237 lb.. My declared goal was to reach 200 lb. by the end of July, however my ultimate goal is to reach 185 lb.. The ideal weight for my hight. I started off good, loosing a few pounds, then I hit lots of bumps and potholes along the way and my weight started fluctuating. This almost derailed me. But three weeks ago I started a new exercise routine that I’ve been following diligently and I’ve been very careful of what I eat. I’ve been making good progress and on Monday when I did my weekly weigh in I discovered I had lost 3.5 lb.. This week. That put me at 217 lb.. Meaning I finally passed the 220 milestone I had been aiming for since I started the routine.
Now I’m shooting for 210. That milestone looks a lot more attainable to me right now than my ultimate goal of 185. And being so close to it makes me want to try for it harder. When I reach 210 I’ll aim for the next milestone, and so on and so on until I reach my destination.
Will I reach my declared goal of 200 lb.. By the end of July. It’s possible, but I probably wont. But that’s OK. As I just stated. My ultimate goal is 185 lb.. And I didn’t set a time frame me to reach it.
Here’s what I learned.
Any goal you make for yourself is a lot easier to achieve if you aim for milestones along the way. Reaching them creates excitement. Offers encouragement, and propels you on to the next one.
SILY reached 300 episodes today, but I myself have contributed only 34 of those episodes including today’s. That’s just a small fraction in this podcast’s catalogue. I’m looking forward to celebrating my 52nd episode and marking one year of being a host on this show. At our current schedule we’ll reach the 350 episode milestone before I reach mine at episode 354.
Milestones are what you make of them. They can be anything you want them to be. And they should be acknowledged when achieved.
Nelson Mandela said it best when he said “Remember to celebrate milestones as you prepare for the road ahead.”
So I have more pounds to loose. Alex Rodriguez has more baseballs to hit, and SILY has more episodes to come out. And before you know it, we’ll all be celebrating our next milestones.
I’m Mark Des Cotes and this has been Stuff I Learned Yesterday.
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