Aloha! This is the week six, only two days have passed since I turned in week 6 late, but since the begining I wanted to align this system with my own values instead of using Demitri Martin’s system. I do want to use his system, but I want to localize it for myself, today is the first day I felt like I had time to do that kind of adjustment.

Improving the self improvement system, I stayed up late one night and my emotions came through to me that the values I had been living with were wrong with me and the ones I wanted to live by were:

Proactivity replaces entitlement.
Resilience replaces complaints.
Perseverance replaces excuses.
Authenticity replaces courage.
Mindfulness replaces persistence.
Humility replaces wisdom.
Serenity replaces power.

I’ve also been introduced to the idea of “lokahi” (unity, but also making something broken whole) and I want to use it in some way to help me organize my life in a less overwhelming way. I know no matter how I organize my life I have to “do” the same amount of things, but maybe having the “schema” will help reduce the cognitive work load of living by my values.

I also know my strengths from the gallup strength finder test: Learner, responsibility, input, resolver, intellection.

Those are the three ingredients I want to work into the improved version of my life improvement system, my values (the ones I want not what I have known or am framiliar with), my strengths and the concept of life balance or “lōkahi”.

Na Kanaka (Human Kind):

Life Time Goal: Live with Humility, Authenticity, Mindfulness

Using: Learner Strength (I’m not good with people, yet, but I can learn), Input Strength (I can swallow my pride, take advice and learn from others).

Large Practice: Assertive Communication

Tiny Plan: Become grateful and use problems as time to connect with other people.

🗹 Gratitude Challenge – Consistent gratitude for 30 days. -Nomz “It’s helping me so much to be doing this together with someone, I don’t need a running buddy to run, but for whatever reason having a gratitude buddy has helped me be consistent and stop making excuses about why I can’t do this.”

🗹 Connect with Loved Ones: Look Up – Rachel Stafford. Just look up from the phone/computer/chore ext at the eyes of the person talking to you. “It’s possible to say “I can’t do this right now, but we can talk later,” and then talk later, really talk. When I wanted to always drop everything for my kids, I almost never did, now I’m trying to listen to them 2/3 times and ask them to wait for me 1/3 times.”

🗹 Connect with Loved Ones: Look In – Rachel Stafford. Try to look inside to how someone else could be feeling. “I’m starting by looking at them when they are probably happy (even that is hard for me, most of my life I thought since I can’t really know how they feel why even bother guessing?) and as I get better I’ll try to be able to look at them when they are in a lot of pain or angry.”

🗹 Connect with Other Humans – Check email, direct Facebook message with my friends, look in the eye of people talking to me directly. “The hard part of this is knowing what counts as connection, for me reading a feed isn’t connection, yet a direct messege is, I know because it makes me smile to get a direct messege and reading my friend’s feed makes me feel distant from them weirdly enough.”

🗹 Read books or Articles – “This is a way to connect and respect other people and also learn from them. For some people it doesn’t give a sense of connection, but for me it does. Shout out to all my readers, you guys really inspire me, I read articles from most of my readers and it’s an exchange of ideas where we all grow together, that’s what I believe anyways.”

🗹 Radical Acceptance: Did you receive all people/someone exactly as they are? -“I’m accepted all my readers, young old, male female, it makes it easy to accept others who accept you and hearing my words makes me feel really accepted by others, I’ve also accepted my “willful” daughter more than ever. Still working on the rest of humanity.”

🗹 See problems as opportunities. -Arleen Lorance “I saw all problems between people as an opportunity to connect with people, which is kind of like cheating, but also sincere now.”

Ke Akua (Spirituality):

Life Time Goal: Live with Serenity, Proactivity

Using: Intellection Strength

Large Practice: Kaizen, Kon Mari, Minimalism

Tiny Plan: Get Ready for a Kon Mari week.

🗹 Malama Pono – Be forthright and proactive in your life. -Demitri

🗹 Walk Away: From anger, ego, people who put you down, fear, the past. -Dr. Jurisharma “Walked away from people who put me down by saying that bloggers are people who don’t want to hear other people’s opnions or not real writers.”

🗹 Boldly Celebrate Yourself – Nomz “Doing the new “Life Improvement System” based on my values and strengths is really empowering, it’s me celebrating what I want my life to be and how I can get there instead of living by what works for others or what others value most.”

🗹 Creative Endevors… Brainstorming. Drawing, painting, and/or sculpting. -Demitri Martin “Actually writing should be here too, did do some writing lately. Writing is like painting with words or sculpting with ideas.”

🗹 Create your own reality consciously. -Arleen Lorance “I had a “hot” curry that my sister told me was “mild,” it is crazy but I honestly could not taste the spice, I thought my dad was crazy to say it was spicy. I trust my sister so much I couldn’t perseve the spice she told me wasn’t there until I found the box that said “hot.” Right now I’m trying to fight the feeling I can’t get anything done because I have trouble with my oldest child and it tires me out, I keep trying to prove that even though I don’t get everything I want done I can still do “something” but the feeling is still there, it’s still a struggle to believe the truth, even though I know that it’s true.”

🗹 Have no expectations, but rather, abundant expectancy. -Arleen Lorance “I am, I have no expectations that this system will be better than the first or that either will help my life, yet I’m still trying with an open mind to see what happens.”

Ka ‘Aina (That Which Nourishes):

Life Time Goal: Perservierence

Using: Responsibility Strength

Large Practice: Permaculture Gardening, Martial Arts, Stoic Living

Tiny Plan: Teach martial arts in the non-growth season, farm in the spring and summer. Stoic Quote of the Day.

🗹 Aloha ʻĀina: “Planted on grain of wheat today, and was so amused by the way a single grain looks special in a pot when they go unnoticed in a field, of course as a whole they feed more people. The garden constantly brings me new experiences and new wonder.”

🗹 Be the change you want to see happen instead of trying to change anyone else. -Arleen Lorance “Particularly starting a tiny family farm, because in Hawaii most of the food is shipped in and the economy is very negatively impacted by the high food costs that result and also the farmers at the port of origen are somewhat abused by being under paid.”

🗹 Did you let people help you/provide others with opportunities to give? -Arleen Lorance “For me this applies to letting my family help me run the farm without nit picking them perfectionalisticly in a way that makes them not be able to help me and in the months I can’t garden it applies to letting my kids help around the house and with school time, it also applies to accepting money from my husband with gratitude instead of shame after working most of my life it is hard to take his money to stay home and school our kids, but if he will support me I should take the support I need to do the things that matter most to me (schooling the kids and nurturing the kids).”

🗹 Respectful Parenting – The philosopher Immanuel Kant said that rational human beings should be treated as an end in themselves and not as a means to something else. The fact that we are human has value in itself. If a person is an end-in-themself it means their inherent value doesn’t depend on anything else – it doesn’t depend on whether the person is enjoying their life, or making other people’s lives better. We exist, so we have value. “I’m starting with respectful parenting, but after the class is over I plan to expand slowly towards the rest of my social connections, my birth family, my husband, my friends, everyone I meet, people I don’t know… “Recently I read this proberb: if you plant for a month, plant kalo (taro/food), if you plant for 10 years plant koa (tree/shelter), if you plant for 100 years teach the children, that is why these things (respectful parenting and farming related goals) are together now.”

Lōkahi (Harmony/Life Balance):

Life Time Goal: Resilience

Using: Resolver Strength

Large Practice: Self Leadership

Tiny Plan: Keep working with this Life Improvement System

🗹 To communicate and illuminate healing and more importantly, to reunite that which has been broken back into unity, and awareness—in short, to renew… – Dr. Maka’ala Yates “Worked with my dad on the cars for a bit, searching for a paracitic battery drain.”

🗹 Did you set weekly goals? -Demitri Martin “Yes, redid the system.”

🗹 Did you take daily steps toward achieving those goals? -Demitri Martin “Yes, especially by finding a better schema, it’s not working backwards to cheat it’s working backwards to find a bridge between real life and my heart.”

🗹 Errands: Do your cleaning, marketing, and pay your bills on time. -Demitri Martin “Yes, kept up with the cleaning I commited to do, don’t have marketing, paid the bills on time for the first time this year.”

☐ Money: Keep careful track of your income and expenses. -Demitri Martin “Still a not yet.”

Letting Go: What I Chose to Let Go Off from the Life Improvement System 1

Old Schema: Mind (Removed because my mind is too broad a catagory for me right now). Body (Removed because my body is well). Aloha & Relationships (Removed because I’m so drained already, aloha is about filling your self, grounding yourself and then spreading love, I need to do the first step first right now). Kuleana & Career/Personal Management (Removed because as a stay at home mom, homeschool teacher and non-profit farmer this area of my life is basically sacrificed for a larger relationship and family section and a smaller focus within my balance section more than covers the important aspects of this schema).

Old Weekly Goal Focuses: Eat better. (Removed because my health is good and I eat well). Exercise. (Removed because it’s a habit, but it doesn’t require my focus, it’s already become a life style). Did you help a friend/stranger? Uplift those around you? Do something nice for someone? (Removed because it’s too hard to judge if I helped someone else or uplifted them, I want to do this, but I don’t want to be score keepering it, I don’t want to be doing it conditionally for the point, I want to keep doing it, but not in this way, I want it to be a biproduct of the way I live rather than the goal, and I also believe that me wanting to help others puts me in a place of judgement that they are not already fine the way they are, that life isn’t already fine the way it is, it creates pity rather than compassion and understanding for me. I want to help, but in a free and adaptable way depending on what I can do and in a more intuitve way. I also want to help from the inside out, by bettering myself first (not making a profit, but reaching an inner peace and inner balance and living normal life in that way). Instead of trying to find all people “beautiful,” I’m just trying to accept that they “are” as they are, I don’t think all people are beautiful and I don’t think it’s neccesary that they all are beautiful to appriciate the diversity and harmony of human life (I’m glad you can Arleen, it’s just not in me to do it!).

The New System First Week Review:

21 Points of 22 Points = 95% for the first week of October, even though it’s been two days I wanted to move the evaluation off Sunday so I can relax and relect without worrying about getting this done on that day. It feels really good to have a system I created for myself instead of using someone else’s goals to run my life. I’m glad I used my free time for this today. This is my most like serries, so it was reader inspiration that helped me allow myself to take the time to do this! 🌻

P.S. I didn’t edit grammer yet nor make my own graphic so I will go back for those things another time, I just wanted to get this out there.

The next week I was able to streamline a little more.