What IS "My Tortoise Experiment" Exactly?

Day 1
I have a Type-A personality.  Being neither a positive or a negative but rather a "just-is" kind of statement, I've finally learned over my 47 years on this earth how to navigate that personality trait with a shadow of success.  What do I mean by that?


Being an Type-A personality at times has served me well.  When I would start a new project or job for instance, I would jump in 150%, quickly become a favorite employee,  raises and praises were sure to follow.  When I joined the Air Force a life time ago, I was an exemplary soldier.  Those times when I am faced with a particularly unpleasant and difficult task, like fasting for 10 days, I have the ability to "hunker-down" as the saying goes and pull myself through.  These are the positives.
The negatives, as most A-type peoples will tell you, is that I run at such a high speed mentally, physically and emotionally, that eventually my energy takes a nose dive, and with it my enthusiasm and desire.  At this point, I only hope I have completed the task at hand.  If not, best case it gets done months or even years later and worse case, it gets dropped out of my timeline like good vegetables scraps discarded to the compost heap.


So what does this have to do with My Tortoise Experiment?


As previously stated, age and time has given me wisdom, so for what I believe to be the first time EVER in my life, childhood or adulthood, I'm going to take a different approach to accomplishing the goals I have laid out for myself this year.


My typical mode of operando would have been to decide what I wanted to achieve, design a plan, then dive into it so fast and deeply that everything else in my life suffered.  Enough time goes by and  I would then crack under the stress of trying to keep the irrational pace up.  So not only would another goal not get achieved, but over that coarse of weeks or months, I let everything else in my life go to hell in the proverbial hand basket.  Ultimately, I was worse off then had I not tried to achieve anything to start with.


The problem:  the heart of a Type-A human never runs out of desire.  More accurately, my body is bursting with desire for all those goals I have yet to achieve or attempt.


So once again I find myself with some goals I want to achieve this year.


However,  I'm taking a different approach.


My Tortoise Experiment.


Based on the wisdom of Chinese philosopher Laozi in the Tao Te Ching, "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step," I begin my personal journey today of a thousand miles.
The title of this blog, as you most undoubtedly have figured out already, is drawn upon from the famous Aesop's Fable, "The Tortoise and the Hare."  I'm the tortoise.


So, how does this experiment work?  Well, in just a moment I will lay out the goals I want to achieve this year.  Instead of diving into them with my normal recklessness, I'm going to baby step my way through them.  This is actually a non-scientific theory I came up with and developed over a year ago.  After research, study, and observing my very successful tortoise husband, I theorized that it is probable to achieve more in the long run if I took the journey of achieving my goals very, very slowly in what I call "bitty-bites."  My Tortoise Experiment is exactly that, an experiment to test my theory and see if I am correct in my hypothesis.


Now let's get to the good stuff.  What are my goals for the next year?  I have laid out five specific ones.


1.  Taekwondo Black Belt.
2.  Lose 19 pounds and 17% body fat.
3.  Be able to converse in Korean.
4.  Get our families cost-of-living down to 50% of our take home pay.
5.  Blog about my progress daily.


Seems like some lofty goals to achieve doesn't it?  Remember bitty-bites, bitty bites!


Here is my beginning plan for each goal based on My Tortoise Experiment theory.




1.  Taekwondo Black Belt
I have been studying Taekwondo for just over 3 years.  I am currently a blue belt.  I have lost a lot of time from knee surgery, gall bladder surgery, moving, working, etc, etc. Enough with excuses.  Here is my plan.  To the best of my calculations, within the next 365 days I have 115 Taekwondo classes based on my three days a week attendance minus holidays and special days when class is cancelled.  My goal is to not miss more than 10% of classes or 12 classes, baring I don't receive another knee surgery.  My fingers are crossed.  This should get me very close, if not reach my Black Belt goal.
To be honest, I don't know that I can make my black belt goal this year even if I never miss a day.  That is up to my instructors to determine if I am ready or not.  But what I do know, is that if I follow the plan I have put forth, even if I don't make Black Belt, I will be very, very close.  For me, knowing I stuck to my goal will be reward enough for this one.


2.  Lose 19 Pounds and 17% Body Fat
This one doesn't require much of a set up, it just is.
So how do I plan to achieve my goal.  Firstly, I'm obviously going to be getting a good workout from attending Taekwondo class three days a week.  I then plan to add one exercise and or rep to my fitness program daily.  Basically I'll start with one exercise then up it by one rep or minute, depending on the exercise, the next day.  This will be a tough one for me.  Since I'm relatively fit my initial reaction is to become the hare again and dive right in to a rigorous fitness program.  So my bitty-bites mantra will have to be my guide.
I'm also cutting out alcohol to only a few times a month as opposed to my almost nightly drink.  Embarrassing yes, but true. 
As far as my diet goes, we eat fairly healthy anyway, so I'm just going to keep trying to clean it up a bit more.  The biggest change as far as my meals are concerned is eating smaller meals.


3.  Be able to converse in Korean
Where the heck did this goal come from I'm sure your asking.  No my husband nor any member of my family, distant or otherwise is Korean.  Short and simple,  I homeschool my 12 year old son.  Three and a half years ago he decided he wanted to learn the Korean language.  After some difficulty, I eventually located a very good local Korean school in Raleigh which he attends Saturday mornings for three hours.  Up until about a year ago I had been able to help him study even though I didn't know anything in Korean other than how to count to ten.
Once I realized my very limited Korean wasn't going to be sufficient to help him any longer, I decided it was time I started attending classes as well.  Besides, I have always had a secret desire to learn multiple languages.  I figured this past August was as good a time as any to start.
Problem?  I haven't been putting in the time I need to fully learn the language.  Instead I've just kind of been "winging it."  No more.  The plan?  One, to study a minimum of five days a week and one hour or more intervals and two, to not only be prepared for class each week but to know my information with confidence.  The other part to this recipe includes me practicing speaking Korean to someone a minimum of three days a week.  Not as hard as it may sound since I have Korean friends I interact with a minimum of three days a week at taekwondo.


4.  Get our Families Cost of Living Down to 50% of our Take-Home Pay
I'll simply preface this goal by saying, other than a mortgage, two months ago we had no debt and our cost of living was hovering around 60-65%.  This past November we moved into the new beautiful home we built, and along with it came a new not-so-beautiful mortgage.  While we still have no debt other than both mortgages, our cost of living has quickly risen to around 90-95%.  I'm actually not one hundred percent certain how accurate that percentage is, which is unusual for me since I'm a numbers person, but being as we just moved the data hasn't settled yet.  So 90-95% is based on my best educated guess.
As I said, we have no debt other than the mortgage on our new home and the mortgage on our old home, the latter of which is up to be rented out.  Being January it could take a couple of months but we are extremely optimistic it will happen soon. 
To fully understand my goal of getting our cost of living down to 50% of take home pay, there is a bit of backstory I need to fill you in on.  First, I am a stay-at-home mom so I do not have any income.  We live strictly off of my husbands'.  Secondly, we didn't sell our old home because we wanted it as part of our investment portfolio.  Problem?  We want it paid off quickly.  As in NOW!  Thirdly, once the house is paid off we want to purchase more rental properties with CASH ONLY! 
Lofty goal yes, but one we can achieve with dedication.
So what is my plan to get my cost of living down from 90% of take-home to 50%?  Well you'll just have to follow along as I put all my frugal tips into place, as well as discover more unique and creative ways to reach my goal.


5.  Blog about my Progress Daily
Two simple explanations can account for this goal.  One, I need to hold myself accountable.  Most goals are accomplished by both writing them down and reviewing them daily.  Secondly, I hope, my experiment will inspire others.


That's it.  That's My Tortoise Experiment in a nutshell, or should I say turtle shell?  Okay, not so much.


Until we meet again tomorrow.
Jamie