0 Dark 30

0 Dark 30

Very early in the morning, pronounced oh, dark thirty. [Editor's Note: A lot of people have complained that a Marine would not call the numeral zero an "oh". That is possibly correct but it was pronounced in that unorthodox way when it was first used in the 1960s, possibly to add emphasis to the phrase.] Source: An UNABRIDGED Unofficial Dictionary for Marines

0 Dark 30 is the catch phrase I’m using to encompass a series of changes I’ve made to how I live, starting in January 2009. The changes include what I eat (and how much), what I spend (and what I save), how I exercise, how I pray, and when I get up in the morning, the last being the origin of the catch phrase.

The Challenge

For the last several years, I’ve had periods during which my life seemed completely out of control. I’d stay up half the night surfing the web, or playing some game on my XBOX 360, or writing code, get a few hours of sleep, and then try to drag myself through the following day. My weight swung from a diet low of around 190lbs to a peak of around 230lbs, and I was utterly out of shape due to little or no exercise. And my finances, despite a good job and a wife who is a good money manager, were getting further out of control each year.

At work, my email always seemed out of control, peaking at more than 4,000 items sitting in my inbox…a mass of guilt and failed responsibility that seemed utterly impossible to control, much less reduce. The perpetual feeling of bouncing from one deadline to the next made it difficult to work on new ideas, or even to keep up with some initiatives, leading to a feeling of not living up to my expectations of the job.

It was clear that something needed to change.

The Failed Attempts

I’d tried to go after a variety of parts of this problem several times…dieting to lose weight worked briefly, as I dropped 40lbs, but then put most of it back on. Saving money would work for a while, until something came along that I just “had to have.” Hope of controlling the flow of email would rise briefly when trying a new personal productivity method, only to be dashed as the inbox rapidly refilled.

Achieving Success

The 0 Dark 30 blog is the story of how attacking all of these challenges at once, through a change of attitude, and a willingness to ask for help, is allowing me to succeed on all these fronts at once, where before I had met only failure. I hope you will find inspiration here, and perhaps find a path that can help you succeed in reaching your goals.

Want to know more? Check the home page, or any of the category links, for articles, book recommendations, and more.

Thanks for visiting.

G. Andrew Duthie

(header photo credit – Alfi007 on stock.xchng)