Failure & David Goggins

Byjack

I’ve been thinking so long about the fear of failure and embracing pain since the fear of failure holds me back in almost every area of life.

David Goggins is famous for being someone who has made his thing embracing pain.

It’s interesting because I always wrote people like Goggins off, and I still feel like he is missing the subtle touch, the emotional and artistic, but I actually think he is onto something,

Some of the main takeaways:

  • Embracing showing how messed up you are don’t care what anyone thinks
  • Everyone is messed up, if they are judging you, they are just better at hiding it than you
  • Use every naysayer as motivation
  • When you embrace your faults, you will find the who you really are and pursue that
  • Self discipline is creating self respect

This self discipline thing has always been interesting to me because I’ve heard this before. But I don’t really understand it. Isn’t discipline yelling at yourself?

The embracing failures and not hiding your failures to see what you really want to be is really telling to me as well. I always wonder what I should do, but I can wonder what I could do. And being willing to show everything wrong with me just will get me closer to clarity on who I am.

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The Bedtime Challenge

Byjack

Sleep has always been the beast I had to conquer.

Ever since I left my house and went off to college, it has been increasingly hard to go to bed on time.

It’s killing me. I don’t recover from workouts, my mind is foggy, and my memory mists away. My moods feel erratic and neurotic. Energy during the day is a thing of the past.

And yet I cannot stop.

2 am, 3 am, 4 am, 5 am. I keep going to bed late. And sometimes later and later.

I tried so many times to go to be at a reasonable time. I try for a few days, and then I relapse. But we aren’t giving up. We are trying it one more time.

And I didn’t do it alone. My good friend Edgar gave me this kick in the butt:

So what is my gameplan this time? How am I going to succeed when I failed so many times before?

A couple of things:

  1. I will not try to control how much sleep I get
  2. I will not try to control my screen habits
  3. I will not control anything but one single factor, which is my bedtime
  4. At the same time, I will figure out what needs I am meeting by going to bed late and how to meet those needs earlier in the day
  5. I will commit to this bedtime long enough to form a habit

I made a list of reasons why I love staying up late at night:

  • Completely alone
  • Lots of time – no rush
  • Sense of accomplishment (if I feel I haven’t accomplished anything yet it gives me more time to get things done)
  • Consume art
  • Nighttime magical vibes
  • Dread of the next day
  • More time to eat and digest

I realized that not sleeping is incredibly compelling to me. It is far more challenging for me to go to sleep on time than most people. So as a result, I need to keep it simple. Bedtime at 11 PM for the next 66 days, no exceptions. The challenge will end on December 12th. I am two days into this challenge already.

What does this mean?

  • I can eat right before bed
  • I can watch videos in my bed after 11
  • I can get back up, stretch if I cannot fall asleep, then go back to bed
  • I can toss and turn at 11
  • I can get up at 6 am if I have work that needs to be done but I don’t have the time to finish it

In the meantime, in an attempt to meet all my needs before bed:

  • I will silence notifications and try to find some alone time every day
  • I will work to identify a task that is feasible to do and will give me a strong sense of accomplishment every day
    • I will try to get this done early so that I will have larger open times during the day where I don’t feel rushed
  • I will pursue more art and magical vibes
  • I will try to leave gifts for myself the next day so I have positive anticipation(ex: a clean empty sink, plans for something fun)
  • I will try to eat at 8 pm at the latest so I have time to digest before 11

In terms of how to structure the next 66 days, I have not decided yet, but perhaps I will try to focus on each of the needs and strategies every week.

Some additional strategies/thoughts:

  • Turning off all the lights
  • Melatonin gummies

So far, finding a way to feel accomplished/ready for the next day has been a game-changer in wanting to go to sleep. Also, it is easier to go to sleep when bedtime is a hard boundary that is very strict and everything else is quite relaxed (I can still get less sleep and wake up super earlier if I feel I’m not prepared for the next day, I don’t have to go to sleep as long as I’m in bed). Nothing is tempting as a valid excuse/difficult decision anymore.

So tentatively I feel this time will be different. My hope is that after 66 days, I will no longer have to try to go to bed at 11, it will just be automatic, and I will start to cherish my sleep and life in general!

A Taoist Approach to Productivity

Byjack

I’ve been meditating on productivity and I was curious as to a more taoist approach. I’ve come up with a couple of ideas:

  • Make things more empty
    • Pursue each task with the goal of emptiness
      • Focus on one thing at a time and do work to make everything feel empty
    • Look to make your to do list more empty
      • Delete things off the to do list
      • Schedule time sensitive things
      • Clear off small tasks immediately
      • Moving it to tomorrow
  • Reduce the size of mountains
    • Create simple steps to kick off each task
  • Seek balance
    • Seek out more risk when things are stale
    • Seek out more structure when things are too risky

Tired

Byjack

I haven’t been sleeping well. I’m feeling tired lonely and unmotivated.

Feeling into more my feelings, I feel exhausted. Probably need to just hang for a bit.

I went to go hang for a bit and I feel a little better. However, I still feel pretty tired.

One thing that I want to point out is that I at least slept much better last night than previous nights and was able to go to sleep around 1 am instead of 2 or 4.

One of the things that I’ve been struggling with is mewing. Just like last time, I think I don’t know what to do with my jaw. I’m thinking I will focus on keeping the tongue in the top of my mouth and a good posture and not worry about closing my jaw because that feels uncomfortable (and for some reason my mouth gets really dry).

I’m trying to get back into my coaching mindset:

  1. You are in my house – this is a big one because I feel out of control of my life at the moment
  2. Don’t be afraid to be silent
  3. Take risks
  4. Be patient

Well I got an artist interview in about 6 minutes, but after that, I want to go somewhere fun and write about the artist interviews as well as compile my notes.

Back Home

Byjack

After almost 3 months away from home, I’m finally back and I’m reminded of the life I built here. Peaceful, open, free, and lonely. There are so many possibilities and spaciousness to fill my life with wonderful things.

Today I want to focus my time in building the life that I want to live in the next few months when I will be transitioning to a part time role in my day job in order to spend more time on coaching and building my life up.

Here are some things I want to do:

  1. Unpack
  2. Clean & Tidy
  3. Cut my nails
  4. Look into Gi Doctors
  5. Look into a sleep study
  6. Spend some time with the gf
  7. Cook food
  8. Plan my trip with my brother and sister
  9. Cross off any remaining things on my todo list

Basically, I want to have a clean slate for the next stage of things such as:

  1. Finding a part time gig where I can exercise without hurting myself
  2. Signing back up for jiujitsu
  3. Editing youtube shorts of coaching sessions
  4. Setting up more coaching sessions
  5. Working on sales plays for AI consulting
  6. Researching into buying a house

I went for a morning walk and I wanted to express some appreciation that I gained from my journeys.

Parents House, appreciations for:

  • Health
  • Cooking
  • Playing games with my brother

France, appreciation for:

  • Walking
  • Beauty of old buildings
  • Cuddling

My happiest times in my parent’s house were eating food, and spending time with my brother and parents.

My happiest times in France were spending time with my girlfriend and coming up with crazy schemes.

I was also stressed in both places. In my parent’s house, it was being watched by my parents. In France, I felt very unsafe. Unsafe in stores, on the streets, unsafe in the Airbnb (afraid to break or spill things), unsafe while working (afraid not to be productive).

I think safety is something I want to work on as France is somewhere I would like to feel more at home at.

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Setting Boundaries With Others

Byjack

I recently had a situation at work where I felt like I needed to set some boundaries. In order to get more strategies on how to do it, I went with my trusty expert Thais Gibson, who I feel is the absolute best when it comes to coming up with scripts and strategies with processing feelings, dealing with attachment styles and setting and enforcing boundaries.

Taking what Thais says in this video and adding in my own knowledge, I have come up with the follow step process for setting boundaries.

  1. Rage pad: write down or record yourself saying everything you want to say to the person. This gives permission to anger and allows you to process it.
  2. Determine whether or not a boundary was crossed, and if so, what specific one?
  3. Try to empathize as to why that boundary was crossed
  4. Communicate in this format:
    1. Communicate in the positive the boundary violation (what they did, not what they didn’t do). <Insert empathy> At the same time, this is not acceptable under any circumstances.
    2. Explain what you want instead
    3. If repeated violations, add in consequences

Make it really obvious to the person what is going on.