I was in Taichi class the other day and my instructor said something very interesting.
She told us that if you are leaning forward, then you are “giving too much”. And if you lean back too much, you are “accepting too much” and when someone gives you a compliment, all you need to do is say a simple thank you.
It is an very interesting concept in taichi, this idea of always being in balance, always sitting on your heels even when pushing forwards.
I really want to experiment and see how much I can apply this to things like Valorant or productivity.
I’ve been playing pokemon go so much recently. I’ve made a lot of progress in the game, but I really worry that I’m getting addicted because of how stressed out I am right now.
I stressed out about my relationship and about my career path moving forward. I want to make sure that work does not take over my life and that it stays aligned to what I want to do moving forward.
Every time I feel stressed, I reach for the pokemon go. Holy shit, I am addicted.
I feel very tired, but no longer sick. That is a good thing at least.
I’m going to walk around the airport. And this time, instead of catching pokemon, I am going to meditate and think.
On the plane I meditated on some of my issues and I came to a big realization. The first step to feeling or processing any pain is to notice and name the pain that exists. I spend so much time avoiding thinking about painful emotions or experiences, avoiding thinking about how things hurt me it makes it hard to face the pain at all since I’m not taking the first step,
I want to focus on doing that more now as the first step to processing more emotions.
Today I did a long breathwork meditation session after feeling extremely stressed out about three questions:
Should I sign up for jiujitsu again?
Should I do coaching again?
Should I continue therapy?
And all the worrying stressful sub questions:
What about the money for jiujitsu
Jiujitsu is so hard to get good at
People might not buy my coaching if I didn’t do something really big
Therapy costs so much money is it worth it?
And after the meditation, one thing was clear to me. The answer to everything: take everything so much less serious. Have fun!!!
If you have fun doing jiujitsu, sign up for it, go to classes when you feel like it. Have an amazing time doing work. If you love coaching, do it whether or not people believe that you are a good coach or not.
Enjoy yourself. Indulge yourself in boba while working. Take breaks to play on the piano, to draw.
P.S. I did sign up for jiujitsu, and I intend to have fun learning tons of new martial arts.
Today in the King’s council, part men’s group, part coaching session, we talked about setting goals.
I didn’t have an idea of what my goals are but a couple of visions came to mind:
Coaching is a large part of my life. I saw about 3 coaching conversations with clients or potential clients every week.
Youtube challenges being a large source of energy in life. I saw myself dedicating a little time every day to focus on an active challenge. This could be writing about the challenge, doing the challenge or shooting videos and thinking about the final video.
I imagined feeling a lot more confident and in control of my challenges. I saw this as having successfully editing and posted a single challenge to youtube.
I saw myself being outside and having a lot more energy. I would spend different parts of my day in different places.
I saw my work-life come alive again. This meant posting posts on Linkedin every week, and engaging with people at work about my life outside of work.
I need to choose three main ones for the intention of the Kings Council.
I will choose the following goals:
To have a powerful coaching conversation with three more people.
To have one paying client.
To have produced three challenge videos and posted them to youtube.
Yesterday, I went to bed late. I didn’t want to wake up the next day.
Today was the next day. And it sucked. Just like I had feared. I was tired. I was stressed. I was an hour late to a meeting that was at 8AM.
Today I wanted to find a new solution. I want to find a different way to look at things. And I think I found it.
Here are the key parts of my new mindset:
Think about how much money I want to make today from 0 to about $500. Think about what projects I want to work on that will be worth that much.
Think about how I want to increase the value of the company I am contracted to – so I can have a success story and be paid more.
Take care of myself. Make tea, go for a walk.
Go to a nice place to work, go through my to do list. Create my workpost for the day.
If work is demanded early without having time to prepare, compensate myself an hour. Then bring blankets and other comfy things to my chair to make myself comfy and allow myself to wake up slowly.
I was struggling really hard on making videos recently and struggling even harder to figure out what I’m doing with my life.
I know this is in large part to the enormous pressure that I put on myself in order to do well and it makes me very angry that my parents brought me up in such a way, a way in which I feel constantly paralyzed with the fear of anything less than perfection.
There are a few things that I found relief with:
MENTALITY 1: The focused mindset
Let everything else fall away but the feeling of what you are aiming at (whether it is to walk, to move, to express) and the sensations within your body. Feel the right time to strike, to act.
MENTALITY 2: The meditative mindset
Let everything fall away, most of all, your identity. Feel the universe around you and wait patiently for something to surface, let all conscious thoughts and solutioning to dissolve like sugar in water. Only sensations remain, and the vastness of space.
MENTALITY 3: The unchained mindset
Give yourself permission to do and think about everything and anything. Accept yourself for everything. Give yourself permission to do anything. Imagine that you’ve already done it and give yourself permission to do it.
In the end of the day, I realized that it’s not about what you do with you life. You can do anything. You can always change your mind. It’s more of a question of what you want to do right now if you can do anything that you want.
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:
I will not try to control how much sleep I get
I will not try to control my screen habits
I will not control anything but one single factor, which is my bedtime
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
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!
