No Day Without A Thought

It's amazing, I just realized that I have this blog for over two years already. However, (and admittedly I am not saying this for the first time), I am not really sticking with the theme "no day without a thought".

However, always when I am starting to get back on track with my life, I am back on the keyboard which I guess rather speaks as a fact for how much in touch I am with myself recently/over a long time.

Today, I just want to keep it simple and list out what a version of an ideal day would look like. Without questioning knowing that there is no 'ideal day' and one shouldn't be too focused on one thing, but open for new things to happen.

(Long) Morning
- be in control of your day when waking up (surroundings, how your room looks, how much time you have, ...)
- decide this will be a good day when waking up, no matter in what mood that is
- make your bed
- if needed, calm the monkey in your mind with morning pages, just write everything down, so you get back the mental space for the day
- meditate
- read
- do sports
- eat the frog = tackle the most important task for the day

By following those steps, the day can't get any bad. I took care of myself and provided my subsconcious with the knowledge how much I value myself and my health, mentally and physically. Plus, I tackled the most important task before heading out and taking on smaller things during the day knowing, the important thing is taken care off.

Throughout the day

- be present/pay attention to what's happening (through meditation, morning pages, ..whatever helps you)
- don't react, have your agenda in mind and be focused
- schedule time for spontaneous things
- be kind and help others achieve their goal
- do sth weird/random/new/slightly uncomfortable
- eat healthy
- take breaks


Evenings

- use your dinners wisely, i.e. meet with friends, call someone from the family, build new relationships
- re run the day
- what was good/what could have gone better
- prep the next day
- no screens, write and read

Today's date is January 9, 2017.

New Year's Resolution is a big thing and the newsfeed was fuller than ever with self help advice. Granted, since I follow a bunch of accounts on different platforms, I get them frequently anyway, but now it seemed more dominant for sure.

Not that I am focused on new year goals, but the holidays and mood ahead of the holidays bring together a nice environment to reflect. I've been quite low on my self management for the last year. Basically after being in a normal startup work environment, achieving my marathon goal and having an own place, I realize how I settled more.

This settling impacted also my eagerness for new things and I got more comfortable. Additionally, I established quite a lot of good habits and mind models, so I felt fine. However, more and more I lost my path and all the good traits I worked so hard to incorporate in my live and basically myself. Overworking and the need to proof helped to lose them.

I realized how unfocused I was, or actually no, I didn't. I was in the hamster wheel. I also lost patience, didn't have as many social activities as I should have and I also constantly basically showed myself I am not worth me time. Not that I am not worth it, but always deprioritized it and put other things on top of that.

So I got sick over the holidays and since I didn't take a slower pace, my body took it. Besides, I started doing specific things on purpose again, like my morning routine (mostly quick exercises for 5min, stretching 5min, meditation 10min, journaling 3min). Not that I don't know of the benefit of those habits, but waking up and starting to work seemed just like a better use of the rare time.

Also in the evening. Prepping the next days, knowing what's there to be done. As simple as that.

There is a couple of points outstanding. Unfortunately, I have an injured shoulder for 2months which clearly helps not having a balance + I can spend more time on food and cooking. But I am getting there.

Just with those things, I found myself often these days questioning what I am actually doing right now. Was this what I wanted to do? Did I want to do that? I am still writing 2-3 to do lists for a day. Always adjusting to new changes or just reminding myself on another piece of paper. But I am again getting aware of all that and not just stupidly following my actions without thinking. 

Actually, now that I write it it seems odd and if someone else should read this it might seem like I don't get anything done. Not true actually, but now I probably get things done with less stress. I still feel that sometimes the smallest thing overwhelm me, but probably because I need to catch up with a couple of things I haven't managed to do previously. Like registering my apartment, booking trips to a wedding etc. - I basically need to empty my RAM memory, get daily breaks/time for myself and also schedule some real offtime soon.

But, I am getting there and it feels good. Writing this hopefully makes me more aware of it as well and reinforces the development.

• Most creative
• Weird mind state that gets you going
• Primer for the day: eat the frog, meditate to get you into the right state
• it's like cheating, you use the time for the most important part

Write down of what I took out of Tony Robbins' most recent podcast:

https://itunes.apple.com/de/podcast/the-tony-robbins-podcast/id1098413063?l=en&mt=2


Let's imagine you see two people in front of you, with the exact same background story, i.e. could be that their parents were divorced, they are black/white/green, maybe handicapped, got kidnapped, mobbed in school, or any other really bad previous experiences (or also positive ones).

Those two people could still be completely different and will lead there life's completely different.

When people claim that it is about where people are coming from directly correlates with how successful they are, that is just not true, but a simple excuse that helps you stay at the exact spot where you are. Which is convenient, because you can't change anything your job is done and no responsibility lies on you. Oh, how much people love that.

If you dig deeper and are honest to yourself, that argument doesn't hold up for long.

'It's not about conditions, but decisions.' Decisions will bring you the life you want.

Furthermore, when making excuses why you are not where you want to be, one of the following might just be within your logic: time, money, mentors, access, network, location, fitness, ...

'Getting where you want to be is not about having resources, but being resourceful.'

A quite powerful example that gives a nice visual image to that:
"Who do you think should keep more track of their money, the poor or the rich? And who do you think monitors their money more closely?"

Like the argument mentioned above about the correlation between condition <> success, it is mostly the story that you tell yourself that limits your potential. The story you tell yourself is self fulfilling.
'He who says he can and he who says he can't are bot usually right.' - Confucius

It's not because you have a slow metabolism or because of heavy bones, but because you are lying on the couch, watching TV and stuffing your face with chips. But by repeating the story over and over in your head, you find a save haven where you can hide.

What you need to be successful (keeping in mind 'successful' is a customized word by every person, there is no unified answer to what success means):
1) Strategy => how to achieve what you are looking for
If you want to lose weight, you can find hundreds of books, podcasts, workshops and experts within reach that will provide you with strategies of how to lose weight. It is a well studied field. Not everything might be right, potentially some works better than the other for you, but there is tons of material out there that will help you lose weight.
2) Story
But it is actually the story that you tell yourself that will make you push through. If you find the inner motivation and why you need to do it, there is no holding back. You can also see that as raising your standards. People always achieve their 'musts', but not the 'someday, maybe' kinda things. Raise your standards and change the story and you will achieve great things.
3) State
Be fit. Be hungry. Be persistent. The right mental state will get you a long way. Obviously there will be downtimes or recharging moments and the story will get you back on track. But you need to be in a mental powerful state to make this happen.

'It's not about conditions, it's about decisions.' 
What most dominant decision that you constantly make is what you are focusing on.

To achieve your goals, you need focus:
1) what you can control <> what you can't control
It is scientifically proven that you will lead a happier life when you focus on the things you can control. Obviously, when you can't control things and have those things on top of your mind, you will be passive without any immediate impact on your life, you'll impotent. Seems super clear to me that you will be unhappy when doing this.
2) positive <> negative
self explanatory I guess
3) past <> present <> future
Having point 1) in mind this should be straight forward as well. Even though we all focus on each of the three at some point, what do you tend to focus on the most is important. When focusing on the past, you focus on something you can't control any longer. Only living in the future will make you unhappy as well, as you are missing out in actual living, but it's also exciting to look forward and what potential the world has. For me I found when being in a balance between future and present is the best to me.
4) what you have <> what you are missing
Let's reframe here. Should you read this, I am pretty sure you're life is better on paper than for 90% of the people on this earth (or some similar stat). Plus, you are constantly dreaming, actually not dreaming, but putting yourself in a miserable state. If you practice gratitude about what you have, you focus will shift and you will be happier. A balanced view on what you are missing provides you with a healthy hunger, but don't get yourself trapped there.

A friend who is about to take a big leap in her life and move to another country recalls that everyone around her says the good old quotes 'do what you want to do / everything will work out / there is no fixed path we need to take / etc'.

Even though she exactly believes that she has a hard time feeling encouraged by those words, because no one of the friends are doing it themselves - me including.

I've been following that advice myself, but that time seems like a different life these days. Then I looked into myself and realized that it is already two years for me to be in one company. Three years in Berlin, where I didn't necessarily wanted to be in the first place - or just not right now, but eventually. Friends are getting married and become parents. I'm going less out and dig my head into ridiculous work hours (maybe because I am afraid to face other challenges?).

There is a bunch of stuff privately as well as professionally that is in my hand but I deprioritized or/and a lot of things that I let take over my life. I haven't done sports either and didn't focus on my health which is usually the perfect sign the things go downhill. Overall, I haven't been much stable in the last two years. It was a constant up and down with full force into healthy lifestyle and 6x sports/week, or binge watching series with chocolate, take away food and a beer (in whatever order).

For two weeks I am alone at home right now which is time I use to set the base for a better trajectory in life. I've been to yoga, started journaling again, running and gym, deleted some time waster apps on my phone, went to a networking event, hang out with friends playing scrabble - it feels good. 

I missed self determination. to be continued (or not)