Another 30-day Trial

[allen080105]

Day 23 - Finished earlier today. Man, I can't wait for this next 30 days.

A question I have is about changing 30-day trials. If you find something to add or find a different way of doing things that's more effective during your 30-day trial, do you add/modify the 30-day trial or do you stick with it for the sake of consistency? After hearing that "a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds" I'm leaning towards the change option.

[allen080105]

Day 24 - Finished it all, but woke up at 7:00am though. I went to sleep at 2am and I didn't hear my alarm so that's probably why. It's good to know I'm getting better at naturally waking up earlier though.

[allen080105]

Day 25 - Finished it all. Whew. I don't like writing late at night so tommorow I want to have this done by 11:00am

[lespauldude]

I have a big tip for your waking up at 6am strategy that's guaranteed to work. I've tried too many strategies both on this site and elsewhere that haven't work for me consistently. The only real strategy was to get something to force me up long enough into a fully conscious state. What i did was put a loud alarm in a bin safe i have in my room. i put the key to the bin on the third floor of our house. i set another alarm to play something soothing and easy to wake to about 10 minutes before. when i hear the first alarm, my mind knows that i better get out of bed and get the key to the bin before the jarring 2nd alarm starts. by the time i'm back from going up and down the stairs, i'm fully awake and out of my "subconsicous lazy ass" state. it's worked everytime. i've successfully waken at 630am more than 30 days in a row.

let me know if this helps! good luck =)

[allen080105]

Day 26 + Day 27 - Finished them all.

On Day 26 I finished before we had a Thanksgiving get-together. Didn't know we would stay till 1am so I figured I would just post today.

Thanksgiving was pretty easy to get through without eating any processed starches or foods with refined sugars. It's way harder to avoid those foods where I live now. I realized that the main thing that makes the want those foods is the aroma and usually the fast food restaurants have the strongest aroma.

As for the writing I am surprised at the results. I've said before that several times I write affirmations because I can't think of things to write for 2 straight hours and I don't want to just sit there. I've written "I'm an extremely talented writer" at least 4-5 thousand times in my journal on the computer. After a while I realized I could be the best writer in the world but if no one sees it, there's really no point. So I recently switched over to affirming that "I am an extremely talented and effective marketer", and I've probably wrote that 300-400 times by hand.

The results have been noticeable with the writing affirmation. I'm starting to feel like a talented writer now. I wrote an article for my blog at the beginning of this 30-day trial and I thought all it needed was editing so I let it sit there and told myself I would come back to it. I came back to it today and I was deleting and replacing stuff in it like crazy. In my head I'm like "a talented writer would make make this stand out...delete...replace". So many things changed. It's a much stronger, smoother-flowing article now though imo.

I think I might take the word "talented" out of the affirmations. Really what I want is to be effective. I can be a talented writer or a talented marketer while still not being effective in creating genuine value that leads to tangible changes in the lives of those who receive that value.

[allen080105]

Originally Posted by lespauldude

I have a big tip for your waking up at 6am strategy that's guaranteed to work. I've tried too many strategies both on this site and elsewhere that haven't work for me consistently. The only real strategy was to get something to force me up long enough into a fully conscious state. What i did was put a loud alarm in a bin safe i have in my room. i put the key to the bin on the third floor of our house. i set another alarm to play something soothing and easy to wake to about 10 minutes before. when i hear the first alarm, my mind knows that i better get out of bed and get the key to the bin before the jarring 2nd alarm starts. by the time i'm back from going up and down the stairs, i'm fully awake and out of my "subconsicous lazy ass" state. it's worked everytime. i've successfully waken at 630am more than 30 days in a row.

let me know if this helps! good luck =)

Do you still have to do this past the 30-day mark? Do you naturally wake up at 6:30am now?

I've been walking around when I wake up @ 6am, but there are still many times where I don't feel well rested so I go to sleep for about another hour and I feel well rested after that. I don't know whether this is because I'm going to sleep too late (12-1am), or a nutritional problem or that I'm supposed to feel like that at 6am. Ideally I would like to wake up @ 6am feeling well rested and full of energy.

[allen080105]

Day 28 - Finished it all. I'm going to finish the writing earlier tomorrow.

[lespauldude]

i still do this after the 30 day mark. i've tried waking up naturally but there are just too many variables like drinking, late weekend nights, late assignments etc... once you start snoozing again, your mind will easily revert back to the 10+ years of pressing the snooze button (or whatever it is you do to get back in bed). i concluded that it's well worth the effort to have this simple system set you up every morning. the 30 minutes+ that i gain is well worth it.

despite getting enough sleep, sometimes i still feel tired in the morning. it can be due to feeling unmotivated the night before or having no plans the next day.

if you're still feeling tired after walking around: hide the key down the block. or try have a morning routine after the original strategy (such as taking a shower, brushing teeth, and having your coffee). there is no doubt that after all this, you'll be motivated to work again. even if there's no work, there's something productive you can do. but if you haven't achieved your goals, there's work to be done =)

you'll figure out a strategy that works out for you. i just know that for myself, i can't trust a regular alarm anymore. habits = nearly permanent neuronal changes. it will always be a part of me, but i can adapt.

[allen080105]

Day 29 & Day 30 - Finished them all. Later than I would like, but I'll work on the timing next month.

I just finished writing a post about the results of my second 30-day trial on my blog too.

Basically the trial went great. I did everything I intended to do on every day except day 24 where I didn't wake up at 6:00am but at 7:00am. I felt like I really pushed myself (especially with that writing for 2 hours) and I'm glad I did it.

Waking up at 6:00am - Technically I did wake up at 6:00am but many times I would go back to sleep despite my efforts to stay awake. This next 30 days I want to actually stay awake when I wake up.

Visualization - This is part of the trial I look forward to the most. It's the easiest and it really does a great job of putting me in an feel-good state if I do it in the mornings or mid afternoon. I did it for about 45 minutes today. I still plan on learning more about it and I definitely want to keep it as a habit for life.

Eating no processed starches or foods with refined sugars - It's been very challenging, but I made it through. I've lost 14 pounds living a very sedentary lifestyle, so I'm expecting things to get better when I incorporate some exercise and more diet tweaks. I decided after a while to cut out the fruits for now for blood sugar reasons and hopefully I can cut out the cheese for good after hearing some pretty eye-opening stuff about it.

Writing for 2 hours - This has been the hardest yet most rewarding part of the trial for me. I wrote thousands of affirmations on my computer journal and hundreds by hand. I also have about 5-6 articles on the blog that just need editing. If I can really make a habit of writing for 2 hours and publishing content consistently on the blog, then add 2 hours of marketing I will have constructed a 4-hour workday. I didn't have any idea how I would be able to implement that plan when I first started.

I wanna thank everyone who read this thread, commented, showed any kind of support, PM'd me, etc. You really helped me stay accountable when my self-trust and willpower were pretty shaky. I plan on starting another 30-day trial tomorrow so we'll see how it goes. Thanks again!