Building a new lifestyle from the ground up

[Mounds]

In a previous thread, I wondered when PD ended. What I concluded is that I graduated from personal development university (PDU) and now it's time to put my knowledge to good use, as oppose to becoming an eternal student.
Here are my thoughts... the base of any good lifestyle goes by three things: time, money and energy. Master those three things and you've got a heck of a good base. So here's the plan...

Time - my time management needs work. I'm far from terrible but I don't excel either. At work, I'm very good at working smart. At home, not so much. So, time to set up some small goals to change my time management. My new motto is "A thousand tiny successes add up to a big change". A tiny success could be doing the dishes before going on the computer. Letting the dogs out before going on the computer. Preparing tomorrow's lunches and dinner before going on the computer (notice a pattern?).

Money - if you follow my posts at all, you probably know I've pretty much mastered this part of my lifestyle base. What's interesting is that my new motto worked here as well. Each tiny success built my confidence a little more until it finally, I'd become fiscally responsible.

Energy - food and exercise. Exercise is going reasonably well. I consider exercise as my stress relief and it has become a real pleasure. As of right now, I'm using my elliptical trainer four times a week, 45 minutes at a time.
As for food, definitely need improvement in this area. My diet is good for a while and then bad for a while. Too much candy, too much coffee, not enough fruits and vegi's. I'm 90% sure this leads to poor sleep as well.

What I like about these three things is that it's easy to put them on autopilot. Time management involves shifting priorities and streamlining. Money involves automation. Energy involves eating this instead of that and relaxing. More on this later...

-Tim

[James81]

Something I've noticed about this "ground up" rebuilding, something I've attempted to do several times over the past several years.

As long as I cling to my own notions of who I am and the way things should be, I discover that everytime I tear myself down and then start rebuilding myself, that the "new" rebuilding of me seems to be similar to the "old" me that I tore down so that I could rebuild!

How many of us tear ourselves down (which can be cathartic) and then go rebuilding to only find ourselves frustrated that we wind up right back where we were? Do we *really* lack some measure of "willpower" (something I used to believe about myself). I don't think so. I don't think so because I've discovered that I have the ability to get exactly what I want, when I want it. Or if something *has* to be done, I can find the strength to do it. Willpower isn't the issue, because I've discovered that I have plenty of that when it's something I truly desire.

I think the issue, and what I'm slowly discovering about myself, is that we don't really tear ourselves down....we strip ourselves to the bones in terms of superficial stuff (like time, money, and energy ), but we rarely ever challenge our own innermost core...the part that we believe is "me."

For example, how have your notions towards money shifted recently? You set out to be frugal a while back, but discovered that that just made you spend more. So, you reverted back to something similar to the paradigm that you had before you even went into it, and then you created this belief "a thousand tiny successes add up to big change." Which is fine, I'm not criticizing you or anything, I'm just shining a spotlight onto it to take a look at this stuff.

In what ways could you challenge your innermost "beliefs" about money to bring about the change you seek?

does any of this really have to do with time, money, or energy?

[Curtis2011]

Originally Posted by Mounds

Building a new lifestyle from the ground up

Based on everything you said, as well as just based on the idea of building your lifestyle from the ground up..

Dude. You have to buy the Wake Up Productive program that I have been talking about relatively a lot recently in here.

It is seriously the "be all, end all" of how to build your life from the ground up. You literally learn and put into practice "building blocks" of daily habits that you do every single day in order to make the most out of your life.

This is the opt-in that leads to the sales page for it. This link is also not an affiliate link. I really think you should get it just for your own good.


I would really recommend this to everyone I possibly could, with the only exceptions being:

1) If you travel to a different city, it instantly kills all of your habits. Trust me on this. Wake Up Productive is about 1000x more effective for people who don't enjoy traveling.

2) Ideally you need to have some control over your surroundings. If you work in an office then you need some autonomy to be able to implement the things he teaches you. If you work from home that is probably ideal. I mainly mention this because I first went through Wake Up Productive while living in a dorm room and having almost no autonomy over what my schedule or environment was like. The more authority you have to set your own schedule, the more results you will have from the program.

3) Finally you need to have control over what you eat. And by this I mean what food is available in your house or apartment. I say this also because I spend some time at home with my parents and while I'm there I have 0% control over the food available in the house. A general rule is that whatever food is available is what you are going to eat; if your house is full of fresh vegetables and fruits, you will eat that most of the time. If it is full of cookies and junk food, you will eat that way too much. So you need control over your direct environment, meaning your living area and the food in your fridge.

Aside from those exceptions I would say you should buy Wake Up Productive and do everything that he teaches you to do in it.

The entire program is literally about building an incredibly productive and fulfilling life literally piece by piece, habit by habit, almost like Lego toys. Only instead of piecing together physical things, you are piecing together habits that will lead to durable fulfillment. (habits meaning stuff like: Daily exercise, daily meditation, healthy breakfast every single day, healthy lunch every single day, focused hours of work and focused periods of rest every day, etc.)


Sorry for the ramble but really I am trying to help you! (And I would be trying to help myself also, but the affiliate program for the program isn't even "running" right now and letting affiliates sell the products yet! )

[Ravenna]

James: Excellent post. This seems to be the core of every (good) book I've read on PD (though it is admittedly not many). We will never successfully achieve permanent change until we change the way we see/experience that part of our life. It is a simple concept that seems very difficult to put into practice. Though, as you can see, I need to change my viewpoint on that one.

[Mounds]

@James - well, the experiment with money that went sour was trying to be ultra-frugal. Now I'm just regular frugal
Consider this an experiment. I want to see how well I can optimize these things. The benefits are extreme and will help me in every aspect of life. On top of that, achieving these goals will make it easier the next time I want to improve on something and give me another boost of confidence.

@Curtis - I'll probably go for it at some point, maybe once I'm done with this challenge. I hope when I am ready for it that you have your affiliate link!


I don't really know any other way to slice this. Here's my problems:

-I feel like crap
-I don't sleep well
-I never have enough time
-I leave everything until the last minute

Money has taken a turn for the good thanks to some habitual changes. If I optimize the other two, I'm unstoppable. The only thing standing between me and optimizing my time and energy is a series of small goals. And since that's the case, it's kind of sad that I've gone this long without doing something about it. Time to unlock Tier 2 of life.

-Tim

[Mounds]

Started work on this yesterday, first two goals are:

-pack lunch the night before for two weeks (time)
-eat at least two pieces of fruit per day for two weeks (energy)

After those two weeks, I'll add a couple more. Slowly but surely

-Tim

[Lakshyayidhi Lakshmihi]

I've done this before as a transformative thing (when I got divorced at 23, when I got sober at 26). The impetus has always been "If I don't do this I will go insane and start stabbing strangers in the eye with a screwdriver" - so I've always had a lot of motivation and never did a gradual thing, always a massive shift that occurred in the space of 3 weeks or so.

I'm interested in following your story, at least.

Since the big shifts I take on other identities, but now I consider them like psychological outfits. You can put them on, take them off, they are not YOU.

[Mounds]

I've tried countless times to change a lot at once. The only thing consistent about it is the failure rate.
I think it's actually pretty common to try changing a lot at once. It's almost like we imagine someone (or meet someone) who has the lifestyle we want and then try to mimic that person. In my experience, it often falls apart.
This time around, I'll be setting up small goals that compliment one another. In this instance, I'll be inclined to eat proper food if I pack my lunch on time. Since I feel better from eating proper food, I'm more likely to take the time to pack my lunch. It's a delicious cycle!
By the way, two pieces of fruit down and I packed my lunch last night. 2/1000 successes.

[James81]

Originally Posted by Mounds

I've tried countless times to change a lot at once. The only thing consistent about it is the failure rate.
I think it's actually pretty common to try changing a lot at once. It's almost like we imagine someone (or meet someone) who has the lifestyle we want and then try to mimic that person. In my experience, it often falls apart.
This time around, I'll be setting up small goals that compliment one another. In this instance, I'll be inclined to eat proper food if I pack my lunch on time. Since I feel better from eating proper food, I'm more likely to take the time to pack my lunch. It's a delicious cycle!
By the way, two pieces of fruit down and I packed my lunch last night. 2/1000 successes.

What happens if, on your way to a 1000 tiny successes, you start having ginormous successes? Like what happens if you have like 8 extremely gigantic successes while having lots of little successes?

Do you have an equation or something that shows the equivalency factory of success?

What if you have a medium sized success? Do you have a standard size for "small" success to which everything else is converted to?

[Mounds]

Mmm... any size of success sounds good to me. It all contributes to the end goal of feeling good and having more time.

Do I sense something in your posts or am I imagining things?

[marinik]

Mounds you got it! Pretty difficult to change all of it at once! 1000 small steps add to a lot of big ones!

I stopped smoking, and then drinking wine, then changed my diet back to a healthy one for me, now need to go back to my exercise routine. I did this in 3-4 months. If I tried to do it all at once don't think I would be anywhere!

So rooting for you!