by Uli on Micro Habit Challenge, Transformation Inventory, Uncategorized

Micro Habit Challenge 1.2 Week Two – My Breath Becomes my Friend

Week two is over and so is the Micro Habit Challenge 1.0. What had changed? Actually more than I expected had changed. It seems like tha first week was dedicated to “becoming aware of my body” and the second week “becoming friends with my body”.

After these two weeks I have way more trust, that I can actually reach the goals I’m setting myself. My level of happiness had increased (not sure if it is due to my meditation practice or due to external factors, but I like the idea, that happiness grows within me:). Well, the downsides of this week are that I didn’t write much into my diary, but the insights I gained are powerful! Happy scrolling.

My Habit Diary

Day 1 9:39 am – Meeting an Acquaintance

Okay, new week new luck. I meditated this morning on a matt on the floor, which worked quite well. I thought about my breath as my friend. When I’m meditating I’m caring for my breath, I have some warm thoughts about it and I’m really thankful that he is always there for me. Thinking of my breath as a very close friend does make it a bit easier for me.

Day 2 8:22 Uhr Deep Conversations

I consider my breath as a good friend now. Normally I don’t listen to him closely. Even if he demands my attention from time to time. Today he’s a bit angry and he shouts: “Come on, you expect me to care for your every day, in every situation, even when you are very stressed out I provide you with oxygen and you are not able to listen to me?” So I promised him to listen more closely from now on. 🙂

Day 3

(no entry)

Day 4 21:52 Uhr Empty Brain

What can I say? I’m so so tired and I need to go to sleep immediately. 

Day 5 6:32 am – Is it Love?

Okay, I practiced meditation everyday – yesterday I cheated a bit, because I was at the physiotherapist. So I was laying down during my fango packung and enjoyed the silence to meet my friend – my breath.

It seems like this is a very strong way for me to connect with my body – to consider my breath as my (growth) “buddy”. And even if the meditation doesn’t work out well, I’m trying to meet my friend the breath in my daily life more often, every now and than during a short break from work I’m practicing meditation to calm my thoughts down. That works better than I thought.

Two days ago, when I didn’t write something in my diary, I had probably the best day in the last six weeks – jobwise and also emotionally. I had an outdoor shoot with the fleet of BMW. The sun was shining the whole day – it was an incredible day. And somehow I felt like finally I’m able to show my real me. I think it was due to my meditation practice. But now I got to take a shower, I have a long day of work ahead.

Day 6

(no entry)

Day 7 Final Conclusion

Well, this week had been a very intense week workwise. I didn’t only finish three video editing projects, but I also had two days of video shootings. I didn’t have such a productive week in a long time – also due to some tough deadlines. So it was an extra tough week to cultivate new habits into my daily life.

I step right into the conclusion of the week for you.

What did I Do?

  • I meditated 5/7 days, 4/7 days on the matt in front of my bed
  • I kept my phone on flightmode more often during work automatically
  • I was happy 7/7 days – at least most parts of the days (probably the happiest week I had during the last 6 months – EVEN if I was on holidays inbetween)
  • I didn’t work out much, but went for extensive walks of 8-12 km on 5/7 days and included stretching before I went to bed

What did I Learn?

  • Happiness is a state of mind (nothing really new, but I “experienced” it the first time)
  • meditation/working on my goals helps me to feel more satisfied and grounded
  • Loving myself means loving my whole body
  • I don’t miss much, if I leave my phone on flightmode
  • writing a diary is helpful to manifest insights (as it is my biggest issue to have an overview over my insights AND keep re-reading them to seed them into my subconsciousness)

What about the Future?

  • I gonna keep writing a diary on a regular basis and in ONE document
  • I will keep meditating regularly for two more weeks to extend my personal tool set
  • Keep not being a “victim” of my devices (including my beloved Thinkpad – no offence :*)

Final Words with Love

Well, after my two weeks Micro-Habit Challenge a few surprises had happened. I didn’t forsee to find a new friend within me. 🙂

I believe, that I can learn to be happy, if I become friends with my “companions”. In this case of course my breath is not my enemy, so companion seems to be a more appropriate phrase. All the last times I tried meditation, I just couldn’t focus on my breath. Sometimes it even felt like he is working against me (or I’m working against him.)

Giving my breath a personality helped me to focus. Probably this is not the same for everybody, but it helped me a lot – even during my day to day life.

When I was in a stressful situation for example during a live-videoshooting with an audience of 1400 people, I remembered that my breath is here to support me. As soon as I became aware of it, I already started to calm down. My heart rate started to decrease.

I believe, that this strategy could help me in several situations. Also it helps me to ACCEPT my body, if I consider my whole body as a loveable friend:


“Love yourself”

The phrase “love yourself” gets a different meaning for me and it adds much more value to my day-to-day life as it means, that I have to actually love my whole body. It sounds logical, but somehow I never considered my body as a part of this “self”. So from loving my body, I discover love for my weirdness, love for my odds and weaknesses…. If I don’t love myself, who else will do?

To be continued…

 
by Uli on Micro Habit Challenge, Transformation Inventory, Uncategorized

Micro Habit Challenge 1.1 Week One – The Aftermath

Here comes the ugly truth about my first week of the Micro Habit Challenge 1.0: Not many things had changed. This is not a surprise applying the rule of the ”three r’s” – repetition, repetition, repetition.

Well, I don’t consider the first week as a failure, but definitely not as a huge success. It just motivates me to keep going, to work on my personal goals with slightly more discipline.

In the first part I’m presenting you my diary as promised. The second part concludes my learnings and insights.

My Habit Diary

Day 1 – Throwback

Well, on day one I had this valuable insight about changing my habits in manageable steps. I felt so much wisdom growing inside of me. This was probably one of the most succesful days I had in a long time.

Day 2 – 12:02 pm – Fragile Relaxation

This is Micro Habit Challenge Day two – right after meditating:

Okay, to be honest – my meditation practice didn’t worked quite well so far – I couldn’t really find a comfortable position, but at least I found motivation to “just sit” and listen to my body: I can feel that the right side of my body is totally stiff and strained and uptight. It starts at my head: It feels like my right ear is somehow plugged and I feel a pressure in the whole right side of my head. This feeling of tight pressure goes through my jar into my neck, where it puts screws on to the area of my shoulder. My right shoulder nearly burns, when I’m starting to relax. It feels like I never let the pain be felt, which is kind of ironic because I’m dealing with pain so often. Well, from there this uptight feeling goes deeper to my upper back, where I feel especially one vertebra blocking my whole spine from pain-free moving. From there the dark stress wanders down next to my spine towards the area of the kidneys. From there it transforms into diffuse feeling of uneasyness in the area of my hips, but than it manifests again in the sacroiliac joint. From there it slides down unremarkably down to my calfes and down to my foot, where it stiffs my ankle a little bit.

All this tension already became obvious during my first rounds of meditation, when I reached fragile states of relaxation.

Day 3 – 10:04 pm Hungover Excuses

Alright, today was a bad day. Well, I didn’t meditate yet, due to a massive hangover from Oktoberfest yesterday, but I will do a meditation session before I go to bed. My plan for the next days is to do it in the morning in order to start relaxed into the day. Anyhow – even if it was not the most successful day, I feel motivated to make another meditation before I fall asleep. Anyway I had some insights today: I kind of felt an acceptance for my body. I understood that I have to take care of my body in order to balance my mind.

“A healthy mind lives in a healthy body”

This is what I learned from my hangover today – I really need to recover regularly – not only, when my body is completely exhausted.. The last months or better say years – I have always lived to the fullest, pushed my personal boundaries to the limit until I really needed recovery as I was so exhausted from living. – This has to end. I need to find a little relaxation everyday.

Day 4 – 21:31 pm Energy Household

As I found out yesterday householding with my energy is something I have to learn. Today I meditated two times already. And I tried to integrate more deep breathing into my day. And I just “let go” and decided to enjoy the sun one hour longer than usual. What happened? Today I felt a bigger boost of energy than ever before (at least more than within the last weeks). Well, this showed me how much a little change already can help to improve my day.

Update: 00:13 am

Well, it is already late now, but I decided to insert a short qi-gong session before I go to sleep. I did the same two days ago. And tonight I understood, that I really have to calm down before I go to sleep – no matter what time it is. Just before the qi-gong I felt still agitated by the day – in a positive way, but also I felt this stiffness in my back, that I always feel, because my body is strained most of the time. After the qi-gong I feel an inner quietness and relaxation, which makes me just want to go to sleep with my hot water bottle. FINALLY, I’m learning what it takes to relax my thoughts – FINALLY I feel, that I can learn the strategies – EVEN ME, I thought I need to run a marathon, walk for ten days, travel for 15 months – fuck no, I just need to practice qi-gong and meditation and that will do the job. (It won’t stop me from the desire to reach physical and mental limits. But I already feel, that it will improve every single day of my life from now on…)

Day 5 The Heartfire keeps burning

Somehow, the last two days have been strange days. I can’t really express why. On the one hand I was more relaxed than in a very long time, but on the other hand I felt a little bit over-motivated, strained, “heartfired”… I think finally I understand the difference between fatigue and tirednes. When you are tired you should go to bed, against fatigue you need to relax and settle your chi. 😀

To be honest – I can’t quite write today, I feel very uninspired and exhausted – even if I didn’t have a tough day. It just reminds me that I have to keep going.

Good night, now I’m just tired.

Day 7 Resolutions

Well, I have to skip day 6, because I didn’t write into my journal yesterday. I had to work in the morning (luckily after a good nights sleep.) and than I went to a barbecue/housewarming party out of town. I meditated in bed in the morning, which felt like a slight cheat..

The Payoff of Week One

Well, I did my “excercises” everyday, but the way I did it was not perfect. Successfully I abandoned my smartphone from my morning routine and before I went to bed I turned it on flight mode as early as possible. (When I came home late sometimes I missed the 30-minutes rule, but in general it worked quite well.) And did I feel any differences? Too be really really honest with you: Today I’m not sure if anything had changed.

What did I do?

  • On 2/7 days I felt more relaxed than normal (okay, it was a special week due to Octoberfest)
  • I practiced the 8 brocades video 4 times this week
  • I listened to much more music again
  • I felt fatigue and physical exertion
  • I started dancing and working out, when I felt very stressed

What did I learn?

  • Qi-Gong is good for me and really regulates my energy and helps me to find ease
  • Dancing improves my mood 100%
  • Listening to my body can be quite helpful (Ok, this is understated: It is fucking important!)
  • It’s a loooong way

What do I want to change next week?

  • I’m going to intensify my meditation practice by determining a fixed time (or time of the day) and by sitting in one spot in order to train my mind more specifically
  • I’m going to integrate another small change – exercising daily in order to reduce my stess level much more
  • Keep doing what I do with the smartphone, might add more timed smartphone breaks as I have to work a lot next week
  • Not getting drunk

I will keep up the fight – throwing the towel is not my style anyways.

“It doesn’t matter, how slowly you go as long as you don’t stop”

 
by Uli on Micro Habit Challenge, Transformation Inventory, Uncategorized

Micro Habit Challenge 1.0

A few days ago I published this massive Not-To-Do List. I realized, that there are way too many things I want to change. Of course I can’t (not) do it all at once. So, I asked myself, what is my biggest issue at the moment?

Well, the answer is easy: I can’t focus. And why is it so hard for me to focus? Because I’m working on too many projects at the same time (two blogs, and the pre-production of a video project), plus I have two part-time jobs (in video production and as a barkeeper). “On the side” I’m trying to change my way of thinking – from negative to positive. And in the back of my mind I’m constantly thinking of my climbing shoes, which are catching dust.

Everyday I pressure myself  to reconcile everything, but at the end of the day I get nothing done and I’m super exhausted. Plus: I’m prone to procrastination and smartphone addiction, which doesn’t help. I realized:

Before I can master my life, I have to master my mind.

In order to change something it is important to comprehend, how habits work: Depending on the resource you want to believe it takes around 60 days to internalize a new habit. Around 60 times you have to force yourself to do something differently, to excercise, to eat healthy, to not smoke a cigarette and so on. 60 days sounds scary doesn’t it?

Luckily I stumbled upon an article, that introduced me to the micro-habit challenge (Thank you Amina Moreau). Let’s forget about the number, because everything starts with day one. Finally I find the motivation to approach my goals – in small steps:

Trying to make too many big changes at once is all too often destined for failure. It’s the small, incremental changes that end up sticking.

Now it’s time to put up or shut up. Today is my day one of a 14 days challenge.

The next 14 days I want to:

1. Meditate for 10 mintes a day

Since a few years I’m trying to learn meditation. I joined meditation classes, I tried to practice with youtube videos and by myself. A few months ago I decided to renounce meditation. “I’m just not the meditation person.” But, what I didn’t understand was, that my expectations were just way to high. You can’t learn meditation with a few sessions – It’s a process of learning step-by-step.

To make it easy I picked the easiest form of meditation for a start: breathing meditation.

2. Turn off my phone 30 minutes before I go to bed and turn it on after breakfast

Slowly, we find out, that smartphones are not only bad for our social interaction but poisonous for our brain. The brain of a smartphone addict reacts like the brain of a gambler – every ‘beep’ releases dopamin, which arouses a short rush of happiness and satisfaction in our head. And because we want it over and over again, we tab the screen around 150 times a day. That’s insane and because I see similarities with an addict in my own behaviour I want to make a change.

I’m hoping to really make a difference by splitting my personal goals into digestible bites. As a side-effect I’m hoping to build up more patience with myself. More and more I consider impatience as my biggest weakness. But I know I can work on it – step-by-step.

And now?

Well, day one is nearly over. This morning I meditated and turned off flight mode at the subway with a smile on my face, because my brain was already much clearer. And: I published this article – yaayy! 🙂 The next days I want to maintain a small diary, where I will capture my progress. I will publish it by the end of the week.

 
by Uli on Rough Diamonds

Examination

My life is a research project and I’m my own guinea pig.

 
by Uli on Transformation Inventory, Uncategorized

My Personal Not-To-Do-List

Things I want to stop doing….

  1. Asking myself “What the fuck is wrong with me?”
  2. Being nice to everybody.
  3. Feeling responsible for everybody.
  4. Being unorganized and not sticking to my personal plans.
  5. Being online all the time.
  6. Being available for everybody.
  7. Eating half a jar of nutella or “rewe bio-nuss-nougat-creme” or any other chocolate spread. (Am I still a teenager?!)
  8. Feeling sorry for myself. (Bathing in self-pity, yay.)
  9. Apologizing for no reason.
  10. Trying to please everybody.
  11. Not listening to my intuition.
  12. Being fucking indecisive all the time.
  13. Doing too many things at the same time.
  14. Comparing myself with others on facebook or instagram.
  15. Comparing myself with others in real life.
  16. Forcing other people to listen to my “problems”.
  17. Giggling to cover my lack of self-confidence.
  18. Waiting for the man of my dreams.
  19. Hoping that the man of my dreams is waiting for me.
  20. Falling asleep drunk in the subway.
  21. Falling asleep sober in the subway.
  22. Using my smartphone in bed.
  23. Using the elevator.
  24. Let the smartphone lay under my pillow.
  25. Being caught in my own spiral of negative thoughts.
  26. Asking myself: “What’s happening next year?”
  27. Thinking to myself “I’m not good enough.”
  28. Considering myself as a victim of society, who can’t change anything.
  29. Getting drunk instead of climbing a mountain.
  30. Seeing obstacles instead of opportunities.
  31. Questioning my needs.
  32. Doubting my desires.
  33. Hesitating.

A list of things I want to do is coming up soon…

To be continued….

 
by Uli on Transformation Inventory, Uncategorized

A Few Things I Understood Recently About The Universe and Myself

There are a few things I understood recently about the universe and myself. But in order not to confuse you too much, I have to start somewhere else..

Part One – Stories of My life

I sent my last post to a friend and he told me with other words, that I seem like an over-optimizer, who is getting lost in too much input.

Well, that blew my mind. I couldn’t believe that he doesn’t see that I’m “on the right track”. I was so sure that my approach is the right one. I thought I just have to tick off the list of self-improving advice and than I can handle my everyday life much more effectively and satisfying.

Unknowingly in the same chat this friend pointed out something really important to me: “Everything will turn out fine by itself. Just stop worrying about it” (Sideinfo: He is more the rational type of guy. He is probably not even the adressee of this blog.)

Don’t get me wrong – I still believe that positive affirmations are a good thing and that fear-setting is a good idea and I’m sure I will dig in deeper in these topics. But I won’t force it.

The funny thing is, that I always know what to do, but I don’t understand what NOT to do. Because there is exactly NOTHING I HAVE to do in order to become a better human being (whatever that means).

Well, there is another incident I want to showcase in this article:

The last weeks I met a lot of people I could connect with. I have to tell you one story of my daily life:

I had a video shooting at a trade fair near Munich and it was a few tough days of work. After finishing this job I was exhausted and a bit depressed, because these kinds of jobs sometimes eat too much of my energy.

Well, I was not in the best place on that day. But for some reason I decided to go to one of the second hand shops in Munich and buy a Dirndl, a traditional bavarian dress. (In this context it is important to know, that I always rejected Dirndls, because I just couldn’t relate to them.) Well, all of a sudden I felt the desire to honour Munich in this way or something like that.

Anyway, the main information is, that I was very very happy after buying this Dirndl, haha. Than I walked down Bayerstraße, a very busy street in Munich these days during Oktoberfest. It didn’t bother me, because there is this vietnamese Restaurant I wanted to try in a while. (Since a few weeks I consider Curry as my “soulfood”;)

I stepped in – still stoked about the purchase of my beautiful dress. Right at the doorstep I bumped into two guys I knew. They greated me with “I know you”. Surprise, surprise, I thought to myself. “Did we meet here?”, Iskender was talking about the restaurant. From the first sight I knew exactly where I met them: “No, we practiced AcrobaticYoga together”, I answered.

My next impulse lead me to a separate table – clutter voice in my head said “What ever… just some of these people…” But another voice from deep inside of me said louder: “You can really relate to these guys” In this moment Iskender waved me over to sit on the table and eat with them.

I ordered this delicious Massamancurry and I shared stories with Oscar and Iskender. Immediately I could tell them about my odd ideas about life and starting businesses like printing individualised toilet paper, haha.

“I like your way of thinking”, Oscar, the other guy paused dining – for a fractional part of a second it seemed like the world had stopped. And all of a sudden this deep sense of understanding filled the air.

Afterwards I was presenting Iskender my whole emotional life for two hours and he opened himself up as well. That night I drove home – knowing, that I had just made new friends. I was exchanging life perspectives with these guys I bumped into RANDOMLY.

Similar situations like this happened over and over again the last weeks… It was just crazy.

Why am I telling you about all this? As I told you at the beginning – I learned something VERY meaningful the last weeks from these situations, which happened unintentionally to me:

I don’t have to plan anything. I dont have to decide. I don’t have to force myself.

All I have to do is to “let go”. And in this way I finally agree with my friend, who I reminded on this hyper-optimization geek type of person.

Just by being “open” just by letting go and following my excitement (eating curry) a miserable day turned into one very fateful…

Part Two – The Coherence Between The Universe and “Letting Go”

“Believe in the universe”

This sentence is on my mind since a very long time. I talked to another friend on the phone the other day and he said. “Forget about the universe. You just have to believe in yourself.”

Well, I figured that it is important to consider every advice as potentially life-changing. But also I have to process advice to deeply comprehend it before I can relate to it.

So, tonight I figured out, that believing in the universe and believing in myself is exactly the same thing, which eventually leads to these incidents I told you about above.

Because “believing in the universe” just means, that it is already there. The universe is there, every desire is already fullfilled, if we believe in it. What is my desire? My desire is to make deep connections with people. My desire is to find friends and not to be alone anymore.

And what is believe? Believing means to accept everything that appears. Believe is to open up for every opportunity that appears. The opportunities are always there. We just have to see them/be aware of them.

And how can I open up? By “letting go”….

Letting go means – putting no pressure on my body and my mind – a very very long time I thought I have to force myself to do things. I have to force myself to excersice, I have to force myself to learn new skills, I have to force myself to get out of my comfort zone, I have to force myself to work in new jobs, to get to know people and so on and so on. I even thought I have to force myself to find purpose in my life.

I’m so happy, that I can finally (kind of) frame my thoughts and that I finally understood, that I DO NOT have to force myself…. It’s just one of these days, when I have this (illusion of) clarity.

What Else did I Learn?

1. Questioning is My Tool

Every sentence, that questions my thoughts and my way of thinking is helpful for me. Questioning things acutally is my tool. It is my tool to develop a new way of thinking. I can’t believe I didn’t realise it all the last years.

2. I’m My Own Teacher

“If the student is ready, the teacher will appear.”

This is also a quote haunting in my brain for a very long time. It turned out, that it manifested in my subconsciousness more than I expected. I always asked myself, who this teacher is? Again I thought I HAVE TO find the teacher. FINALLY I understood, that I am the teacher. No – I have to put it differently – the teacher is within me. I just have to let him/her/it guide me by – again – “letting go”.

3. The Difference Between Forcing Yourself and Taking Action

Taking action is – making the first step and than “let go”.

The last weeks I learned, that there is a difference between forcing myself and taking action. Of course I need some discipline, but if I follow my excitement everything will just happen. Like right now –  I just let go. I follow my thoughts and they are like a flow of solutions. They are already there. They are in my body and in my mind. I don’t have to force myself. I just LET GO.

4. Everything Happens for a Reason….

Upcoming Articles should might be about:

  • my tools
  • the teacher
  • how to let go
  • awareness

I love life.

 
by Uli on Rough Diamonds

Reflection

When you look into the mirror, what do you see?

 
by Uli on Transformation Inventory, Uncategorized

The Growthbuddy is Growing

This morning I woke up with a concrete slab on my body – literally of course – otherwise I couldn’t sit here and write.

Since I’ve started with growthbuddy, I have started to re-think my life more intensively – yes “Uli-you-think-too-much”-friends, you read right…

And I have to admit: It’s not easy –  I’m facing new abysses of my psyche everyday. So far so good, let’s jump right into the void (and stop being pathetic).

I was laying in my bed and like every morning I thought to myself “I could stay in bed or I could get up and make the most of the day.” The last weeks this decision process took a little longer.

So I stared into space asking myself, what it is worth to get up for. I felt demotivated and frustrated with a slightly tang of worthlessness. But there was this little voice inside of me. It whispered quietly but self-assured: “Come on, get out of here!” – “Aye, aye!”

Since years I’m reading books about personal growth, dealing with fears, productivity, living in the “now” – nearly non-stop or at least once in a while. The last couple of weeks I was watching a lot of TED talks of all these great people, who are changing the world and share their advice.

But today I realized, I’m not applying the advice to my own life – at least not enthusiastically enough.

“It takes a lot of reinforcement to incorporate new concepts into your behavior, so commit yourself to doing the exercises. The amount of improvement you experience will depend on how much you are willing to participate actively.” Susan Jeffers

All of a sudden I understood:  In order to change my way of thinking, I have to change my behaviour actively. I really have to do the homework. Of course: Reading is good – sucking in all sorts of information is healthy, but it is only half the rent.

My Learnings Today:

  1. I have to get active and actually work on my personal development. DO the exercises Tim Ferris and Susan Jeffers are talking about instead of postponing them, which makes me come to my second learning of the day:
  2. I have to consider this personal growth thing including this blog – but mainly the growth action behind the scenes – as a business. My life-business. And it definitely has the same or an even higher significance than any other job.
  3. The mind is like a computer. (according to Elon Musk;) And a computer can be rebooted, configured newly, updated or upgraded. Or you can just throw it out of the window. I don’t want to get rid of my mind – at least not infinitely – but I can definitely change my running system, if I really want to.
  4. Also I understood, that I don’t know enough about my brain. Well, this is not necessarily a new insight. More importantly I understood, that I can change it. My goal is it, before getting more specific, I need to learn more about the prefrontal cortex and about Elon Musk. (Yes, he is one of my idols in terms of rationality and willpower.;)

The bath of self-pity is still warm and cozy. But I want to drain it down the tub. What am I talking about? Well, I want to find out, what is really hindering me from living a satisfying life, why am I always doubting my purpose? Where is the lack of self-confidence coming from?

My Next Steps:

  • defining my fears
  • learning more about self-love/acceptance
  • reading more about Elon Musk 😉 (Biography already ordered)

“Life becomes a Sunday afternoon; we ask for nothing grand, and we cease to demand anything more than we are willing to give. In that state we think of ourselves as being mature; we put aside the phantasies of our youth, and we seek personal and professional achievement. We are surprised, when people our age say that they still want this or that out of life. But really, deep in our hearts, we know that what has happened is that we have renounced the battle for our dreams – we have refused to Fight the Good Fight.” Paulo Coehlo

People, who make their dreams come true are commited to pain and suffering. They are willing to “fight the good fight”. They go out there. They accept the hard work of mastering challenges and overcoming obstacles.

I’m fighting for more self-confidence, less insecurities, anxiety and self-hatred. But in order to do this, I have to change myself actively – not only by reading and talking to people. But step-by-step I have to change my habits and reboot my system.

Don’t renounce the battle – fight the fight.

 
by Uli on Affirmations, Rough Diamonds

It’s Up To Me

It’s up to me if I drink tea or coffee.
It’s up to me if I use the elevator or if I walk the stairs.

It’s up to me if I get wasted or if I go to bed early, because I’m fucking tired anyways.
It’s up to me if I buy a new phone or if I keep using the old one.
It’s up to me if I book an all-inclusive holiday or if I invest in experiences.

It’s up to me if I smile or if I put on the grumpy face.
It’s up to me if I communicate or if I just don’t stop bullshitting.
It’s up to me if I speak or listen.

It’s up to me if I let society set my goals or if I’m finding out, what this world really has to offer.

It’s up to me if I’m working on my own deficiencies or if I keep bathing in self-pity.
It’s up to me if I’m waiting for this fucking prince on his fucking horse or if I take responsibility for my own life.
It’s up to me if I listen to my inner calling or just to the call of duty.

It’s up to me if I swim with the stream or if I find my own flow.
It’s up to me if I complain or if I take action.
It’s up to me if I “do what men have to do” or if I learn to think for myself.

It’s up to me if I dream my life or if I’m living the dream.

EVERYTHING is up to me.

 

 

 
by Uli on Threesome, Transformation Inventory, Uncategorized, Writing Experiment

3 Tricks That Will Boost Your Productivity

I am a procrastinator. Everyday I find excuses, why I’m not able to achieve my goals. Sometimes a dentist appointment is hindering me. On other days time-consuming social commitments are filling my day. On some days I’m just too tired, too lazy, too ‘uninspired’, too hungover, too “busy” with anything else apart from what I actually want to do. There is always something, that holds me back from doing, what really matters to me.

You find yourself in my distractibility? The first step is to ACCEPT, that life is an unpredictable mess sometimes (my life most of the time).

Let’s not resign ourselves to the situation of being a procrastinator. Instead of punishing ourselves for being non-productive and expanding our lack of self-confidence, let’s start to develop strategies! These tricks already helped me.

1. Go for 10-minutes Slots

I’m postponing things ALL THE TIME, but under pressure I can work effectively. So why not produce the pressure myself before the deadline is scratching the neck?

This is an advice I already got from different resources: Go for ten minute time slots! Setting an alarm is not only useful when boiling eggs, but also when you’re brain is bubbling over. Interestingly Blender Guru Andrew Price was my final eye-opener. (Video below)

The trick is to focus on one thing you have to do, one idea or one project. You start the task and within ten minutes you work as fast and intense as you can. After these ten minutes you will notice, how much you can get done within only ten minutes. After these ten minutes you find yourself either highly motivated to keep working (getting into the flow) or you move over to the next task/appointment or commitment. Either way – YOU GOT SOMETHING DONE.

Everybody should watch this video (not only people, who use Blender).

2. Fast Writing

“Writing is thinking” – This is a direct quote from the book “Accidental Genius: Revolutionize Your Thinking Through Private Writing” by Mark Levy, which I read recently.

The key is: The faster you write, the faster you think. According to Levy you have to toss your perfectionism overboard in order to reach the “essence” of your thoughts. You don’t “plan” your thoughts, right? And sometimes you have genius ideas? So why not write down your thoughts exactly the way they leave your brain?

For me this book was groundbreaking in many ways. It didn’t only revolutionize my approach, when writing an article, but also when starting a new project at work. Every project starts with a written concept, so you can apply this trick to a lot of tasks. Combined with the “timer” this trick is your master weapon.

3. Do the First Step Immediately

You are thrilled by an idea. You really want to realize it – but when? I had this feeling with this website. This growth buddy rattled around in my head for a couple of weeks. Than I decided to just buy the domain – Et voilá, the first step was made. Of course, there is still a long way, but every journey starts with the first step, right? In case of this blog, the domain was the first step.

But sometimes you might come up with ideas you can’t realize, because you don’t have the skills or the knowledge. In this case you should share it with a friend or at least write it down in your ideas book or other document – but I highly recommend you to TALK ABOUT YOUR IDEAS. It helps.

 

Hopefully you find yourself in these tricks. Do you have more advice/resources about productivity? Leave them in the comments.