Personal Growth Experiment

by Uli on Micro Habit Challenge, Transformation Inventory, Uncategorized

Micro Habit Challenge 2.1 – A Life without Coffee is Possible

Allright, ten days without caffeine are over. What had changed in the meantime?
At the beginning of my challenge it seemed like an insurmountable hurdle not to drink a single cup of coffee for an entire week. I was already so used to have a coffee in the morning and the next one before lunch. In light of the fact that an existence without this dose was unimaginable for me, I easily renounced. It actually turned out to be just a small change of my morning routine, but the effects were mind-blowing.

What are my learnings?

  1. Ginger tea and a cold shower substitute coffee perfectly. The additional plus: It is actually much better for my health. Instead of “poisoning” myself I detox in the morning.
  2. Indeed the monkey in my head calmed down a bit. Well, I’m still hyperactive, but my mood and my ability to focus stabilizes without caffeine intake.
  3. My sugar consume increased a bit. At the middle of the week I bought chocolate cookies and I ate half of it at once – probably as a surrogate-satisfaction. But I will manage that. 😉
  4. Decaffeinated coffee is not toooo bad. Well…

How do I want to handle my consume in the future?

My most valuable insight: A life without coffee is possible. Yes, it is. I still love coffee and I can’t deny a good cappucino or italian espresso. But the experiment proved my addiction. One approach in my life is enjoying the good things thoroughly without abusing them. If you listen to your favourite song every and every day it gets boring at some point and isn’t it the same with coffee or any other addictive substance? From now on I want to be a pleasure drinker not an caffeine junky anymore.

 
by Uli on Micro Habit Challenge, Transformation Inventory, Uncategorized

Micro Habit Challenge 2.0

Hold on – this is a tough one! 😉 I already introduced you to the concept of the micro habit challenge a few weeks ago. The last time I challenged myself with three new habits, this time it is only one: I don’t want to drink caffeine for one week.

This might sound like an easy challenge, but for me as a “coffee person” this is definitely a serious task.

Why do I want to reduce my coffee consume?

  1. I have noticed that the monkey in my head breaks free after too much coffee. Sometimes I can’t even focus on household chores like washing the dishes.
  2. Usually I have a strong coffee in the morning. It puts me instantly in a good mood but it can instanly switch into anxiety – especially if I have a lot of tasks on my to-do-list. Sometimes I even get passive aggressive.
  3. My monkey mind hinders me from going to sleep at times. And I suspect that there is a relation to my consumption of caffeine.

Caffeine acts as a serious central nervous system stimulant. As soon as it reaches our brain it puts our body in a state of alertness – we might feel more awake and our heartrate is increasing. At least for a certain time this might be useful, but when the caffeine level drops, we are even more tired than before and our body wants more coffee to function properly.

Of course – probably there are other causes of these issues, but I believe that caffeine has a massive impact on my psyche. And because I like to adopt brutal measures I decided to cancel all sorts of caffeine (coffee, mate, green tea, guarana, energy drink,…) from now on for one week and see how it goes.

What happened so far?

Today is actually already day four of my challenge. I want to continue until the weekend with this challenge. So far I already feel the positive side effects of my cold withdrawal: I was in a better mood today. My midday low was not that heavy and my mood didn’t drop to the bottom in the afternoon as it every so often does. And: It is nearly 10 pm and I’m sitting here writing this post with somewhat clarity and calmness.

I keep you updated by the end of the week…

 
by Uli on Threesome, Transformation Inventory, Uncategorized

3 Habits That Make Me Happy(ier)

I still suck at meditating. I’m far away from being a non-smoker (after announcing “I quit smoking” several times.) Sometimes I even leave the house without brushing my teeth (luckily I store a toothbrush at the office). I feel so ill-disciplined in many ways.

BUT in order to stay motivated in the process of incorporating positive new behaviors, I want to share even my small successes and learnings with you. (That’s the whole idea of growthbuddy). There are some healthy things I integrated (nearly) without any effort into my everyday life that improve my day.

I figured that “three” is a good number to skim through. 🙂

1. Showering Cold

In July I read a facebook post about cold showers. This friend was literally raving about the revolutionary effect of cold showers on his life. I was fairly impressed. The benefits of contrast showers in “Kneipp” manor in order to increase the blood circulation were not new to me. In the past I experienced cold showers as an unbeatable hangover-cure. So I gave it a go.

The water in Munich is freezing cold, but luckily it was boiling hot summer during that time. “Why not have this feeling of jumping into a mountain river every morning?”, I thought to myself and ever since I’m finishing (not beginning;) my showers cold.

What can I say? The effects I’ve noticed after three months are staggering:

  • I feel more awake – also during the whole day. No coffee can unleash this level of energy.
  • I feel stronger and happier, because I already master a challenge before I even leave the house. 😉
  • My body is toning automatically: Hot showers increase the blood circulation too, but cold showers are also triggering the so called “brown adipose tissue”. In other words: They burn more fat! Besides that cold showers help draining fluid retention in the body.
  • My hair is more healthy as cold water treats the hair structure.
  • Hungovers are easy to tackle as cold showers help detoxing.;)

2. Stretching and Squatting

During the past ten years I’ve been trying different sports: Yoga, Functional Training, Parcours, (Russian) Martial Arts, Qi-Gong, Running. During the last years I went to the Bouldering gym regularly, but the gaps between my visits vary a lot.

I still exercise as often as I can, but I just don’t really stick with anything. But there is something I found out, that helps me to improve my over-all well-being during the day: Stretching!

What do I do and why?

  • Before I go to bed and in the morning I do back stretches like a forward bend, some qi-gong movements or tricks of my favourite youtube fitness trainer in order to relieve stress and sleep (or wake up) easier.
  • Bridge or downward-facing-dog or even practicing handstand at lunchbreak before the afternoon-low is kicking in (or to cure it).
  • Writing an e-mail or brushing my teeth or doing whatever (sometimes even waiting for the bus, if not too many people are watching) in deep squat position.

Stretching is good. We all know that. The trick is, that I try to integrate it into my day-to-day life as often as I can. I don’t need to “find the time”. But these small exercises help me to relieve stress or tension in my back and my whole body feels more refreshed. I can’t really give you the scientifical reason for it, but it feels like my feet are warmer as well.

3. Walking Different Ways Home

Even if I live in the self-pro-claimed “bike city” Munich, I prefer walking to riding the bicyle. Sometimes I move my ass on the seat of my mountain bike to cruise down Isar – the river in Munich, but I avoid the city traffic completely.

Mainly I’m just lazy, but also I’m afraid of dying – it might sounds ridiculous, but I’m paranoid because of the traffic and the other bikers (because they are so fast and rude, haha.) Instead of stepping into the pedals I read books in the subway and go for extensive pavement walks across the city.

After work I’ve started to drive one station too far or I take a different line to a different area from where I can reach my home within a 20 minutes to two hours walking distance. (depending on how much time I have).

On Sundays the “left-right-left-game” became my favourite occupation. Instead of choosing a route, I navigate into a rough direction and turn left and right alternately. It always leads me to surprising places. I discover new interesting restaurants and meet different people. Sometimes I even walk home 10 km from the city centre just to get “a better feel” for the distances.

What are the benefits of walking?

  • Walking calms my nerves down, when I feel over-exerted or brain-wrecked it improves my over-all well-being.
  • An additional plus to the physical and mental benefits is the fact that I get to know the city much better. Sometimes I even walk slow intentionally to acknowledge my surrounding.
  • I walk between 8 and 15 km nearly every day.
 
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 Transformation Inventory, Uncategorized

Who is this Growthbuddy?

The other night I woke up from this weird dream. Actually I wasn’t even sure, if I should share it or not, because it sounds so bizarre. But I decided to let you take part in my inner journey entirely – everything else would be boring.

In my dream I was nine months pregnant – just about to give birth. Unknowingly I carried new life within me. When I woke up, first I felt relieved, that it was just a dream. Then it dawned me: “This must be a sign!” All of a sudden I was thrilled by one idea: Setting up this domain!

Growthbuddy.rocks was born

Since a very long time I thought about catalyzing my brain clutter somehow. From time to time my close friends, who read my blog uliquitous would pressure me: “You should write more about your thoughts.” Apparently my thoughts are different to their own thoughts…

Well, the time is now. I gave digital birth. And my growthbuddy is walking its first steps. This is the first chapter of a neverending story called “life”, “personal development”, “building character”?  I’m not sure how to name it, but I will keep writing.

“The journey of a thousand miles starts with the first step”
Lao Tzu

Who or what is this growthbuddy?

I discovered the word growth buddy in Susan Jeffers’ book „Feel the Fear and do it anyway – How to turn your fear and indecision into confidence and action“.

Either if it is creating a new career, exercising more, transforming your relationship into a healthy one or learning a new language. What mainly holds us back from changing anything in our lives is fear: Fear of losing something, fear of the unknown, fear of failure – the fear of change has many different names…

“If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got”

Growth buddies are there to support each other in the process of change and overcoming fears. They encourage each other to find their own path in life. This blog is supposed to be my growth buddy. My catalyst for the discoveries I make.

I always wanted to introduce you to my brain clutter, but I didn’t find the right format for it. I will find out, if this is the right format.

Who am I to talk about personal growth?

I did not walk the Camino de Santiago (Update: I walked about 100ks of Camino Francés in 2018:), I didn’t raise a child, I’m not a guru. All I do is changing my life from time to time – apparently a couple of times more than other people do. I try new things, I choose detours and – most importantly – I walk my own pace.

And on the way, I acknowledge my inner process. A process, which I didn’t understand entirely yet. This is the reason, why I started this blog.

Things I’m working on

  • listening to my intuition
  • learning to meditate
  • becoming a non-procrastinator (Tim Urban is helpinge me 😉 )
  • focus instead of doing one thousand things at a time
  • getting out of my swimming pool of self-pity (Susan Jeffers calls it the “chatterbox” – “The voice that drives you crazy” – direct quote of my chatterbox: “You suck, Uli”)
  • stop blaming myself for a lack of knowledge, discipline, inner strength and other self-defined shortcomings
  • living an authentic life