Self Improvement

by Uli on Micro Habit Challenge, Transformation Inventory, Uncategorized

Micro Habit Challenge 3.1 – Finding Routine in Chaos

This challenge didn’t look hard to me in the first place, but somehow it turned out to be demanding. To make it short: I failed – at least in the meditation challenge I couln’t cheat my weaker self. I meditated only on 4/7 nights due to a lack of motivation or tiredness. But to be fair – I mastered the second part of the challenge with flying colours: Finally I managed to find time slots to get something done. And actually this challenge even pushed me to integrate more of these 25 minute slots into my day. So finally there are a bunch of tasks I completed which I postponed since weeks or even months. I understood that I can achieve things, if I just do one step at a time.

What had changed in detail?

  • My downgraded pomodoro method (25 minutes slots) actually helps me to get in the flow. I finally stoped postponing.
  • I learned that it is hard to integrate routines if I don’t have any other routine. The solution: I find flexible times during my day to integrate a small meditation. For example at lunch break or during the afternoon low.
  • Plus: I was more aware of my breathing during everyday activities like driving in the subway, just sitting in the sun, walking or even working. During my day I tried to go for short walk, which helped me a lot to stay energized during the day.
  • Finally: I learnt that meditation is not a practice, it is actually a state of mind. Every action can be meditation.

What do I want to make differently this week?

  • Still keep trying to meditate to finish my day – additionally to every type of relaxation I’m doing during my day.
  • Setting goals for the next day before I go to bed.
  • Setting a weekly goal I want to achieve.
  • Keep growing!

Time is the enemy.

 
by Uli on Micro Habit Challenge, Transformation Inventory, Uncategorized

Micro Habit Challenge 3.0 – Finding Morning and Evening Routines

The new year is already in full swing. The new years resolutions are not forgotten yet, but the activism is fading with everydays madness. Basically not much had changed: I’m trying to harmonize my work-life-balance, find the time to realize my own ideas, live up to my own beliefs and in the meantime I’m trying to stay calm.

What can I say? My brain is still tickling me with a thousand ideas and focussing on my goals gets hard sometimes. Today is Monday, the calender already shows the end of January. I decided that this month can’t pass without another challenge.

This one is another experiment. On the long run I’m hoping to find the best routine for my meditation practice.

1. I will work on my goals for 25 minutes every morning

Either if it is working on my blogs, writing in my journal, excercising or reading a book. Every morning I want to invest 25 minutes into my personal development. This implies a bit more discipline in the morning – getting up a bit more early and not getting caught in distress already before the day even really started. The idea is to think of what I want to do in the morning, the night before.

2. I will meditate for 10 minutes at night

Basically my only new years resolution is to chill out more, because I’m still stressing myself with my own demands. It’s getting less, but it is still there.

Everybody is talking about there morning routine. But I don’t have one – sometimes I get up at 5.30 because I have a videoshooting, but sometimes I work until seven in the morning at the bar. To be honest with you, I tried to integrate meditation into my morning routine, but it was impossible for me.

Also I found out that sometimes after a working day my brain is full of clutter. This clutter holds me back from calming down at night and I assume from a healthy sleep. So, instead of morning routine I will try to cultivate an evening routine, a really nice procedure to finish my day.

The “Why”

There is something that I learnt from last year: Pressuring myself doesn’t lead to anything besides slowly burning out. So I decided to change my approach a bit and practice more and more to “let go”. Hopefully I’m not over-stretching this phrase in this blog. But “letting go” seems to me more important than anything else in order not to strain my nervous system more than it already is.

So, I go for small steps and I try to do the possible in order to reach the impossible.

I already started with this challenge this morning. And this blog post is the result of investing roughly half an hour into my personal goals. Crazy, isn’t it?

 
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 Threesome, Transformation Inventory, Uncategorized

3 Habits that Help Me to Live in the Present Moment

Do you know this feeling of losing control over your time and energy? This feeling of being controlled by external forces? If not I envy you. These days I feel like I’m burning out a bit.

Jobwise but also socially a lot of commitments gnaw away my energy – finishing video projects in one job, long nights at the bar-job, mulled wine at the Christmas market ;), family meetings and so on and so on. Plus: I stress myself out in order to finish my personal goals for this year. The end of the year should be the time to hibernate or at least recover and reset, but somehow it is the opposite – busy as f***.

Of course it is up to me, but somehow I can’t help myself right now. Well, there is something I can do in order to reclaim control: Aiming for a life in the present moment!

Time to pull the handbrake – Another threesome is overdue! 😉

1. Breathing actively

Yes, the good old breathe. Without it our whole body wouldn’t work. It doesn’t only provide every cell in our body with oxygen. It also relaxes us. If we pay attention to our breathe we become aware of our body. And as soon as we focus on our body we forget our daily and mainly trivial problems.
That’s why I started to breathe more thoughtfully. Especially in stressful situations a few rounds of deep inhalation and exhalation release a lot of tension.

I always imagine how clean air is flowing into my body. From my nasal wings the air flows into my lungs, where it spreads out into every tiny fibre of my chest. All of a sudden my chest is filled with fresh air which starts circulating through the rest of my body. It wanders through my arms into my fingertips and from my belly into my legs and toes.

Every part of my body gets subserved with oxygen. Through this image I arrive in the present moment as my thoughts become obsolete. Just try it yourself.

2. Acknowledging my location

Well, often the breathing goes hand in hand with locating myself: On the way to the subway I acknowledge my surrounding – the trees, the sky, the colours, the air. I try not to think about my tasks at work.

The other day I read something interesting about “stress”, which made me realise that stress is just an invention of the western society. In Namibia for example the word stress doesn’t even exist. They divide time into rooms. In every moment you are present only in one room. You only act, live, love or work in one room. The next action will eventually take place in a different room. But now you exist only in this one room, so there is no need to be bothered about the next room.

Everything, every action has it’s time and it’s space. If you brush your teeth you don’t tie your shoes. If you tie your shoes, you are not at the subway. If you are in the subway you can’t be bothered about your job. If you experience the present moment – the room you are in – you can’t be bothered about the future.

3. Remembering that I am not my thoughts

We were born with the absence of thoughts. When we were born we didn’t have thought in our head. Basically we were the essence of life, pure existence, true love or however you want to call it. We didn’t have all these doubts and questions in our head. Sometimes in stressful situations I really like to go back to this place in my head. It helps me to take things more easily. I try to see my thoughts just as something temporary that can’t effect my mood.

Just give it a try and drop all your thoughts. Remember that your thoughts are just something superficial you can easily leave behind. Feel the relief and the freedom. This is meditation too.

“That is the simple secret of happiness. Whatever you are doing, don’t let past move your mind; don’t let future disturb you. Because the past is no more, and the future is not yet. To live in the memories, to live in the imagination, is to live in the non-existential. And when you are living in the non-existential, you are missing that which is existential. Naturally you will be miserable, because you will miss your whole life.”

Osho

 
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 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 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….