01 Aug 2023
This Friday I start a three-week vacation. I’m postponing any habit changes/plans until I get back.
There is no point in starting a new habit that I’m going to quit in a few days… or maybe it’s just an excuse to keep being a piece of shit for one month longer.
In any case, I’m going to use these vacations to reset my mindset. As well as most people, I’m addicted to my phone. I average 4 hours a day on my phone.
That wouldn’t even be so bad if those hours were used on something useful, but they are usually wasted scrolling through Twitter, Instagram, and reddit. 4 fucking hours wasted every day.
I don’t even think I get any dopamine hits at this point. It’s just a terrible habit. Every few minutes I will open my phone and start scrolling without even thinking about it.
So, for the first two weeks of my vacation, I will go to the St. James Way. In 13 days I will walk 300km from León to Santiago de Compostela. On my own, with a small backpack and nothing but the absolutely necessary.
I think this time will help to get a dopamine detox, and mostly to think about my life and future.
I am aware that this could be considered as some other kind of procrastination. That time would be better used starting a side business or something like that. But given my current mental state I think this is what I need.
22 Jul 2023
In the previous post I was telling you about how bad I am at managing my time. Every time I’ve tried to be more organized I’ve failed.
When you’ve tried something multiple times and failed, the smart approach would be to do something different. But I can’t really think of what else can I try.
So until I can think of a better method, the only thing I can do is keep trying.
What’s worked best for me in the past is gamifying my goals. When you have a streak, you don’t want to lose it.
I have an apple watch and I was pretty addicted to closing my rings. Exactly one year ago, I broke a 206 day streak. I exercised everyday for 206 days in a row. I was in the best shape I had been in many years, but I had to stop to have a surgery that it would require I take it easy for a few months.
A year later I’ve recovered from the surgery, but I have not found the motivation to get back on track.
Closing the rings, was very addicting to me and it worked great, but I was too dependent on it. I didn’t even take a rest day because it would mean I would not close the rings. But my body needed some rest days as well.
I think I can learn from that experience and try to apply a similar approach to my goals. As long a rest day is planned, it shouldn’t break your streak. That’s probably a healthier way to gamify it.
I’m going to make a Notion page to keep track of all the habits / goals I want to track. I will make it public and post it somewhere here in the blog to also keep me accountable.
Some of the things that will be on that Notion that I want to track are:
- Wake up time. For years I’ve tried to get up a few hours before work so I can exercise.
- Exercise: I still have to design a workout routine… I enjoy running, yoga and lifting weights. But for some time I’ve been intrigued by triathlons. I’ve love to one day complete an Ironman. So I might start biking and swimming soon.
- Diet: I don’t follow a specific strict diet, but I want to be more focused on it. I need to plan ahead. I enjoy eating healthy, but when you don’t meal prep, and you have an empty fridge is easy to fall into temptation and order some take out.
- Cold Showers and meditation: I’m not a 100% on board with these two. But I want to give them a try. I heard many people say that are life changing. I’m more scepctic, but I’m willing to give it a try.
- Reading: In the last years I’ve found it very hard to find time to read. But I want get back the habit to read a few pages.
21 Jul 2023
It’s time I face it. I fucking suck at managing my time.
My blessing but mostly my curse is my wits. I am the kind of guy that is far from being a genious, but I’d say I’m above average in intelligence.
When I say that this is a curse it’s because during my formative years I’ve always been smart enough to just study the day before the exam and get good grades.
I never had to work hard for anything. So I have no discipline nor work ethic.
It’s taken me too long to realize that it would have served me best to be a little dumber but a hard worker.
I have 33 years of bad habits to undo, but there is still hope. In a few rare occasions I have proved myself that I can have discipline.
Every year for longer that I’d like to admit I’ve tried and failed to better manage my time. These are some things I’ve tried:
- Having an agenda to plan my time in advance (physical and digital).
- Habit trackers in any format you can think of (pen and paper, apps on my phone, excel sheet, notion templates, etc)
I’d usually start with motivation. but after a few days or weeks I would usually abandon it.
I’d like to think this time will be different.
In the next post I will tell you my plan
20 Jul 2023
This blog is a new beginning. A will to change things.
For ages, I’ve wanted to make a living by doing my own thing on the internet. But it has only been daydreaming. A wannapreneur in the flesh.
In the last decade, I’ve registered more domains than I can remember. I would set up basic WordPress sites only to abandon them all after posting one or two posts.
Life gets in the way. A demanding job, trying to have a social life and be fit doesn’t leave you with much free time.
But that’s bullshit. Just excuses I’ve told myself a million times. I’m tired of lying to myself. I don’t have much trouble finding time to waste on youtube or indefinitely scrolling on Twitter.
I’ve always told myself that the problem is that I needed to find a good idea. That would be the key. But it’s been over ten years and I’m in the same spot I was back then. Without ideas, without projects, and unfulfilled.
So at this point, I’m realizing that it would probably have been best
to at least try and failed than having not tried at all.
I probably have some internal issues I need to work on. By all means, I’ve had an easy life. Good family, nice education, and financial security. Yet, I’m somehow terrified to fail.
Instead of using that fear as fuel and being a tryhard overachiever, my way to not fail in life has been to not try at all. You can’t lose the game if you don’t play it… or so I thought. The reality is that if you don’t even try you already lost.
At this point I’m 33, I have a “nice” job I don’t care about and I’m single even though I’d like to start a family.
I’ve had a privileged position all my life and I feel like I’ve wasted it. Instead of doing the things I’ve wanted to do in life, I’ve done what was expected from me. But since I had no passion for those things, I’ve half-assed them all and I’ve been mediocre all my life.
Sorry for this rant. I needed to get it out of my chest. I hope that this message resonates with some of you. And hopefully, in the future, I can look back to this post and be amazed at how much everything has changed.
I’m tired of that of living like this. I want to live to my full potential.