Hacking the routine in my life

If you found me posting lesser and lesser, it's not because I'm discouraged by the bear attack recently. In fact, I'm busy buying away and watching my defense line to see if they need supports. Rather, I'm occupied with hacking my life's routine.


On a whim, I decided to start waking up early one day. It started on a particularly slow Monday, where I felt that I was so unproductive that it pisses me off. Then I wanted to wake up on Tues at 7am and go jog - which is something I've not done for a very long time. The last recorded run I ever had was back in mid 2014, and that is unbecoming of me. I clearly know the health benefits of exercising aerobically 3 times a week, but I just didn't have the discipline to do it. And heck, I've been procrastinating for way too long, always coming up with excuses like having too much work etc etc. Work is never going to get lesser, and I'm never going to be more healthy or younger, so it's just now or nothing. What's the point of being focused on earning some much when I don't have the health to support it? Pointless, I say.


So I did wake up at around 7am for the next couple of days and I did went for a jog. Yesterday was the third time in a very long while, and I can now run continuously for about 13 mins over a distance of 1.8 km. Slow, but well, I had to take baby steps to kickstart the whole thing.


I realised that good habits stack on top of one another. One of the hardest excuse to not jog is that I have no time, so I wake up at 7am to run - excuse eliminated. Then I can't wake up early enough, so I have to sleep early at around 11 to 12 instead of 1 to 2am - excuse eliminated. Then I can't relax at night after work, so I shifted my entire schedule to fit in a running schedule, like having a light dinner really really early (like 530 or 6) to give time to digest to allow an early night sleep - excuse eliminated. My point is that as I try to improve myself, several things all change in tandem to one another. It's like I felt my life improving not just by 1 point or 2 points, it's like 30 to 50 points in one shot, because of this cascade of good habits that support each other.

In summary, to have a healthy lifestyle, here's the following I changed over the span of a year:

1. Meditation every night - helps in my sleep and relieving of stress
2. Fruits for lunch every alternate weekday - keeps me more energetic and less bloated
3. Jogging twice every week - helps my cardiovascular fitness
4. Pullup/pushup every day - helps my upper body and back muscles, also the mental strength to go on when I thought I can't go on anymore.
5. Waking up early and hence going to bed early


Everything works in tandem with each other. I shudder to think what happens if this situation is reversed, as in when one bad habit supports a lot of other bad habits and we have a vicious cycle downwards. How we do one thing is how we do everything.


Oh, one advice to people hacking their life - roll with the punches. Your system must have allowance for slack days where you totally don't feel like doing anything of the wonderful life-changing things you've set as your goals. You just want to vegetate in front of your tv eating potato chips. Go and do it. Allow for small failures but get back in the next time. Don't aim for perfection, aim for consistency and sustainability.