Briniel Recreates Success

[Briniel]

Recap: I've been following NF for the better part of a year now, learning lots of awesome things and gaining lots of skills in the process. My most successfull challenge so far was in March, where I rocked all my goals via a combination of The Miracle Morning by Hal Elrod, the thoughts on procrastination on waitbutwhy.com (including the instant gratification monkey), the pomodoro technique (when I remembered using it) and my new bullet journal. Last challenge I tried to just focus on what worked to build the foundation for lot of awesome new stuff, but failed miserably. My goals were too vague or not prominent enough in my mind everyday and I lost the momentum I had gained. So it's time to get my things together, get up again, brush of the dust that has accumulated over week 0 and get back to the awesomeness that was me two challenges ago! I will retrace my steps, do as I did then and remember that these methods actually worked for me.

 

At the end of the month, I'll take a mini summer vacation with friends, the exact vacation that prompted me to start this journey about a year ago. My goal is to get there in the best shape of my life. I want to be able to:

 

• do 10 push ups in a row
• do 5 table pull ups in a row (with knees straight)
• hold unsupported handstands for 5 seconds
• hold crow pose for 5 seconds
• hold a 1 minute foot-supported l-sit
• run 5k in 30 minutes (don't know if that's realistic right now... just getting back into running would be great)

 

I will achieve these goals with help from the Assassin's Mini Challenge, the Superpower Training. Basically, I will compete with other Superheroes/Villains on who can devote the most time to their goals. I will count the hours I spent on training for Super Strength, Super Agility (in my case, balance training), and Super Speed. And of course, I'll come up with a pretty spreadsheet to track Since I don't know how fast I will make progress, the goal here is to spend more time on these each week. This is a strategy that worked quite well for me in the past, so I'll see how it goes this time. I'd also love to be first (as in, the one who trained most) in one of these areas in one week, but that's a bonus.

 

I've started getting back into the Miracle Morning properly this week zero and found it really helped getting a good start into the day. I felt happier, motivated, energized and (most important) accomplished at a time when I would usually slowly get prepared for getting out of bed. So I will follow my morning routine very closely, as well as incorporate wrist and ankle exercises and darebee.com's daily dares for the PvP. I will again track this via a habit tracker in my bullet journal. I decided to go back to only having daily tasks on there and track non-daily stuff seperately, so this is what it looks like right now:

 

 

explanation is lengthy, so I put it into the spoiler below

Spoiler

 

the things I track are:

• reading (ideally stuff for work or newspaper, alternatively reading in my bujo or reading novels is accepted)
• scribing (fancy TMM lingo for writing, this can be summarys of what I read or journaling or handwriting practice)
• visualisation (I do this in the evening and bring to mind how the day went, then visualise what tomorrow will be like. Unfortunately, I fall asleep before the second step. A lot. I should stop doing this in bed )
• affirmation (I have written down bedtime affirmations that work for me and remind me why I've decided to get up early and do these things. I also want to include this into my morning routine again, "I'm going to be the best version of myself that I can be today" worked really well in march, maybe I'll go back to that)
• exercise (this includes breathing exercises, yoga stretches, sun salutations or any other kind of exercise I feel like doing. I also include the next three tasks here)
• silence (meditation, mostly via headspace, or on my own in corpse pose after yoga)
• daily dare (I try to do the daily dare on darebee.com for the daily dare PvP by NTB every day. Star/asterisk for extra credit (as specified on the daily dare page))
• wrist exercises (these are from NF yoga)
• ankle alphabets (one round every morning)

 

All of these happen (mostly) as part of my morning or evening routine. The SAVERS can be as long or short as I like, so reading for 1 minute, or doing 50 jumping jacks totally count. This is supposed to give me a good start into the day, NOT stress me out about having lots of stuff to do in the morning. I feel better when I do this and generally have a better day when started right. This will happen every single day, even when it's a work day. It's okay to move some of these to later in the day if needed. The rest of my daily habits:

 

• hydrate (drink at least 2.5l of water a day)
• no sugar (artificial sugar, honey or fruit is okay)
• no white flour (self explanatory, I guess)
• 2x veggies (have two meals a day that contain some sort of veggie, no matter the kind and amount)
• enjoy outsides (go outside for the sake of being outside and enjoy the weather. Half-point for being outside because of errands)
• play with cats (spend some quality time with each of the cats. Bonus points for clicker training sessions)
• log spendings (I have an excel spreadsheet where all my spendings go, I want to use it every day. Crossed out if it's a no-spend day)
• kitchen counter zero (I seriously let this slide last challenge, but it's such a great habit. Take a few minutes each night to clear the kitchen counter of any stuff that doesn't belong there, dirty (or clean) dishes included. Looooved waking up to a clean kitchen every morning, so get back to this!)
• floss (this is the only non-daily habit on here, I plan on doing this every other day. Crossed out on the days in between)

 

I will do all of these every single day. All of these are either essential for my well being, my mood or my conscience, so they are non-negotiable.

 

 

In addition to that, there are some other habits that are not daily, but still important enough to me to pursue them as part of this challenge:

 

• track how often I call my parents and grandma. There's no specific goal here, I just want to make sure I don't forget to stay in touch.
• meet with friends once a week. I've been neglecting this lately, so I'm going to make it simple. If boardgame nights or dinner partys happen, awesome, but it's not required.
• do some sort of physical activity 3 times a week. Ideally this will be one bodyweight workout, one run and one rowing session, but I can mix it up as long as I do something.

• do at least one brick/tomato of office work for my dad a day as long as there is still stuff to be done. I have been avoiding this, so it's time to take baby steps. Half an hour is totally manageable. Just do it!
• practice singing two times a week in addition to any lessons and rehearsals.
• Cook about 3 times a week so I have a warm meal every day. I didn't put this on my habit tracker last challenge and noticed I forgot to eat on some days and felt cranky and sluggish as a result. I need enough fuel to be able to do awesome things!

 

Bonus goals (no, we're not done yet)

• there's a lot of stuff on my to-do-list right now. I will pick three things a week that will get done additionally to all of the above (and additionally to my housekeeping tracker which is still going strong, which is why I didn't include it as a goal).
• I'd love to get some full-blown yoga sessions in once in a while.

 

For scoring, I will follow my own method again: I will aim to achieve 80% of all of the goals mentioned above. Every little thing I do towards these goals counts. I'll be gone for the biggest part of week 3, so some things on my habit tracker won't be applicable then, but everything else should work out. Except maybe the office work stuff, if I don't manage to finish my tasks until then, so that might not be applicable, either. In the end, I will look at the different stats and judge how much I improved in that area and award myself stat points based on that.

A (80%): 15 points

B (70%): 10 points

C (60%): 5 points

D (<60 %): FAIL, no points

 

That's all I can think of right now (all the other things that come to mind are on the to-do-list ). I do hope I can follow up on the awesome month of march and make may equally amazing. I do feel like I'm on the right track this time. Mostly, because I'm actually looking forward to monday Let's do this!

 

[sterre]

Looks like a good challenge!

 

I feel like the miracle morning thing is something I should maybe try... my usual approach to mornings is to procrastinate until it stops being morning and then start doing things and I don't think this is a very good idea.

[fleaball]

Woot. Ready to watch you rock some socks.

[Snarkyfishguts]

"the way you spend your days is the way you live your life" just like punched me in the face.

 

I love this challenge! You've got great goals!

[ninjakitten]

Oh, I LOVE your new(ish) setup Briniel. I hope the next challenge will be as awesome as the last! 

 

(And that is a seriously great system for tracking tasks.)

[Briniel]

10 hours ago, sterre said:

Looks like a good challenge!

 

I feel like the miracle morning thing is something I should maybe try... my usual approach to mornings is to procrastinate until it stops being morning and then start doing things and I don't think this is a very good idea.

Thanks! I definitely notice some changes when I follow through with it. If I don't, my approach is similar to yours... and then there's this holy grail of time when it's not morning anymore, but before noon - if I don't get anything productive done before noon, the whole day feels off. So it works much better for me to just get stuff done right away. Especially since I know excactly what I'll be doing, I don't have to think about it, there's this list of things I just do in the morning.

 

10 hours ago, fleaball said:

Woot. Ready to watch you rock some socks.

Woot! Let's rock this together

 

6 hours ago, Snarkyfishguts said:

"the way you spend your days is the way you live your life" just like punched me in the face.

 

I love this challenge! You've got great goals!

I know! I love that quote, I printed it and put it up next to my desk. There's so much truth in it. Hal Elrod says something similar in the Miracle Morning book, about how today is the only possible moment to change your life, because today is your life or something along those lines, but this quote is just like... bam. headshot.

 

5 hours ago, ninjakitten said:

Oh, I LOVE your new(ish) setup Briniel. I hope the next challenge will be as awesome as the last! 

 

(And that is a seriously great system for tracking tasks.)

Thanks! I hope my next challenge will be as awesome as the one before last

I love my habit tracker, too. Now I just need and equally great system for non-daily tasks

[Miw_Sher]

Yaaay!Tagging along for German and awesome habit tracking.

[maegs]

 

[Ripple]

Here for the gorgeous bullet journal.

 

Also the awesome goals. 

 

That journal though... 

 

[Waldgeist]

Found you!

[Briniel]

16 hours ago, Miw_Sher said:

Yaaay!Tagging along for German and awesome habit tracking.

Yaaaaaaay! Glad to have you on board

 

11 hours ago, maegs said:

 

 

6 hours ago, Ripple said:

Here for the gorgeous bullet journal.

 

Also the awesome goals. 

 

That journal though... 

 

 

1 minute ago, High Lord of the Sith said:

Found you!

Yay!

 

 

I'm currently on my first scheduled break (one pomodoro/brick, but I already had two little non-scheduled breaks... oops) and it's a few minutes past noon. So past the time where I usually get cranky if I haven't done something productive so far. Luckily, today I

• weighed myself (and decided the scales are lying)
• did my miracle morning
• did my wrist and ankle exercises
• decided to skip the daily dare (hahahahahaha no)
• went running (with sprinting and uphill running to count for the Assassin's Mini)
• crossed off my "go outside" task, because of that
• showered and washed my hair
• had brakfast (fruit and joghurt) on the balcony in the sun
• watered the plants
• called/messaged some people for a birthday gift for my boyfriend (his birthday is on saturday)
• worked one tomato on office stuff for my dad

 

The rest of my to do list for today looks like this

• practice singing
• get some more housekeeping done
• get some more Superpower Training done (especially balancing!!)
• measure flexibility as a baseline (maybe?)
• do some more calls regarding the birthday present
• prepare my breakfast and lunch for work tomorrow
• clean the couch
• move the couch out of the way
• clean under the couch (uh oh)
• get a new couch at 7.30 pm!!
• have an awesome day (yes, that's actually on there )

That's totally doable considering that I still have 7 hours left for it! This is why I love getting up early And I love making plans. The more detailed my to do list is, the better I do on any given day. So, memo to self: use your daily lists as much as possible! If you want to take a break, set the timer. Get back to work when it rings. Be awesome!

 

My three tasks for this week are

• get copies of the deocuments I need and mail my taxes (seriously, why didn't I do this yet!?)
• create practice files for at least two choir pieces
• make an appointment with a dermatologist for that weird spot on my arm (I don't think it's anything to worry about, but my boyfriend insists I go. I made him get an appointment for his knees on wednesday, so I guess it's only fair that I listen to his doctor advice, too )

[ninjakitten]

Sounds like an ultra-productive day already! Great way to start of the new challenge!  

[Briniel]

26 minutes ago, ninjakitten said:

Sounds like an ultra-productive day already! Great way to start of the new challenge!  

And I continued it in ultra-productive mode. I had a small lag between 12 and 2pm and then again just about now, but all the tasks on my to-do-list for today are done (except for the one marked maybe and getting the new couch, since it's not 7.30pm yet) and I even got started on creating the practice files - one song is done! There are still some open tasks on my habit tracker, but I'm positive I'll get them done and have a perfect day (like I did the whole weekend... looks like I'm on a roll). Weeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

[sterre]

Yay for perfect and productive days!

[spooky]

*picks jaw up off of floor*

 

Following along for amazingly inspiring uber-productive days and bullet journal awesomeness  

[NeverThatBored]

Following! I'm always amazed by how much stuff you do. And yay for new couches! 

[fleaball]

Damn woman. I am in awe.

[Briniel]

Thanks, guys I'm pretty amazed myself I did end up doing all my tasks on monday (except for the optional measurements one) and had a perfect habit tracker day. Also aced my second day. Tuesday was a work day and usually I do not get anything done in the evening after getting home from work but I realized that I forgot to account for that when setting my office work goal. So I did one tomato of office work. I also did some stuff for the Superpower Training and got some more birthday shennaningans done. Aaaand I had another perfect habit tracker day. That's the fourth in a row, so I'm not going to break my stride today!

 

Today I got up at 7, did my miracle morning and fitness habit tracker stuff (all the rows until the first dotted line) and had scrambled eggs with tomatoes for breakfast. Now I'm on a planned break to update here (though, admittedly, I planned for one tomato and am on my second...) because the I couldn't access the forums yesterday. My to-do list for today:

• choir practice in the evening
• office work (at least 1 tomato) (2 tomatoes!)
• get another practice track done (actually, got 2 done and realized that's all there are. Finished!)
• make an appointment with the dermatologist
• Superpower Training (I plan on getting out the rowing machine)
• arrange a meeting with M. this week
• call lots of people regarding birthday shennaningangs
• start making the birthday card
• get documents for taxes printed
• follow a yoga video
• research (and write down!!) knee strengthening exercises
• research a variety of bodyweight stuff I can do (input welcome! I'm looking for stuff in the 3-10 rep range that are not push ups, table pull ups (because I already do them) or squats (because my knees don't like them).)
• do some housekeeping

 

Hopefully I'll get a call from job hunt option A today. They called yesterday when I was at work and when I had time to call back, their office was already closed. This morning I visualised that they'll call to tell me I got the job and that the salary negotiations will go well. According to Hal Elrod's logic, if I visualise often and determined enough, it will happen

[Alexandrite]

Subbing for Justice League support! Glad the mini can be of some motivation for you!

And yeah, that amazing organization of yours! Sorry to hear last challenge was a wash, but good to see you going back to hat works!

Sent by my Navi-powered device!

[maegs]

Fingers crossed that you hear from job A!

[Briniel]

4 hours ago, maegs said:

Fingers crossed that you hear from job A!

Thanks! I didn't hear from them yet, hopefully tomorrow they'll call. Otherwise they won't reach me until monday (I'm at work on friday)

 

11 hours ago, Alexandrite said:

Subbing for Justice League support! Glad the mini can be of some motivation for you!

And yeah, that amazing organization of yours! Sorry to hear last challenge was a wash, but good to see you going back to hat works!

Sent by my Navi-powered device!

Yay! I got out the rowing machine today for 15 minutes of sprints (well... about 5 sets of sprints and lots of rest in between. So still rowing, just more slowly.)

 

Today was a good day again. I'm still suffering from DOMS from my run on monday, but I got some agility and speed work done for the Mini nontheless. There are some tasks that remain open, but there were also lots of things that got done, so I'm happy. I know excactly what it is that keeps me from acing everything though... (in addition to two unbelievable cute cats lying on either side of me on the new couch): half-assed bricks are back again. Or rather, letting the monkey win whenever I've completed one little thing from my list. So, made a call to my parents - computer break. Rowed for 15 minutes - computer break. Played with the cats - computer break. This is pretty much how my afternoon went, and it's really annoying. I intended to only take one-brick planned breaks, but I didn't pull through with it. Maybe I need to get some reverse psychology going... whenever I go on NF/fb/youtube/whatever, I HAVE to make it a 25min break. I can not just hop on and off, so whenever I give in to the monkey, I will have to take a real break, not some 5 minutes of quenching any flow I might have had going. And when I get off, I need to do at least one tomato of productive stuff. Maybe that'll work. Oh, I also noticed that it's a bad idea to schedule tasks where I'd like to get more than the one required tomato in right before other tasks or dates or something. Yesterday I knew I wanted to check in here at noon and started office work at 11.30, so naturally I only got one tomato in. Today I had a free stretch of time ahead of me when starting the office work and just kept going after the first tomato. It isn't that bad once I can get myself to start, so I should make sure I get the work done with as few (re)starts as possible

I will now make sure I can fill in the rest of my habit tracker. Seeing all those perfect days in a row really motivates me to keep the streak going

[Lightning]

Spying Subbing!  

 

Love the breaks for exercise.  I'm trying to do something similar in the evenings.  Just to get in a few more minutes and more movement.

[Briniel]

Update time

 

on wednesday night, our cats decided that the balcony was too small a territory for them. So they gnawed their way through the cord which we used to fasten the cat-net at one side of the balcony and escaped onto the roof. Freedom!!! Well, one of them was easy enough to get back on safe ground with cat treats (not before attempting to give my boyfriend a heart attack by balancing on the rim of the balcony outside the net, but the other one had climbed up onto a flat part of the roof and decided that the slope she had climbed up was too steep to climb down. So she just sat there, watching us cutting another hole in the net and trying to get her to come down through that. Nope. In the end I rang my neighbours' doorbell (at 10.30 pm, mind you) to get up on the roof via their balcony, grab the cat (who miracoulusly actually held still the whole time) and climb back down with the cat under my arm. Phew. We both got down safely, but that put back my bedtime quite a bit Plus, we decided to not let them on the balcony again until we had some cat-teeth-proof fastings for the net, which means that both of them were complaining loudly several times that night, trying to get out. My sleep was less than ideal and my plan to go swimming early thursday morning went out the window. Instead, on thursday I did this:

• grocery shopping
• prepare food for friday
• do some housekeeping stuff (tracker stuff, plus cleaning the fridge)
• print documents for taxes
• create birthday coupon (I had way too much fun with this)
• print birthday coupon
• print knee exercises
• office work (one tomato)
• research bodyweight exercises in the 3-10 rep range
• superpower training
• plan birthday breakfast for saturday

I implemented my 30-minute-break strategy and it worked quite well in the morning, but I slacked off in the afternoon. I got lots of stuff done, so I'm good, but there's still room for improvement. I also think that a rule like "at least two tomatoes of productive stuff in between breaks" would be a good idea... anyways, it was a successfull day and another perfect habit tracker day!

 

 

Friday was a work day, but again I was really productive afterwards. I did 2 tomatoes of office work. I had planned to do only one, but I was almost finished with a big part of the task and decided to just keep going. I also decided to take the weekend off Then I spent about an hour on Superpower Training, figuring out that most of the exercises I researched on wednesday were too easy. And some of them require a bigger range of motion than I have right now. So I'll need to do some more research. I really enjoyed the exercises sessions I did for last challenge's mini, where I had 4 different exercises and pushed out as many reps as I could over the course of a day, but I'd like to find some alternatives to what I did then (which was push ups, table incline rows, leg raises and elevated beginner shrimp squats). I did not manage to do all the things on my habit tracker, though. But that's okay, I aim for 80% and I'm well on my way to achieving that goal.

Plus, I'm so proud of myself for getting 3 hours of productive stuff in after a 9 hour work day. Actually, both work days this week felt really good. I feel like it's good training for when I'll have a full time job and won't be able to have free evenings by postponing things to my free days anymore (unless I want to have really busy weekends). On that note, I haven't heard from place A, but place B wrote and agreed on my proposition of a trial day, so that's good

 

 

Today is my boyfriend's birthday, so I got up early, bought some more groceries that I had forgotten on thursday and prepared a really delicious breakfast, including shrimp-spinach-muffins that my boyfriend had asked for. And I had earl grey tea with cream, which was actually quite enjoyable. I usually only drink fruit or roiboos tea, everything else is too bitter for my taste, but this one was quite nice

My boyfriend got his voucher (for speedskates that he's been arguing over whether to buy or not for a long time) and was really happy. I camouflaged it as a cheap promotional gift, including a crappy cover letter with his name spelt wrong (he has a foreign name and gets this all the time). He totally bought it until the part where it said "This is going to be the summer of your life!!111eleven11!!!" Oh, and he got binary birthday candles! (But didn't realize they were binary until I told him. I was a little disappointed )

 

My to-do list for today is already done. But it only had "grocery shopping", "prepare birthday breakfast" and "wake up birthday boy" on it anyways Now I'm off to have a really lazy weekend (except for the part where I'm still going to crush my habit tracker, housekeeping tracker and the Superpower Training, of course)

 

[Terah]

hi

[Alexandrite]

Sounds like you had a really great week 1 so far honestly! I like that you continue to search for exercises that will challenge you but still be safe for recovering RoM. Keep at it!

And Earl Grey is my comfort tea. Love adding in cream and honey. Mint for stomach ease, rooibos for immune system/allergy stuff. Teavana had a tea blend at one point that was Jasmine Gradon Phoenix Pearls and Rooibos Tropica, and if I drank that consistently my allergies never got one up on me. We have moved so much in the last 6 years it didnt matter, but I am guessing by next year I will need to start it up again. Land of dry wild grasses and such for ranching, haha.

Hope you have a fun weekend celebrating his birthday and enjoy your free time! You earned it!

Sent by my Navi-powered device!