Hey there,
Here are 3 things I’ve learned and/or expanded on this week.
Enjoy! Subscribe, share, comment, all the things.
A couple of short ones for you this week.
My Start And End Of Day Meditations
There are so many different forms of meditation. There are also a ton of ways that you can individualize a particular form of meditation for yourself.
Currently, I try to dedicate some time in the morning and some time before bed to “meditate”. I don’t like to set a specific amount of time for this. I just let the practice itself or my time constraints at the time dictate how much time I will spend meditating. It can take me anywhere from 2-3 minutes to 15+ minutes.
Here is a list of some of the key components of my meditation routine:
- Breath work. There are a ton of different breathing techniques out there. Currently, I stick to some of the basics – box (or rectangle) breathing, long exhales, alternating nostril breathing, breath holds on inhalation and exhalation, forceful breaths, etc… I basically choose the technique which will elicit the calming or the energizing effect that I’m looking for in that moment.
- Mindfulness. This can include mindfulness of your body (in full or in parts), sounds, smells, sights, and sitting with sensations, feeling, and thoughts.
- Gratitude. I try to practice gratitude multiple times every day and include them in my morning and nighttime routines. Pretty simple questions like “what went well today?”, “what am I grateful for?”, and “what am I proud of accomplishing today?” can be used to spark some gratitude.
- Vision of my future self. This one is important. This is envisioning the ideal you in the future. It can be the distant future (10 years from now, in old age, etc…), immediate future (tomorrow or days from now), or anywhere in between.
- Questions. I like to finish off my meditation by asking myself a few questions. If I’m just starting my day, I’ll ask myself questions like “what are the things I need to do today to get myself closer to my vision of my future self?” and “what are the things I need to avoid doing today that will inevitably steer me away from my vision of my future self?”. If I’m just ending my day, I’ll ask myself questions like “what are the things I did today that brought me closer to my vision of my future self?”, “what are some weak points I need to improve upon?”, “what are the things I need to do tomorrow?”, and “what are the things I need to avoid doing tomorrow?”.
Be The Dumbest Person In The Room
If you’re like me, you like to learn. A lot. You probably have some of your favorite topics or areas that you like to learn about, but you also probably like to learn about a broad range of topics.
You can choose to really hone in on a few topics or areas and learn a lot about them. You can also choose to learn a little bit about a lot of different topics or areas. There are trade-offs to both and I tend to gravitate towards the latter these days. I steer myself in the direction of the things I find the most interesting and enjoyable. This has really allowed me to spend more time learning overall and helps to minimize any boredom that might arise.
The dumbest person in the room has the opportunity to learn the most compared to everyone else in the room. I’m not saying that you can’t be a knowledgeable person, because of course you can. The world is filled with experts on very narrow and very broad topics. BUT it would be pretty naive to think that there isn’t someone out there smarter or more knowledgeable than you.
Surrounding yourself with people who are more knowledgeable than you sets you up to learn the most in the end.
Program Hopping – Onto The Latest Trend
I tend to spend a lot of my time digging into the science of lifting. Specifically, to maximize my training for muscle growth.
There are A LOT of people putting information and content out there on fitness and nutrition. It can seem like things are changing almost on a daily basis if your social media algorithms are optimized for fitness.
For a long time throughout my training career I would essentially program hop because I was making so many changes to my training way too frequently. A lot of times scrapping the program and starting fresh right in the middle of it.
This likely slowed down my progress for a long time.
Consistency with training over time is the magical key for results. It’s okay to make small changes here and there in the middle of your program to make it more “optimal”, but try not to fall into the program hopping trap that constantly learning about training can put you in.
Stick with it for a while and actually get the results from the programs that you write yourself or purchase before moving to the next thing.