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Why you have to build a disciplined life

January 10, 2023

As I build a more disciplined life, I understand why discipline equals freedom.

As you build more discipline, you start to feel more free. I know that doesn’t make sense on the surface. Wouldn’t being more disciplined lead to fewer choices? Nope, in fact, the exact opposite.

Almost every day, I drink two cups of espresso – never after midday. I’ve built this habit and it’s now easy to do. It requires no thought or effort. If I ever break it, it’s an intentional choice and worth it.

But, I used to drink at least ten cups of tea from the moment I woke up, to going to bed. I could never resist a double espresso after a big meal out at a restaurant. I tried to cut down many times, and found it very difficult. I knew it was too much caffeine. I knew it was hurting my sleep and therefore my health. Yet, it seemed to have a control over me that was too hard to break.

Almost every day, I drink two litres of water. This one requires a little more intention, but it’s not hard. I drink a litre quickly and early in the day. And I have a 1 litre Yeti water bottle that makes it easy to remember to drink more water – which I do.

But, I used to drink hardly any water on any given day. I’d remember at multiple points throughout the day, but never actually did the right thing and actually drink some water. Sometimes I would drink a glass or two, but it felt like a massive chore. I knew if I drank more water, I would feel better and be healthier. Yet, I still struggled to nail down the habit.

Almost every day, I push back my first bite of food to about 14.00. Only water and espresso until then. If I ever break it, again, it’s an intentional choice. This helps me be clear headed, alert and productive in the mornings. It helps me control my appetite and calorie intake. It helps keep my weight at the right level – which makes me feel good and gives me better health. And perhaps most importantly, it gives me control over my relationship with food. I’ll eat when I need to eat. I’ll eat when I say I’ll eat.

But, I used to eat as soon as I woke up. And from there, it was an autopilot, graze fest through to bed time. I’d eat for the sake of it. I’d get energy slumps throughout the day. I was often bloated and uncomfortable from eating too much and too frequently. I felt like a slave to food.

I could go on and on. Which versions of these sound more free? Which versions of these lead to more peace of mind? Which versions of these have more choice? Which versions of these lead to a higher quality life – both in the moment you decide to let loose a bit (i.e today I’m going to enjoy having pancakes for breakfast) and also in the long term (better long-term health)?

I can guarantee you, it’s totally possible to go from undisciplined to disciplined. And when you taste it, there’s no going back. But, talking about it and hoping for things to get better won’t work. You need to put systems in place. You need to get people around you that will keep you accountable.

A great first step is writing out your habits and then tracking them on a daily basis. It doesn’t have to be fancy – as you can see 😉

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Why most people fail to build new habits

January 5, 2023

Understanding the learning curve of a habit makes them a lot easier to build.

When you first try to build a new habit, it’s usually difficult. You’re doing something new. Your environment isn’t set up for you to succeed. This means you’re going to miss more than you hit.

But, if you stick with it, after a while, you start to notice things you can change that will make it easier. A hack here, a tweak there. This usually gets you to at least 50% consistency – which starts to make you feel OK about it all.

If you continue to stick with it (noticing a theme here?), you’ll notice that you stumble into one or two changes that make ALL the difference. They literally jump you straight to 70-80% consistency. From here, you can see the finishing line. You usually need just another couple of months to achieve 80%+ consistency with ease.

Let me give you a few examples:

When I first set myself a goal of eating at least 120 grams of protein, it seemed almost impossible.

The first thing I realised was that I needed an easy way to track it. Welcome, myfitnesspal. I quickly saw that I was eating about 50 – 75 grams a day – and even that felt tough. It took me a while to realise that because I do intermittent fasting, I had to make my first meal (lunch) really count. If I didn’t get enough protein in that meal, the rest of the day became an almost impossible hill to climb. So, lunch became meat, nuts and veggies, which netted me about 50 – 60 grams of protein.

But, it was still hit and miss getting to 120 grams of protein with just an evening meal to follow. I realised I needed to get an afternoon snack in to bridge the gap. Through some trial and error, I ended up adding in some high protein greek yoghurt and a protein shake mid-afternoon. This gives me 65 grams of protein, which means I’m now heading into dinner with 120 grams of protein in the bank. Dinner then usually gives me between 30 and 60 grams of protein, depending on what it is (I’m way more flexible given it’s a family meal).

Fast forward to today, and I’m on track this month to hit 80%+ consistency for 120 grams of protein per day. And you know what? It’s EASY. I’ve gone from almost impossible to easy in two months. I now have to really do something unusual to fall below it.

Here’s another example. When I first set my sleep goal of 6.5 hours, it was super tough. I managed it about 50% of the time. But, as I continued to focus on it, I realised a few things that needed to change to jump me to 80%.

The biggest thing I noticed was the math needed to ensure 6.5 hours. It sounds stupid, because it’s so obvious. But, I needed to start to actually think about what it took to get 6.5 hours sleep. When I would wake up. When I would head to bed. And importantly, the fact that you tend to lose about an hour each night falling asleep and waking in the night. This led to me becoming more flexible on waking early every morning. Now, when I have a morning where I have to wake early, I think ahead and be sure to get to bed early enough to still hit 6.5 hours.

Nowadays, the only time I don’t hit 6.5 hours sleep is when I have a commitment in the evening, combined with a lack of flexibility on what time I can wake. I literally can’t make the math work. Or, something rare like I’m sick, or my daughter is going through a rough time sleeping. And that’s usually less than 20% of the time.

So, now it feels easy to hit 80% consistency. My average sleep is now over seven hours. It’s gone from super tough to easy in four months.

As you can see, it’s not exactly rocket science. Most people simply give up early in the process – when it’s difficult and you’re not seeing many results. But, that’s just the first part of the process. You need to manage your expectations and be easy on yourself. You need to have some patience. If you can push through the early tough stage, you give yourself the chance to learn what it takes to be consistent. And from there, it gets exponentially easier.

Some habits can take 30 – 60 days. You start at over 50% and it becomes pretty obvious what you need to do to reach 80%+ consistency. Other habits can take six months and are a much more difficult journey. But the learning curve is usually similar. If you can have some awareness of it, it’ll help you stay the course and be more successful in establishing new habits.

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A perfect day

January 4, 2023

Yesterday was about as perfect as it gets.

I woke from a 8:21 sleep – a solid 50% of deep and REM sleep and 100% of my total sleep need (according to whoop)

I fasted (black coffee and water) until 14.30.

My diet was pure perfection. 2000 calories, with 40% protein, 40% fat and 20% carbs. That’s a massive 193 grams of protein.

I had 2 cups of caffeine before 11am.

I drank 2 litres of water.

I took my supplements.

I had a great training session – a nice long warm up, some upper body strength, conditioning on the bike, followed by a decent cool down.

Of course, no alcohol (537th day sober).

It’s rare that a day of habits comes together as perfectly as this. And that’s sort of the point.

A few years ago, I would have held this type of day as the minimum benchmark to feel satisfied. I was so goal oriented, that nothing less than hitting all of my perfect goals was good enough. Almost all of the time, I was overwhelmed and frustrated by not achieving my goals.

Fast forward to today, and perfection is not the goal. 80% consistency is good enough. I don’t get bent out of shape if I miss some stuff. I know 80% is where most of the rewards are. At 80%, I look and feel better than I ever have. I’m happier than I’ve ever been.

Striving for perfection makes for a miserable life. Because as soon as you know you’re not going to hit perfection (usually, very early in the day), it’s easy to talk yourself into completely giving up until the next day. This is horrible for building consistency. And consistency ALWAYS wins over perfection.

Last year I laid the groundwork with my health. I found a way to be consistent with health habits and by working with my personal trainer, we found an optimal way for me to train consistently. This year, I’m going to build myself into a goddamn machine. And I’m going to do it with patience, 80% consistency, and a smile on my face. 😊

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Daily Habits: December 2022 (my proudest month!)

December 31, 2022

Last month, I said November was my strongest month since I’ve been tracking my daily habits. Whilst statistically true, December is the month I’m most proud of.

I knew December was going to be a minefield. One of the reasons I’ve been able to build consistency with my habits this year is because I’ve created an environment that gives me the best chance of success. The holiday season means I lose a lot of that – travel, more socialising, easier access to food etc..

Because of this, I decided to lower my expectations in December. I’d still push for 80% consistency for all habits, but wouldn’t beat myself up if I fell short – which I fully expected to.

Here’s how December came out:

I consider that a smash. I kept five of my habits over the 80% threshold. That’s astonishing to me. Remember, it was only eleven months ago that I struggled to keep two habits above the 80% threshold. Now I can easily keep FIVE above the threshold – and in one of the most challenging months of the year.

Protein and intermittent fasting took a big hit. I knew this would happen. They are my two most challenging habits and still very reliant on a predictable environment and routine. I need a few more months to strengthen these.

That brings me to my goals for January 2023. That’s a straightforward one. I want three months back to back of green – all habits over 80%. I need to know for sure I have these seven health habits ‘in the bank’ before I focus on anything new.

Here’s to starting January 2023 strong!

P.S. If you want to create a better set of health habits in 2023, check out Five things I’ve found to be super helpful in establishing new habits. And feel free to get in touch – I’d love to help.

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Daily Habits: November 2022 (I’m at a massive inflection point!)

December 2, 2022

November was my strongest month in the ten months I’ve been tracking my daily habits.

My goal for November was the same as October, (and September) – six habits (alcohol, sleep, fasting, caffeine, water and supplements) over 80%.

Here’s how I did:

November, 2022 (Close up)

No Alcohol – 100%
Sleep – 6.5HR – 80%
Protein – 120 grams – 73%
Intermittent Fasting (8/16) – 73%
Caffeine (2 before Midday) – 97%
Water – 2 Litres – 93%
Supplements – 93%

(Average sleep – 7 hours, 15 mins)

I’m especially pleased about November for a few reasons:

My sleep has been at 80%+ consistency and above an average of 7 hours for three straight months now. It’s become noticeably easier to get over six and a half hours, which is a sign that the habit is starting to stick. My average sleep also hit an all time high of 7 hours, 15 mins in November. 👊

The switch from Paleo to 120 grams of protein has been a game changer. It’s been so liberating to let go of trying to hold myself accountable to a very strict goal of eating paleo. It turns out eating 120 grams of protein is a VERY good simple metric to focus on. Firstly, because eating enough protein is a big factor in recovering from workouts and building muscle (and I wasn’t eating enough before). But secondly, it’s a behaviour that encourages many other good behaviours. It’s forcing me to better plan out my meals. It’s encouraging me to make better food choices (high protein meals tend to be cleaner – big salads, lots of meat, nuts and dairy). It’s also helped bring my total calories down. What surprised me the most was how consistently I achieved 120 grams of protein – I hit 73%! You’ll also notice that most of the time I missed was on weekends. So, there’s an obvious way to close the gap and get it over 80%.

Intermittent fasting fell a little below 80%, which was a bit of a shame. But, there’s a silver lining. Most of the times I missed were conscious decisions by me. I knew I was going to slip below 80% and made peace with that. At least half of the misses were drinking the odd cup of tea whilst watching my daughter play football (I count that as a miss, because technically the milk breaks the fast). Most of the benefit of intermittent fasting is that it helps you to eat fewer total calories, therefore these slip ups don’t make much difference. That said, making excuses like this can become a slippery slope. So, I’m going to tighten it up and keep things at 80% going forward.

My caffeine, water and supplement habits are fully established habits now. I hardly have to think about them and can’t imagine a scenario where they drop below 80% again.

So, overall an INCREDIBLE month. Yes, I have a little bit of tightening up to do. But, I’m very close to having seven really powerful health habits at 80% consistency. This feels like a gigantic inflection point for me. I feel and look better for it. Things are really clicking.

That brings me to December. This is always a tricky month, because of the holiday period. I was tempted to take the same approach as I did for August (track my habits, but let go of any expectations), but that feels a bit of a cop out given where I am. So, I’m going to push for 80% for all habits and see where I end up. I’ll lower my expectations a bit. If I fall a bit short, I’m not going to beat myself up. And whatever the result, from there, I’ll be looking for a full wave of green in Jan, Feb and March 2023. If I achieve that, I’ll start to look at some other habits.

Bring on December!

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The wrestle with self belief

November 30, 2022

Sometimes I feel like there’s so much opportunity in the world. There’s so much time to get things done. I am capable of a huge amount of things. It’s literally there for the taking.

But, that’s like 5-10% of the time. In fact, it almost surprises me when I feel like that. It sort of comes from nowhere, and I know it’s going to disappear soon.

The rest of the time is either feeling neutral or self doubt. Who am I to have these ambitious feelings? Why do I deserve or have what it takes to do something special? I’m just one person out of billions in this world.

I’ve been in C level leadership roles for over 10 years feeling like this. I’ve helped transform companies and teams feeling like this. I’ve coached Executives feeling like this. I created a business from scratch that did over $1M annual revenue feeling like this.

As you can see, I don’t let it paralyse me. Momentum usually shoves me forward. Either that, or I drag myself forward – one way or the other. I fake it when it’s needed. But, man, does it feel like the handbrake is on at times. It’s exhausting. Even though I don’t let it paralyse me, it does hold me back at times.

I swear, I’ll never stop trying to be more confident. I’ll read and listen to anything on mindset I can get my hands on. Find people who cracked the code and learn what helped them. Learn techniques to turn crappy thinking and bad energy into confidence and optimism. Surround myself with people who inspire me and lift me up. Whatever it takes to get that percentage up.

I mean, it’s that or give up right? There’s no choice there.

I wonder how many people feel like this? I suspect that even the most confident people feel like this sometimes. Just less. And maybe by default they have a better set of tools to cope with these feelings and nip things in the bud.

On that note, here is a list of things that have helped me. Maybe they’re useful to you.

Be active, every day. It’s a complete mood shifter. When I go through periods of being inactive, I struggle with self doubt more.

Sleep enough. Track it. Seven hours is a good number to shoot for. Below six is bad. When I run into a few days of poor sleep, things get harder.

Consider your relationship with alcohol. At least for me, I had to cut it out of my life.

Surround yourself with people (in real life and online) who are confident and optimistic. When I’m around people like this, it keeps me on the right side of things. I have fewer self belief episodes and I work my way out of them quicker.

Figure out what self care works for you. Set yourself some rules and do your best to be consistent with them.

Notice when you’re starting to get stuck in a negative loop. The earlier you spot it, the better. As soon as you find yourself there, do something to interrupt it as quickly as you can. That can be movement, getting outside, taking some deep breaths, a mantra, meditation – fill in the blank. Whatever works for you.

Try and take yourself less seriously. Life is short. Most of the bad stories we make up in our heads are grossly exaggerated. And they usually aren’t the most important things anyway. Health, family, friends and experiences are all more important than success, work, and money (at least for me). Remind yourself of what’s truly important, and things get easier.

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Having rules for yourself

November 24, 2022

Yesterday I listened to Joe Rogan’s conversation with Steven Pressfield (author of the War of Art). It’s a brilliant, wide ranging conversation on many things. What stood out for me, was their discussion on why it’s important to have rules for yourself.

I’m a big fan of having rules for my life. In fact, the rules I have for myself are now becoming deeply ingrained habits. When I describe them to others, I often get a surprised look. I mean, I get it – it really does sound like a lot when I say them out loud. But, it also doesn’t seem like a lot to me, because I’ve become normalised to it.

I don’t drink alcohol.
I sleep over six and a half hours a day.
I eat within an eight hour window (usually between 1PM and 9PM) – fasting for sixteen hours
I drink a maximum of two cups of caffeine a day, and never after midday
I drink at least two litres of water every day
I take supplements every day (vitamin c, multivitamin, fish oil, vitamin d, quercetin, zinc and magnesium)
I eat over 120 grams of protein a day

The above rules are virtually non negotiable. I hold myself accountable to them and track them daily.

I say virtually non negotiable, because I’m not perfect. Shooting for perfection isn’t realistic. It’s also not how I want to live my life. The 80/20 is where you find the sweet spot for most of the rewards – but with the flexibility to have some fun and stay sane too. It took me a very long time to learn that.

My life is so much better for having these rules. I feel great. I’m in good health. I’m at a weight I am happy with. I have better mental health. Overall, they help contribute to a happier and more productive life.

But, what’s important is I know my rules. I know why I have each one. I don’t have to go through the mental gymnastics each day – wondering and debating what types of things I should probably do. I don’t have to wait for, or rely on hitting rock bottom to find the motivation to do these things. I just do them. It’s who I am.

So, whilst on the surface it looks like a lot of discipline, it’s actually incredibly liberating. As Jocko Willink says, Discipline = Freedom.

I’ve also started to re-read Daily Rituals: How Artists Work this week. What another great reminder of how important rules and routines are. It’s not a coincidence that some of the most successful and productive artists of all time had self-imposed daily rituals and rules for their life.

So, here’s the big question. Do you have any rules for yourself?

If you don’t, consider coming up with one rule that would help you live a happier and more productive life. Commit to it. Track it. Keep plugging away until it literally becomes who you are. You may just find this becomes an inflection point that leads you towards many other positive changes in your life.

And as usual, if you want any help with anything like this, hit me up.

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Daily Habits: October 2022 (a wall of green and a diet breakthrough!)

November 3, 2022

October was everything I could have hoped for. My goal was to have six habits (alcohol, sleep, fasting, caffeine, water and supplements) over 80% for the second month running. Mission accomplished – and fairly easily:

My goal for November remains the same as October – six habits (alcohol, sleep, fasting, caffeine, water and supplements) over 80%. That will give me three months in the green, and the confidence that these habits are nailed. It feels great to be within touching distance of this.

I’ve been thinking a lot about my diet too. Last month I decided to drop paleo as a focus to track. I went for a fuzzier ‘eat meat and vegetables, nuts and seeds, some fruit, little starch, and no sugar’, with a few exceptions. I quickly realised this wasn’t useful to hold myself accountable to. It’s too broad and too ambitious.

Diet is a difficult one for me. I find it tricky to describe how I want to eat in one metric. And actually, in contrast to the other habits, it’s more important to be consistent as an average over a week or month, rather than each day. But, I NEED a daily metric to help me build the right habits and behaviours.

Recently, I’ve also been thinking about how much protein I want to consume daily. I’ve landed on somewhere between 0.7g and 1g per pound of bodyweight. For me, that’s between 120 and 175 grams of protein. The days I hit at least 120 grams of protein, my diet looks good. But, when I am well below that, my diet looks off.

Most people won’t eat over 100 grams of protein without being intentional about it. It’s actually quite hard to do. It requires you to get a decent headstart on the day. If you’re low on protein by late afternoon, forget about eating over 100 grams.

And then it clicked. Having a goal around how many grams of protein I want to consume is a very nice and simple metric for me. It’s a great focus in itself (helps build muscle, recover more quickly etc.). But, importantly, it helps to drive a lot of other good decisions – being more intentional, food choices, starting the day off right etc.

Yes, I want to ultimately be someone who eats ‘meat and vegetables, nuts and seeds, some fruit, little starch, and no sugar’. Yes, I ultimately want to eat a diet that’s high in protein, low in carbs and high in fat. Yes, I want to mostly cut out processed foods. But, it’s a step too far for now. I need to bring it back to a smaller step that will help me build the right set of behaviours that I can then build on top of to get to where I want to be eventually.

So, my diet goal for November is to eat 120 grams of protein per day at 80% consistency. I know if I can build consistency for this, everything around it will get easier. 120 grams at 80% consistency is going to be stretching for sure – but doable if I focus on it enough.

Let’s do this.

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A proven way to make positive health changes when you’re at a low point

October 12, 2022

Now and again, I speak to someone who is desperate to make changes to improve their health.

Usually, the motivation behind this is a feeling of hitting a low point. We’ve all been there. That dreaded feeling of having enough of living a certain way. You’re overweight. You’re not happy with what you see looking back at you in the mirror. You feel sluggish and tired most of the time. You seem to pick up colds and viruses too easily (and have a hard time shaking them off). You start to worry about running into health problems later in life.

Whilst the moment of feeling at a low point isn’t nice – it’s very powerful. If I could bottle it, I’d be rich beyond my wildest dreams. It’s a rare inflection point that can drive you to take action to make big improvements in your life. But, it’s what comes after that feeling that determines whether any of that action leads to permanent change.

I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve hit that low moment for my health. I’ve also lost count of the number of times I’ve then sprung into action, but failed to make permanent changes.

In the last eight months, I’ve found a way of making health changes that stick. Just look at the difference below:

This has caused me to think about what advice I could give to someone that is at that low point with their health, and wants to make changes.

I now keep my advice to only two things. The first is around the approach. The second is more practical.

Approach:

You have to resist the temptation to try and make too many changes – or too big a change. This will almost definitely lead to failure. It’s very hard to resist this temptation. When you’re at a low point, you’re desperate to turn things around. That usually leads to wanting to make big changes, fast. But, what you need to do is the opposite – make small changes, over time.

Rather than build the discipline of doing new things, you actually have to work harder on the discipline of letting mostly everything stay the same – whilst focusing on one or two small changes. The changes I’ve made over the last eight months were made systematically – one at a time. But, combined, they add up to a whopper level of change.

Almost every month, I focused on only one or two things. I had to accept, that whilst the rest would still be measured, they would not be a focus. I had zero expectation of seeing a result. And you know what most people don’t realise? The things you chose not to focus on – actually end up improving anyway. This is because the momentum of creating positive change is infectious.

The bottom line – small changes, over time, add up to very meaningful and permanent changes over the long term. I know this is mentioned in almost every piece of self help type advice – but rarely do people actually do it that way.

Practical:

When it comes to health, I now always give the same advice. If you’re at a low point, the chances are you’re sedentary and eating badly. So, I would suggest making one small change to each of those.

And I really do mean small. It’s not going to feel enough – and that’s the litmus test. If it doesn’t feel enough, that’s probably about right. It needs to be easy enough for you to have a high probability of being consistent with it. Being consistent with the change is actually more important than the change itself. Remember, your goal at this point is to build consistency and momentum.

When it comes to being sedentary, I almost always advise to start walking. Why? It’s free. You can do it anywhere. Almost anyone can do it. The risk of injury is super low. And it gets you outside. It’s the perfect choice to build consistency and momentum. Of course, it won’t feel enough. You’d probably rather commit to a more ambitious gym or running schedule. Stop yourself in your tracks. Remember, you’re looking for easy and small. You’re looking for consistency and momentum.

Even with something as simple as walking, you’ll likely still need to temper your ambitions. It’s probably not a good idea to set a goal of walking for an hour every day. A better goal might be to walk three times a week for 30 mins. Or, twice a week for an hour. If you end up doing a bit more – that’s icing on the cake. Remember, your modest goal is more than you’re doing now. And importantly, it’s something you have a high chance of being consistent with. There will be plenty of time in the future to build on top of this and be more ambitious.

When it comes to diet, you want to find a change that will be somewhat challenging – but also small enough that you can be confident you can be consistent with it. It’s probably not a good idea to decide to do 30 days of paleo. That’s a gigantic lifestyle change that would be very hard to achieve. Even eliminating desserts might be too big a goal – particularly if you’re already eating them most nights. A better goal might be to eliminate a certain food you know isn’t good for you (i.e I am no longer going to eat crisps). Or perhaps reducing something you do regularly (i.e reducing desserts to only weekends).

The hardest thing about all of this is deciding on goals that are small, and achievable. Every fibre of your body will want to do the opposite. But you know deep down (in your heart, and from experience) this will not lead to success.

Once you’ve identified the small changes you will make to being active and your diet – commit to making them for 30 days. If at the end of 30 days you’ve been 80%+ consistent, pick another one or two small changes to make. You might want to be more ambitious with the changes you’ve just made (i.e go from desserts only at the weekend, to now once per week). Or, you might want to try something entirely new. And then commit to another 30 days. Your goal now becomes to maintain the two you have at 80%+, as well as establishing the new ones.

If you were not consistent enough, or lacked the confidence in maintaining the consistency – go for another 30 days. Then, when you’re successful, you have permission to tackle new changes.

I’ll leave you with one final suggestion that will greatly increase your chance of success. Create a physical, visual chart to track your progress. This is literally how I built 80%+ consistency with six health health habits, over eight months.

If you need any help, or have any questions, hit me up!

Daily Habits: September 2022 (Whoa, I didn’t expect this!)

October 1, 2022

September’s results are in.

It’s officially a SMASH – far better than I could have hoped for!

If you remember, August was a write off. I was on holiday for a big part of it, so I let go of any expectations. I guess I had something to prove to myself in September. Was I going to allow a dip in August to derail me? Or, was I going to come back strong?

Before we jump in, here’s a quick recap of my goals for September:

Get the habits which I previously considered in the bank (i.e easy to keep at over 80%) back to over 80% – no alcohol, intermittent fasting, caffeine, water and supplements.

See where sleep and paleo fall and then plan my goals for October.

Here’s how September looked:

WHAT A MONTH. Every single habit is over 80% – including sleep which wasn’t even part of my goals! I even hit an average sleep of 7.12 hours – a record for me. September was by far my best month since I started tracking my habits. I reckon even Goggins would be proud!

I don’t really have much to say about each habit – other than I just put my head down and focused on doing really well in September. And it paid off.

I’m AGAIN reminded about the power of physically and visually tracking my daily habits. Almost every day it helped nudge my self awareness and behaviours into a better place. It’s life changing.

So, what will I focus on for October?

Simple. I want the same.

I need to prove to myself September wasn’t a lucky month. Ideally I need three months of being in the green for those six habits (alcohol, sleep, fasting, caffeine, water and supplements) to feel like I have them NAILED. At the rate I’m going, there’s a decent chance I can achieve that this year. Only after I’ve achieved this, will I consider adding in anything new.

Let’s address the elephant in the room – my diet. I’m desperate to tackle it. Recently, I’ve been reflecting on how I want to eat. I’m starting to change my view a bit. Paleo is too strict for me to be consistent or happy with. I’m realising that having it as a goal is actually causing some unhealthy eating habits. I’ll write about this soon.

What I’m likely to do is follow CrossFit’s nutrition recommendation:

Eat meat and vegetables, nuts and seeds, some fruit, little starch, and no sugar.

I definitely want to avoid ultra-processed foods. But wait, that just looks like paleo right? Well, the big change I want to make is incorporate (in moderation) some cheese, milk, greek yoghurt, oats – perhaps even a small amount of potato. So, still very clean, but with a bit more leeway.

The trick is in defining a rule set that I can clearly hold myself accountable to, so I can track my progress against it. I still have some work to do to figure that out.

For October, I’m going to officially drop paleo as something I’m tracking. Instead, I’ll track (but importantly have no goals for) myself against the crossfit recommendation – along with infrequently allowing some cheese, milk, greek yoghurt, oats and baked potato. That’s still too fuzzy for my liking. I mean, what exactly does ‘some fruit’ or ‘little starch’ mean? But, for now I’ll use my best judgement when it comes to daily tracking. And I’ll decide on a clearer set of rules before November starts.

October, let’s go!

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