If you missed last week’s progress, check it out here.
Day 22
Back on the grind today and what I’ve been doing as of late is just getting the week’s new blog posts up and ready to go. I’ve been sitting here all day just writing out the outlines for each day. Have a pretty big post to be published tomorrow on how to get to sleep, something I’ve been struggling with in the last couple months.
Regarding the exercises, I’m almost to 100 on pushups. I got to 88 today and it was a bear. Somewhere around 60 my mind starts screaming at me to stop. 100 pushups in a row are hard as hell to do.
Day 23
Got up early today and tried to get all my morning activities done as soon as possible. When I wake up, the thought of just starting work comes to me and for a moment I consider forgoing the exercises until later. I never do this though because I know as the day goes on I’ll be less and less inclined to actually see them done.
I am getting excited to get work done though. I got a blog post edited and formatted correctly and sent it out. Then it’s a matter of promoting it through a few channels. What’s becoming a bit of a distraction now is that I’ll open up analytics and check the real time stats to see what people are doing.
Day 24
Last night I had a bomber bottle of beer before bed and as I was sitting in bed, I thought of a ton of articles to write about. There’s something to be said about using Alcohol to bolster creativity. I would mostly stay away from it because there are some obvious negatives, but perhaps use it for a brain storming session.
One of the things about 30 Days of Discipline is that stuff that you haven’t thought of will cause you to possibly stray. For instance, I play in a football league and after games everyone goes out for a drink. At this point it’s getting kinda late so I have to make a choice of going out, or going home and doing work. This scenario will play itself out in many different forms. Be aware of this if you have any kind of social life or friends. Be resolute to taking a month off from all that before you start.
Day 25
Upon getting up today I have noticed a chill in the air. I live in Pennsylvania and Fall is upon us. What this means is that it’s becoming harder and harder to do cold showers in the morning. They are still getting done, but they are a touch more difficult.
My usual way to start a cold shower is I turn the dial to the coldest possible setting, then I turn on the shower. I usually stand around for like 30 seconds because my mind is coming up with reasons to stall. Then I get in the back of the shower and put my arms in the water. From there it’s one, two, three and into the water. I’ll usually let out a “Woooooo” really loud upon hitting the water. After that it’s easy. It takes about 2 seconds to get used to the water as long as you make sure to get it all over your body as fast as possible.
It’s a perfect metaphor for doing work because we are so scared of 2 seconds of discomfort that we’ll stall for as long as possible.
Day 26
We’re coming into the final stretch now and I’m feeling great. Doing work every day makes you feel incredible. I’m encountering a bit of a dillemma with my writing for this blog. I have a bunch of posts lined up to go, but some of them are super in depth.
On one hand we have guys like Victor advocating making a really good post and polishing it to perfection. He only releases posts every now and then, but they are pretty good. On the other hand you have guys like Mike from Danger and Play releasing outstanding content every day it seems. At this point I’d have to side with Mike as I’m just starting out and not on the radar, but there’s something to be said about letting a post get all the exposure it can before it’s swallowed up by new content.
I’m crushing the daily exercises now. I just breeze right through them like they are nothing. It’s interesting to see because when I started I wouldn’t have any trouble doing them, but the interval between doing one set vs another set was long so I could catch my breath. There’s no wait in between sets now, just jump to the next exercise.
Day 27
One of the key takeaways from doing the program I have found is that getting up really early before anyone else is critical. There’s something about having no distractions from other people that lets me get much more work done, I’m not exactly sure what it is.
I have gotten up too late a number of times during the program and I just never get as much done during the day as I would have had I gotten up at 5. For anyone doing 30 Days of Discipline, I really think this is the most important part besides getting your to do list done.
Day 28
Here we are on the final Sunday and what a good time for a rest day. I’ve been working feverishly the last couple days on some big blog posts so it’s nice to have a day of rest here. It also falls on a day in which I am watching my nephews, so I doubt I’ll be getting much work done tonight.
This drives the point home for me that if anyone out there is thinking of doing the project, try to clear up a month of time before you do it. Don’t get distracted by other people wanting to go out or by family matters. Make this month totally dedicated to completing the program.
This meshes with getting your work done in life. Let’s be honest, if we found a way to dedicate ourselves to our hustle 100% without distraction, within a year we’d have great results.
Day 29
Getting close to the end of the program and I’m left wondering what steps I should implement with my every day life. Getting up at 5 am would obviously be one of the harder ones to implement for me personally as I’m more of a night owl. It would also be one of the most beneficial steps to take as I found myself getting way more work done when I actually got up at 5.
I think I’ll skip the pushups and squats and go back to my gym routine. A few months ago when I was doing my weight training routine every week, I was seeing some good gains. Hit PRs in my squat and deadlift. I was training for a purpose by the way. A lot of self improvement material says to go to the gym. I agree, except it’s made much easier to stay on track if you are actually training for a purpose. In my case, I wanted to get stronger to hit softballs harder.
Day 30
Last day on the program and it feels a bit weird. What am I going to do for the rest of the week? I have a couple of thoughts on that. One, I’m going to try and release blog posts every day for the week in October. Mon-Fri I’ll try and get a new article out. How I plan on doing this is that I’ll set up a blog post to be released each day. Then, every day I’m going to write out a blog post. When I finish, I’ll start on the next one. If I keep doing this it will only take me a couple days to finish out the month. Should be around 30,000 words.
I feel super energized after doing the program. I think that if you are having trouble getting work done or find yourself distracted, set aside a month and give everything you have towards the program. You will find that you have come out the other side with so much work done.
Another great reason to start would be if you are thinking of launching a site or business and you want little to no distractions for the first month to really start it with a bang.
If you missed any of the previous weeks of 30 Days of Discipline, check it out here:
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