On April 1st I introduced the monthly challenge. The first one ran through April 2020 and in today’s post I’m discussing the results of it.
In case you haven’t seen the initial video about the challenge, let me briefly describe what it was about.
You can keep reading this blog post or watch the video, they contain the same information.
I went big right away and attacked the root of all evil. That is Electronic Devices. I was putting my phone into a flight mode from 10 PM to 12 PM, so it’s overnight plus the next morning. In addition, I tried turning off all of my devices at 10 PM. Consequently, trying didn’t get me too far. You’re either doing it or not.
It’s an important distinction to comprehend.
- If you say, “I’ll try to go to the gym”, you are never going to work out consistently and gain muscle
- If you say, “I’ll try to start a business”, you’re never going to build an empire
- If you say, “I’ll try to travel more”, you’re never going to explore the world and see all it has to offer
Either you commit, set goals and come up with proper systems that can yield the results you are after or you keep feeding yourself these alternate reality stories where you have your sh*t together and your life is pure bliss.
Each and every one of us has a bunch of self-soothing stories like that and if you think you don’t, then you are simply unaware of them.
First, let’s talk about how the challenge went.
I have to admit: at some point, I got over it. You’ll see the gray area shortly when we’ll be looking at the spreadsheet with all of its 14 parameters that I was measuring.
I had to remind myself to approach it as a game and that I’m already halfway through it.
Another obstacle I was faced was people. Your attempts to grow will inevitably interfere with someone else’s agenda or schedule. Despite I told everyone who was affected what I was up to, I’d still get phone calls around 10 pm (right before I needed to turn off my phone) and I had to exercise some patience and commitment to my own promise to navigate through those situations. Thankfully, we figured it all out.
Here’s the thing: if you consistently demonstrate your commitment, people around you will pick it up. Some may need more convincing, others less, but eventually you’ll enroll them into your vision and they’ll get it. Again, as long as you consistently demonstrate your integrity.
That being said, let’s now turn to my spreadsheet and take a look at the numbers.
Immediately, what are we seeing?
Well, first of all, that I had a 3-day fallout. That’s because initially I was writing all of this down on a piece of paper and when I ran out of space it took me 3 days to come up with this spreadsheet and transfer all of the data.
Beyond that, what can we see here? It’s pretty obvious: the only true commitment I had was to my phone. These numbers are predominantly green and I’d say I succeeded at following through with my challenge. We have a few occasional yellows there but overall it’s a very consistent result.
Not the case with the rest of the spreadsheet. As we transition to turning off the laptop we start seeing more reds. I tried (here’s that word again – tried) holding up the first week but then it completely got out of control and I stayed in the red zone for the rest of the month.
I knew my mind would try to compensate for the phone deprivation and this was one way it sabotaged me. Now, let’s see what this column correlates to. Notice what time I was going to sleep.
I distinguished going to bed from going to sleep. Because most of the time these are two completely different numbers. Very rarely do I go to bed in the evening just to immediately fall asleep. Most of the time, those two are separated by some kind of activities, Netflix and YouTube being the top of the list. It would be sooo much better and healthier if instead, I had sex on that list. Unfortunately, I don’t. Instead, I’m an avid quarantiner and a social distancer ? So I watch Netflix. Which – honestly – should never be the reason for ruining your regime and contributing to sleep deprivation. Nevertheless, I fell into that very trap and after a few days, the time I go to sleep has become equal to the time I turn off my laptop. With a few rare exceptions.
Going to sleep at an ungodly hour led to waking up really late. Thankfully, I could afford it and still got my 7 to 8 hours of sleep. But there’s no way I could pull this off had I been working for a company.
Notice what happened when I cut my sleep short: the whole day I felt completely blah – no energy and willpower, crappy mood, and a ton of procrastination.
Now, let’s take a look at something less obvious. How the time I go to sleep affects mood, willpower, procrastination, and the energy level the next day. It’s not a completely straight-forward interdependence but it’s still pretty high. Especially when I went to sleep after 1 am, it inevitably affected my wellbeing the next day. Even despite the fact that I got decent hours of sleep!
So, what conclusion am I making: that the time I go to bed is just as important as getting the sufficient amount of sleep.
If you naively believe that you can go to bed anytime and you’ll be good as long as you sleep for 8 hours, it’s very likely you are mistaken. Of course, everybody is different and I suggest you track the numbers to know exactly how your body responds to a messed up regime. Maybe you are a superhuman who can go to bed anytime and be all active and productive the next day. Who knows? That most certainly is not the case with me.
Now, let’s take a look at the reading. The moment I manage to turn off the laptop at night, what do I do? I read. I actually ended up spending 10 hours reading in bed. And the later I turn off my laptop, the less likely I am to read.
What’s the conclusion here: when you create space, miracles happen. I wasn’t trying to read at all but when I cut down on my electronic devices and shut them off, I was reminded of how pleasurable it can be to just unwind with a book. And get this: pretty soon I was pulled to pick up a book and read something. It started happening occasionally throughout the day and particularly on weekends. After having lunch, during that slump when you want to lay down for a little bit, I’d pick up a book and enjoy some peaceful afternoon readtime. So cutting down on the electronic devices led to this transferable reading benefit when I started reading not just in the evening but also at other times. As a result, I finished 5 books that month.
In the original video, I said that sound sleep and a brain that’s been over-stimulated with news and social media throughout the day do not go together very well.
As you can imagine, it proved to be true. Very true, in fact.
Let’s take a look at the last set of numbers. It was a revelation – I’d even say a total epiphany – that happened to me. Let’s take a look at reading before sleep and dreams. I started seeing the most fascinating, vivid, and colorful dreams.
Never in a million years would I have thought about something like that. When I was issuing the challenge it didn’t even cross my mind, wasn’t on my radar at all. I was pursuing other benefits. But this became apparent after the very first reading session. The dreams that night – and especially in the morning – were so captivating that I was pushing myself to keep sleeping in the morning because I wanted to stay in the dream and with the dream to see how it unveils. I think we all know that feeling, it’s the best.
I started paying attention to this connection and sure enough, it works like magic: whenever I’d spend some time reading before going to sleep I’d pretty much be guaranteed to have the best dreams ever.
So, if you don’t think you see dreams or don’t remember your dreams or – God forbid – you think that the time of your best dreams is long gone, try testing out my method and see if it works for you.
I’m actually curious to know. If you decide to try turning off your devices and reading literature before going to sleep, share your observations with me. I really hope you start seeing these incredible dreams coz it’s just an awesome feeling. You wake up excited and enthused and entertained. And sometimes perplexed. But it’s all good, makes you feel so alive.
Alright, I think that’s where I’m going to be wrapping up.
As expected, the daily regimen is extremely important and the moment I mess it up I feel the consequences.
The presumption of the challenge was that by going through it I’d be able to reclaim my good night sleep (which partially happened), my exuberant morning (that was Big Yes) and take charge of my life as a whole (that phrase was too general, to begin with), but guess what, that’s precisely how I ended up feeling.
This was my push-challenge. It’s the kinda challenge that can exponentially increase the achievability of your other goals. I thought it would be multi-beneficial and it was. But not in the ways I assumed.
I thought I’d start going to bed earlier. And I did. But as we saw I wasn’t really going to sleep, I was just going to bed and watching Netflix.
Then, I expected better sleep. Didn’t happen. But now I know that the time you go to bed is as important as the amount of sleep you’re getting. Don’t think that you can wreck your regime and make up for it just by sleeping extra hours, didn’t work that way. Aim to go to bed at the same hour or at least set an upper limit, the latest time that you allow yourself to go to sleep. For me, it would be 1 am and if I’m aiming for high energy and productivity it has to be before midnight. Every person is different, play around with it, and come up with your own numbers.
And the last expectation failed miserably because of the previous one. I thought I’d wake up earlier because I’d go to sleep earlier. But I never did either of those.
So let’s see where I stand now.
A question that I posed was: am I addicted to EDs?
And the definitive the answer is an emphatic Yes.
It means that if I want to grow, I would have to address this issue.
The April challenge was a great start but as we can see I’m nowhere near the “liberation”. So the show must go on. Or rather my work with taking the devices under control must go on.
I’ve accumulated substantial evidence to keep up with it. It definitely felt rewarding to learn more about myself, particularly about the patterns of my behavior, and I was able to establish a healthy phone habit and enrich life in general with a sense of novelty and curiosity.
Which proves again that challenging yourself can be highly beneficial.
Should come as no surprise that right now I’m going through my second challenge, you’ll see the link to that video at the end of this one.
I’m sharing my progress on Instagram so if you aren’t following me yet, go ahead and do it now.
That’s it for today.
Aspire to more, there’s so much to life.
XO,
Peter
