2018 W18 of 52 – Steve’s Body Progress Journal

Theme of the Week: Am I Lazy?, Designing My 10/10 Day, Active in the Sunshine & High-Volume Arms Workout

Solid week. As I discussed with Bryn on the upcoming Ep # 21 of AdapNation iTunes Podcast (releasing this evening), our holiday in Australia gave us time to reflect on a bunch of stuff, and re-evaluate whether we have the right priorities and are doing the best things.

The lasting impacts of the trip were –

#1 – Now being self-employed, I need to own my day and maximise productivity

#2 – Being active outdoors in the sun is a human need. Need to prioritise this

#3 – Lets make 2018 the best year of our lives. A total mind-shift and step change in actions.

Am I Lazy? – A Gentle Wake Up Call 

See, I’ve always wanted to grow and improve our quality of life and experiences. It’s part of my psyche. However, we (I) get lazy, and can forget the important things as we over invest in areas that have less positive impact on happiness. Plus, the transition to working for yourself is liberating, but confusing.

I pride myself on being very self-driven and have a high degree of autonomy in my work – ask any manager of mine. I would do great work without anyone asking for high quality, faster, harder etc. So you would assume that work ethic would transition easily into being self-employed. I think it does, but not automatically or without a plan!

With zero external accountability, such as a weekly forecast calls, X number of regular meetings, getting to the office, client meetings, reports etc, there are no timing/quality expectations on you. That means, without meaning to, I’ve found myself in a low-productivity coasting regime, where I casually work through my priorities in the day, and build up anxiety that I’m not ticking off enough stuff against what’s important. Tons of internal accountability, but no corporate structure/norms and external accountability that hold my feet to the fire.

A really interesting transition, and not one I expected of myself. I get it now, I just did not see it coming. It’s cool, it’s in my gift to take massive action…

Creating Accountability – Own Your Day (& Week)!

So, here’s what I’ve worked on and have started implementing.

I have bold goals and ambitions. It’s important to have long-term plans to guide the course of your action from week-to-week. But, the reality is, it’s all about what you can achieve and feel today. Own the day. Make it perfect. And then make it a commitment to do this day after day, living 10 out of 10 days, every day. Just imagine – what could you achieve if every day was a 10 out of 10?

Practically speaking, I’ve created & implemented:

1. The Perfect Day – from 6:00 to 22:30 in 15min increments, I’ve mapped out what my perfect morning routine (pre-work); the productivity blocks in the working day; and the time from 18:30-22:30 where I am with the family and/or chilling. Wow – what a profound impact this has made! More below…
2. Types of Work for AdapNation – I asked myself the question, ‘what are all the types of work I need to do at AdapNation, against my most immediate goals for developing the business?’. I wrote down a long list, hacked it down to the must-haves, de-duped and categorised. I needed to do this to create clarity, and to help with No. 3.
3. The Perfect Work Week – I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to work 100h/week, especially if I feel I’ve been super inefficient. The reality is, I like to work, and there is a lot to be done. I therefore used the structure of the Perfect Day and the Types of Work, to see how to schedule the week to maximise impact and keep total work to around 50-60h a week. This was really helpful, as I’ve now scheduled certain repeat activities to happen on certain time slots on certain days. External accountability – boom!

Don’t get me wrong, these plans need to be treated with a degree of flexibility and pragmatism. I can’t run my life in 15min increments. However, what this has done has create a gold standard to aspire to, and the quality of the day will be correlated to how ‘perfect’ I can make it.

Morning Ritual Game Changers

I don’t know about you, but I have a busy mind. I hate thinking about the same thing over and over again. It can be exhausting having to work out what you are going to do, how and when – every single day.

As such, for as long as I can remember, I’ve responded very well to scheduling and automation. Deciding upfront how something should be done, such that I just have to turn up and do it, according to the pre-determined recipe.  This allows me to do that thing better, as I’ve released brain power that would otherwise get caught up on the logistics.

GAME CHANGER #1 –

That’s why the above scheduling is REALLY working for me. Hopefully something similar could help optimise your life and productivity too.

GAME CHANGER #2 –

The Morning Hacks. Watch this space, as I will put an article up shortly that details the exact morning ritual I follow including the why and how. In summary, it involves getting hydrated with electrolytes, light therapy, short bout of rebounding, meditation, cold shower exposure with Wim Hof breathing, pre-workout food to get me going, having a killer workout, and then fuelling my body for a productive day of work. See below snapshot.

Trust me, I go into work mode at a 9-10 out of 10, and just feel pumped (yet calm and clear) to make progress and create.

The Great Things in Life are Free

It’s so true. These free things can have a massive impact on mood, productivity and health! Specifically, I’m talking about sunlight and being active outside.

This week I committed to enjoying and taking energy from the outdoors. Decided to get some daily early morning sunlight on my skin, by rebounding for a few mins outside, with the top off. Doesn’t matter if it was cold, as that just helps with strengthening my body to acute stress.

Combined with the scheduling and morning ritual, I’ve had a new sense of ultra-productivity. As in, wanting to get difficult things done. It’s crazy. So, this weekend, I tackled the garden for two days solid – mowing, weeding, jet washing and sanding down / staining the AdapNation gym. All gruelling work – but got tons of fresh air, vitamin D, time to think, and lots of calorie burning exercise.

By being outside – the family followed! We were all out this weekend. Had a barbecue, kids doing cartwheels and handstands, time on the bikes, playing in the pop-up tent, and generally having happy times outside. Amazing!

I feel so much better for it. Check out the Wellness Tips Micro-Blog on Vitamin D – The Sunshine Hormone for the profound effects of getting enough, or more importantly being deficient Vitamin D, can have on your health and immune system.

Experimenting in the Gym

Nothing earth-shattering to report on the gym/physique front. I’m on it, enjoying the workouts and continuing to follow the APR-18 #HyperWorkouts Programme to good effect. Mild bulk, with the weighing scales creeping up as planned. It’s all good, and feels progressive versus just showing up and mindlessly repeating myself.

There is a few things I am playing around in the Gym, that are kinda cool:

1. Super-Intense High-Volume Arms Day – The arms in MAR-18 #HyperWorkouts Day 5 is bloody good to be fair, but I’ve been experimenting with a workout format from a known Physiuque champion. It’s vomit-inducingly intense, but kinda cool to play around with different modalities and intensities to see what creates a stronger physique adaptation.
2. Multi-Tasking – Developing body AND Mind – I’ve been listening to Podcasts whilst I train for a while, which is great. This week, I jumped on a training webinar (on the gym screen), followed a brand new Arm workout, whilst simultaneously training hard. Maximum bang for your buck!
3. Smelling Salts / Ammonia for Lifting – Decided to give it a go. You can see my PR Deadlift on Instagram when using this stuff! Effectively, it heightens your acute awareness and senses, and livens you up ready to get aggro at the bar. Give it a try.

Focus For This Week

In terms of Fitness, Nutrition, Wellness and Body Goals, here’s my focus for this week:

• Cementing the Perfect Day/Week Routine – A plan is one thing, executing and forming habits is a whole other ball game! I need to work on changing my behaviours.
• It’s my Birthday! – That means I will have some great social time and awesome food. Will manage my calories accordingly, as per the Dieting & Eating Out Article.
• Play with Fats in the Morning – I’ve flirted with this before, but think I’ll be more deliberate to assess how I feel with consuming healthy fats like Coconut Oil every morning, first thing.
• Posture Awareness – Try and catch myself slumping whilst sitting, and the forward-head standing position. It’s persistent work on correctly a lifetime of bad habits.

I’ll let you know how I get on next week… 🙂