Mario's Journal,

[WorkInProgress]

Day 13

Hi, today was an ok day. I was at university until now. Skipped the first hour of university one because i knew it wasn't relevant for my exam and i decided to invest my time into starting the 30day challenge. First day sucessfully done. Got a good feeling where i come from, shame, low self-esteem unreliable and waht i want to be. Reliable, honest, full of willpower and actually knowing what my purpose is. My first thought about my purpose. I want raise some kids and have the self-esteem to be sure i can parent them in a good way. I wante to get a job wich is demanding and fullfilling at the same time. i want to be someone who is considering himself sucessfull. Only approximatly 19016 days to live. got some mod swings. First im euphoric now im sad adn can't find new things im gratefull for.

Habbits

morning routine: checked gamequitters to fast and spent time on it wich interrupted my moruning routine, tomorow i will meditate first

Meditation: was only one 10min and one 5min session  and i wasn't that fokussed btu was ok

cold shower: got weak in the middle of it but turned it back into cold again

Thinks im gratefull for:

- possibilty to use the internet

- having my own appartment

 

-

 

 

 

 

Edited January 26, 2016 by WorkInProgress

[Cam Adair]

@cam

Skip this if you dont want to read my brainfarts:

There is jsut a inner resistance against someone who tells me how to live and what to do to get better. Better in what mindframe? IF i want to be innefective can't i be innefective? Or do i have feel guilty for it? I want to get presented the idea and then think about it myself. Sure i know thats not thought through until the ende because even if the book isn't well written or tries to set you to the righous path  of beeing better y,ou can still think critical about it and take out of it waht you need. Mhhh maybe it is more about me not liking to read nonfiction. I read some nice books in my past. Like slow and fast thinking of Kahnemann. And i can't remember much more of it then the what the title allrdy says. There is a slow gognitve thinking and more important there is a way of impulsive thinking. Both of them happen in other region of the brain and ahve other evolutionary roots. Was it worth to read 500 pages for this insight? Maybe i jsut ahve to read these kind of books mroe intense, make notes about their influence on my life or stuff to enjoy the experience more. Guess the main thing is i didn't apply such books at all in my life adn that's why i didn't took anything out of them. IN addition to this i feel always a kind of shame if i have such books on my shelf. It doesn't say to me you want to improve your life. It says to me fuck you you Looser, your life sucks thats why you have to read this book, feel bad allready!

Read this if you want the essence of the upper paragraph

OK that was just writing out ym thoughts, guess summarized it goes: Books whose intend is to make people better, awaken the feeling of beeing not good enough in me. On the other hand the few experiences i had with nonfiction books I read in my private time, weren't that well, because of the way i process them.

That's beeing said. on my wishlist for my birthday are : The tipping point by Malcolm Gladwell, and Quarter-Life breakthrough by Adam Smiley Poswolsky wich both seemed interesting to me. Maybe i will get to the point where i want to read something like the power of habbit. But on the other Hand i feel like the whole message is in the title of such books. Habbits are a powerfull tool too improve your life. Period. Why bother spending time reading them?

 

I hear you. For a long time I didn't want to learn from others because I wanted to learn everything myself. Looking back I'm glad I changed that (it was based in my ego) and I've learned a lot more by focusing just on learning what I can learn and letting the rest go. Books are just ideas and ways to present ideas. If you can learn the lesson in the title itself that's cool, whatever works. But I wouldn't say reading a book says you're a loser. The most successful people I know all read books, a lot of them. It's more about the desire to learn and improve than the STORY we make up about what reading books means of us.

[wookieshark88]

Day 11

- awareness meditation is no esoterical bullshit!

I remember when I came to that realization myself!  I'm so glad I gave it a shot even if I thought it was going to be stupid. 

[WorkInProgress]

I hear you. For a long time I didn't want to learn from others because I wanted to learn everything myself. Looking back I'm glad I changed that (it was based in my ego) and I've learned a lot more by focusing just on learning what I can learn and letting the rest go. Books are just ideas and ways to present ideas. If you can learn the lesson in the title itself that's cool, whatever works. But I wouldn't say reading a book says you're a loser. The most successful people I know all read books, a lot of them. It's more about the desire to learn and improve than the STORY we make up about what reading books means of us.

@ cam thanks for the advice! The introduction in the 30day challenge brought me in the same mindset.Somewhere there you formulate how you realized it isn't about ebeing smart it is about improving so you can come to the place where you want yourself to be in. Really well written part. Was kind of inspiring to me. Your questioning reminded me of aristoteles(or what i read about aristoteles). The same technik to let people improve their thoughts themself. Just ask the right questions. Always admired that appraoch of teaching because it seems so logical to guide people to their own answers. Is that something you do on purpose or just accidantly?

@Wookieshark88 what postive effekts of meditation do you experience?

 

[WorkInProgress]

Day 14

Hit a low yesterday afternoon. Came back from uniersity and couldn't motivate me to study. Spirealled downwards without really realizing it. Felt liek in my "new" life is no fun included. Had told my wife i woudl clean the appartment unitl tomoroww and had stills tuff too do. Had set a goal for myself to study a specific amount till sunday and felt totally overwhelmed. I watched some Dota2 and felt for the first time a pretty big urge to jsut throw things away and download the game. But experience(had this kind of scenario at my last tries too and jsut felt worse later on) stopped me so i lay on my couch for 1hour or so until my wife came home. I told her about my funk and she told me its ok if I dont clean the appartment, she jsut wanna to have  a clean appartment before the party at saturday. I realised that all this pressure i built on myself just wasn't cutting it. The goals are fine and usefull but if you miss one time to time it is ok. I still studied for 2 hours at the evening so yeah felt kind of mindstrong at that point. Still I need more fun everyday. First result of this is a adaption of my daily habbits. Bathroom time is musik time too. Sang and danced like crazy tomorow in my bathroom. Was pretty fun.  Well wanted jsut write aboiut this experience. Rest of the update comes at the end of the day.

wish you a awesome day

Im gratefull for:

- lfeeling like to writing a gratefull list out fo the blue

- nice rock music on spotify

- ancipation of a festival i attend this summer(southside)

- this journal

[WorkInProgress]

Started the 2ond day of the daily challenge and constructed wiht the guidance of cam's work a great project i want to share with you guys.

In my university time i wouldn' engage much with other students because with all my gaming, i had no time to meet them outside of university (had my own friends from school still lviing here too), As a result i was kind of outside the group, missed informations and had less fun and sucess studying. There are some groups of ( mostly asian/spanish) foreign people in my class too with us wich stay to themselfs only. They're often not good at speaking german and im sure their kind of lonely sometimes. Well i want to help all students wich stay by themselfs and give them a lokal study platform where information flows, peers are helping peers and everyone can network easy. So noone is left behind.

Starting goals: Start small. First get a product: Gather materials and start summarizing everything i learn. Learn how to build a website(maybe some python on the way).

7days goal:

Make a first scheme of the structure of the website. Summarize everything I learn. Put materials i have in order. Learn what have to learn to build a website. Make a 30day goal. Write down a site philosiphy.

Write down visions for this project. Think big for this!

Wow i'm exited. Hope this will stay this way. Now i can feel a motivation because i want to be a rolemodell for my future website. That means i have to improve my studys and network and summarize and order my stuff. And it is an idea i really think could help a lot of people!

@cam thanks alot. I would never found the courage too  start such an ambitous projekt all by myself.

[WorkInProgress]

Day 15

Good Morning Ladies and Gentleman,

I liked yesterday even if i wasn't produktive. Read an awesome little free ebook ("the flinch") and mad notes abo the things i found important in a textfile. I like this idea of making notes on my computer, because it makes the reading process a more active process. I will continue this habbit on every nonfiction text i want to remember, from now on. I can remember more out of it and if I want to quickly check out the book again, I can go to my notes and remember the key points that way. DId day 3 of the challenge. Here my notes of the first chapter so you can see that i've read it and to see my awesome brain at work

The Sligth Edge: Chapter 1

- Hard work alone doesn't make you a success
- circumstances can still fuck you
life is a rollercoaster between failure and average
- to get to the success stage you have to keep doing
 what you do if you evade failure
- do the little things: read a book, say some one,
 you love him... the simply daily disciplines
- to get a good life, a sucessfull life you need
 to start doing these simply daily disciplines

Feeling good right now because i like my own(not very original but whatever) technique to improve my reading experience for nonfictional books. From now on I will read atleast 30min every day( im sure it will be more because if i start reading im a sucker for it). Ok so far so well, i will update you about my project(check my last post) as soon as I gone to the 7days mark but i am still excited about it.

Im gratefull for:

-  for the opportunity staying at home today brings me: beeing very productive

- awesome pic i foubdn for my profile( i know its to little zoom it out for the A-ha effekt)

- the Internet( maybe i get a tech enthusiast after all)

OK that is it. See you next day

 

 

Edited January 28, 2016 by WorkInProgress

[WorkInProgress]

Making a studyign break and read the slight edge Chapter 2 and 3. And man this book pisses me off.I like the idea. I think it is important to realize that your everyday effort lead to something. You evolve your personality wiht this appraoch and get skills. Absolutly. I can see it. But you can't apply this on everything! It is like the autor likes to make me angry and does present the idea in a way i will most likely hate it. He saying stuff like i did this and i got a millionaire. My mother is  a secret millionaire because she did this stuff. Everyone can be amillionaire! Freakin american dream stuffed in my face till i can't take it anymore. Just save up and after 20-30 years you be rich.Everyone who isn't rich is that way, because he didnt do the right things consistently.. Just say me what you think i should do, instead of filling 3/4 of the book wiht fables of american successstories wich just make me think, there must be something fishy here, dammit.

Well maybe you are unlucky and have to pay monthly in your medecine. Maybe you are so poor you need all the money you can get to eat and live.THhre are so many options how shit can still go wrong and you can end in the gutter, even if you have the right habbits and do the right stuff. You can have psichological problems, wich aren't your fault at all and end homeless because you can't stand to be insight and are terrified/don't have the money for psyachtrists.

Easy solution! They jsut neeed to apply the slight edge. Argh

PS: If you enjoy the book don't let yoursefl be encouraged of this outburst. It had just go somewhere and is only my opinion and i think deep down tehre is valuable information. It jsut doesn't feel like abook for me.

Edited January 28, 2016 by WorkInProgress

[WorkInProgress]

I realised that i sit in front of this forum too long and it doesn't help me to improve, if I postpone my goals because i wait on answers on this journal or on others.

My main problem at this point  isn't not knowing what i have to do but that i dont do it.  In order to do this i will take a timeout experiment.

I will do an 1week off:

- no tv, no browsing, only one hour of reading in the morngin is allowed:

- no journalling, no commenting.

- emails get checked in the morning and then gets closed.

- Handy gets checked once a day if i don't expect a special kind of message.

The goal of this is to be more fokussed and be more aware of my feelings,habbits and urges. I would like to let emails rest but due to work i can do it so i reduce my attention on them at least. Well the main thing is jsut to keep the input at my brain low so i can properly adress all the changes i'm going through right now.

I will still continue the 30day challenge but bothing wich includes posting stuff.

I will continue good habbits like gratefull list but on paper and for me to see.

See you in 7 days, feel free to anser on my crazy amount of text i produced the last 2 days. I will answer if im back.

[Cam Adair]

Looking forward to hearing how the next 7 days go for you.

[WorkInProgress]

OK it were only 5days

Day 20

first of all: I read through the slight edge adn summarized every chapter for myself. It is a great inspiring book if you get through the first annoyance about his style.

I managed myself these 5 days fine(less input was a good idea).I obviously read a lot and had a nice time. I haven't studied enough and didn't meditate every day.I stopped the 7day-challenge as i had to exercise on strangers. I found my vision too arbitrary so i abbandonned it and found a new vision, wich is kind of lame but on the other hand seems to really motivate me( I wanna get straight A's on my exams and find an internship i love before my masterthesis). I made a whole page with goals and i want to share some of my goals and my daily/weekly routines to reach them ;))

Health:  Run 5km in 30min(2.5.2016) -->  run 30min everyday( did thsi the last 2 days)

             eat 4 vegetarian meals a week(2.3.2016) --> find a new vegetarien recipe eachweek and try it at saturdays

Relationships:  get back in contact with my friends and family(asap) --> Call or visit one of them everyday adn have a good talk.

                        create more quality time wiht my wife(asap) --> plan one activity every weekend wiht her

Personal Development:  develop into an awesome person(asap) --> read every morning for 30 min, listen to podcasts to relax(allrdy doing this)

                                                                                                      --> do the 30 day challenge every day, meditate for 10min every day, gratidude journal

                                                                                                      --> find the most uncomfortable organisationtask and start doing it every morning

                                                                                                      --> visualize my goals in the morning adn check my habbits every evening

Career: Find an awesome internship where i can shine(2.3.) --> work 1hour every day my internship proposals

            Get 95% of possible points in my exams and be an awesome student over all --> daily 4 hour studying session every day( i have now my whole day time)

                                                                                                                                     --> revisit  an old study subject for 1hour a day and summarize what i learned about it    

Im gratefull for:

- awesome to feel inspired by a book

- my motivation this evening

- my clean appartment

- that i still have enough time for my studys

- having so much free time to plan a ton of constructive stuff

 

[WorkInProgress]

Day 21

Yesterday was a good start. I did my morning routine and did keep jogging. Switched from barfoot shoes to my old jogging shoes wich definitly made me use different muscle groups. And hey i can still run for about 30min that's awesome. Thanks to the new working technique i tried out i coudl priortize and did all my learning stuff in a very effektive way. Later this day i was 2 times close before ordering the good-looking-discount but chickened out. Important Points i have to improve today:  my work for my internship and do some organisation stuff wich really starts to annoy me to get my head clean for studying. Ok got to go running. cya tomorrow

 

Health: 

run 30min: check

find a new vegeterian recipe for this week: nope

Relationships: 

Call or visit one of my family/friends everyday and have a good talk.: check

 plan one activity every weekend with my wife: nope

Personal Development: 

read every morning for 30 min, listen to podcasts: check and check

do the 30 day challenge every day: nope

meditate for 10min every day:check

find the most uncomfortable organisationtask and start doing it: nope

Career:

work 1hour every day my internship proposals: nope

daily 4 hour studying session every day: done

revisit  an old study subject for 1hour a day and summarize what i learned about it: forgot to summarize but learned some math

Im gratefull for:

- my two fluffy cats

- grattitude lists

- pomodoro technique

- my mother

- my jogging shoes

- all this free time to improve myself

 

 

 

 

[Cam Adair]

Running for 30 minutes is great! How does it feel to be in better shape?

[WorkInProgress]

Running for 30 minutes is great! How does it feel to be in better shape?

@cam well actually i started only 4 days ago with running again. I don't think my shape improved much in this short period. But feels good still beeing in an ok shape. I'm just lucky that i stay slim even if i eat mass sweets and pasta.

Day 22

Hello out there. Yesterday i couldn't get the challenge done. I think i will skip the stuff wich needs me to approach other people. Or to say it better i try to postpone it. It is hard for me and it takes too much space in my head right now. Can't fokus on the things i need to achieve. Like studiyng. And it isn't the case that i can't speak with strangers, i just don't like to do something, someone could interpret as unreasonable or strange(yeah fear of rejection). Yesterday i was out with an old friend i haven't seen alone in ages. Was nice and i even talked with a few strangers as we played table soccer in a bar. Yesterday wasn't to productive. Checked my email to earlyin the mornignwich lead to work pressure on my programm and so i started my day after my morning routine with searching a bug in my programm for abotu an hour.. Was kind out of rhytm then. Made my firefox look pretty with addons listened to podcasts  and did nothing constructive. At 2pm i realized i wasted half of my day and couldn't get myself to learn stuff. Atleast i did some work for my side shope done. Now i won't have to work for the weekend and can fokus on other things.

Health: 

run 30min: check

find a new vegeterian recipe for this week: nope

Relationships: 

Call or visit one of my family/friends everyday and have a good talk.: check

 plan one activity every weekend with my wife: nope

Personal Development: 

read every morning for 30 min, listen to podcasts: check and check

meditate for 10min every day:check

find the most uncomfortable organisationtask and start doing it: check

Career:

work 1hour every day my internship proposals: nope

daily 4 hour studying session every day: no

revisit  an old study subject for 1hour a day and summarize what i learned about it: nope

Im gratefull for:

- my surprisingly good shape

- still liking my friend from basic school.

- beeing still over average in table soccer.(Even pretty intoxitated we won over 50% of our matches!)

- an new day to do better

- that today it isnt showing/raining outside.

Edited February 5, 2016 by WorkInProgress

[WorkInProgress]

Day 22

I didn't do much of my planned day work but i got to ikea and thanks to my wife I got to study for 2,5 hours wich was ok as a minimum.

Had an awesome talk where my wife told me that it motivates her how i changed my attidude and that she will try quit smoking again. I could talk with her a lot about self-development stuff i read in the last days and it was a very intense and nice experience for both of us. I really feel like we get on a new level in our relationship

I cut a few things from my checklist wich aren't priority right now. I will get there but will need some time i guess. I will add them back gradually and cut these i allrdy made a habbit.

Health: 

run 30min: check

Relationships: 

Call or visit one of my family/friends everyday and have a good talk.: check

 plan one activity every weekend with my wife: nope

Personal Development: 

read every morning for 30 min, listen to podcasts: check and check

meditate for 10min every day:check

find the most uncomfortable organisationtask and start doing it: check

Career:

Career:

work 1hour every day my internship proposals: nope

daily 4 hour studying session every day: no (atleast a minum of 2,5 hours)

Im gratefull for:

- the wonderful relationship with my wife

- willing myself into studying in the afternoon

- getting nice feedback from friends, familiy and my wife

- motivating other people to do better(crazy but freakin awesome!)

- cam and all others whith helpfull comments

- the slight edge

- training of my reptil brain

- beeing alive

- beeing healthy

- massive amount of little birds in my garden

[Cam Adair]

You're doing a lot of great things man. Be proud of your progress and the effort you're putting in. Consistency is your advantage. Stick with the habits you've been developing and trust me, in a year, two years, three years, you'll be blown away at how far you've come. That's truthfully the only reason I am where I am today. One day, one habit at a time.

[WorkInProgress]

Day 23

You're doing a lot of great things man. Be proud of your progress and the effort you're putting in. Consistency is your advantage. Stick with the habits you've been developing and trust me, in a year, two years, three years, you'll be blown away at how far you've come. That's truthfully the only reason I am where I am today. One day, one habit at a time.

@cam thx for the motivation and the kind words means a lot.

I slept not enough adn was pretty tired all day. Still visited my father and cleared some things up about his financial support of my studies. Had a good talk too. Did run 5km in 29min in the morning. Was a little tough but fun too. Now I do two regeneration runs(slow and short) and mbe do soem sprints at tuesday. Wanted to study while my wife got her nephew to our place. But instead of learning two hours. I selpt one hour on the couch. Did go back to studying and making the appartment rdy right aftwerwards. I think the main lesson to me it's to ensure more sleep for myself.

Health: 

run: check(allrdy ran 5km how i realized after I measuredmy running track over an internet tool)

Relationships: 

Call or visit one of my family/friends everyday and have a good talk.: check

 plan one activity every weekend with my wife: well we had her little neephew over night. guess that counts as activity

Personal Development: 

read every morning for 30 min, listen to podcasts: check and check

meditate for 10min every day:check

find the most uncomfortable organisationtask and start doing it: check

Career:

work 1hour every day my internship proposals: nope

daily 4 hour studying session every day: no

Im gratefull for:

- beeing good with kids

- my perservance at jogging

- 5km is easy

- my progress

[Rick Boon]

Your journal is an inspiration to read through Mario

EDIT: your week off (what became 5 days) is something i definitely will consider over 2 months or longer.

Also to bad i spend all my rep for today already

Edited February 7, 2016 by Ironfly

[WorkInProgress]

Your journal is an inspiration to read through Mario

@Ironfly thank you! Let me know how it worked for you, if you go through with it. It helped me to get my fokus on the more important things,.

Day 24

Well had kind of a family sunday. Keeping a bores 6-year old busy is no walk in the park ;D

In the afternoon i still get some studying done even if i feeled pretty tired before. I just willed my self into it and well I studied for 1,5hours withotu a  problem. Guess i wasn't that tired i was postponing... I ahve some private family issues right now, but thanks to my better self-esteem i think i can handle them and actually don't feel overwhelmed by them wich is a big improvement fo me. Today is a No-Excuse-Monday(yeah i made this name up). Tired? No excuse! I can do it tomorrow? No excuse! I jsut need to relay a bit? no excuse! Today i will improve,study harcore My motivation is through the roof and the pressure is on.

Health: 

run: check

Relationships: 

Call or visit one of my family/friends everyday and have a good talk.: had some private problems and "forgot"

 plan one activity every weekend with my wife: well we had her little nephew over night. guess that counts as activity

Personal Development: 

read every morning for 30 min, listen to podcasts: check

meditate for 10min every day:check

find the most uncomfortable organisationtask and start doing it: nope

Career:

work 1hour every day my internship proposals: nope

daily 4 hour studying session every day: no

Im gratefull for:

- self motivation out of taking action

- journaling

- beeing game free over 3 weeks!

- for beeing so lucky in my past

- my friends

- being in walking distance of the local supermarket

 

[WorkInProgress]

nice tedtalk about addiction: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PY9DcIMGxMs

what is your opinion about it?

[Rick Boon]

nice tedtalk about addiction: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PY9DcIMGxMs

what is your opinion about it?

That is .. deep.. I'm going to summarize it a bit for in my personal map! I think it connects seamless on Respawn. There is a lot to say about it, but i need to go dinner

[WorkInProgress]

Day 25

Good Morning. I failed beeing productive last day. I started well in the day with an awesome run at dawn and a meditation on a field, watching the sun go up. At home i got some organisational stuff done wich was blocking my head for some time now. But afterwards i just didn't do anything productive . I watched youtube and realized how i can get rid of the gamer recommendations (just delete your saved history). Cleared my search history in my browser too. But couldn't get myself in to studying. I don't know if i just don't feel the urgency because im allrdy pretty prepared, or if I'm jsut back in my old mindset. I try today to envision myself as the excellent student I want to become to visualize my goal. And well today i start with studying because it is the thing wich is definitly most important right now.

Health: 

run: check

Relationships: 

Call or visit one of my family/friends everyday and have a good talk.: no

 plan one activity every weekend with my wife: no

Personal Development: 

read every morning for 30 min, listen to podcasts: check

meditate for 10min every day: check(felt really peacefull meditating outside watchign the sun)

find the most uncomfortable organisationtask and start doing it:check(did more then one)

Career:

work 1hour every day my internship proposals: nope

daily 4 hour studying session every day: no

Im gratefull for:

- clean youtube

- new day, new luck

- my laptop

- people reading this and replying to my random journaling

[Cam Adair]

Bounce back today!

[WorkInProgress]

Day 26

Kind of the same shit like yesterday. Found it more improtant to learn 10-Finger typing then to study for my damn exam... Yeah good old mindstructures hitting back. I thought about reasons for my mistakes and foudn two explainations.First I lost my slight-edge-philosophy for some time. Reduced it in my head on a the habbits, wich are a very important part of it. But if I don't have the goal and the will to improve at every moment, I do random shit instead of the really important stuff. Secondly short info videos in youtube are hitting my instanious reward system in my head, got to stop taht even if i don't get in danger to watch gaming videos. Even if I failed again yesterday the good thing it it's not to late. No extreme goals today, I fokus on just doing my stuff. Feeling annoyed by my setback.

Health: 

run: did a long walk for regeneration instead, because my right knee and my left achilles tenodn started to heart the day before.

Relationships: 

Call or visit one of my family/friends everyday and have a good talk.: yes

 plan one activity every weekend with my wife: no

Personal Development: 

read every morning for 30 min, listen to podcasts: check

meditate for 10min every day: check

find the most uncomfortable organisationtask and start doing it: no

Career:

work 1hour every day my internship proposals: nope

daily 4 hour studying session every day: no

Im gratefull for:

- playing the game of life

- new day, new luck

- Elektro Swing making me dance on my bench while i write this(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gzFhcagGYQ).

- beeing able to be a help for my wife's attempt to quit smoking

 

-

 

[Cam Adair]

Im gratefull for:

- playing the game of life

Me too.