Life Manual

Going through 1000 pg textbook
I essentially plow through this amount of material over three or four days of very intense study like it’s my job. Take two of the weekends you have and make an outline of the course material. This involves skimming pages for the most important material. You’re not reading, you’re just trying to get a feel for the most important points. Try to see the forest for the trees. You can go into some detail when you don’t understand a certain tree, but don’t get bogged down. That’s a rookie move and it’s easy to fall into. You should be able to work through 200 pages a day at this level of skimming. And if you haven’t created an outline before, you’re basically creating a skeleton of the book’s content. Use roman numerals, letters, etc. for formatting in a word doc and you’ll be good.

Now, here is the key part. On the second two weekends start taking practice tests or doing practice problems. These will allow you to work out the most important details that you missed or sped over while outlining. This is by far the most important part. It will get you into test mode so you don’t freak out on the day of the test. It’s pretty basic, just keep doing practice problems.

Finally, take a few days off before the test. Do a brief review the night before and get a good night’s sleep. On test day you should be set.

Feynman’s Exams
After his second year of graduate school at Princeton, Richard Feynman faced his oral examinations. Feynman was not yet the famous physicist he would soon become (as his biographer James Gleick put it, “His Feynman aura…was still strictly local”), so he took his preparation seriously.

Feynman drove up to MIT, a campus familiar from his undergraduate years, and a place “where he could be alone.” It’s what he did next that I find interesting.

As Gleick explains:

I might not have worked with any future Feynmans during my time at MIT, but I certainly had the privilege to watch the ascent of at least two or three future stars in the world of science. And one thing they all seemed to share with Feyman was his hunger to understand what he didn’t know.

If someone published something good, they wanted to understand it. If this good thing used some mathematical technique they didn’t know, they’d drop off the radar until they learned it. If you published an interesting result, they’d soon learn every detail and be able to replicate it easier than you could manage.

Their proverbial notebooks of things they don’t know where always growing, and as a result, they thrived.

The Feynman Notebook Method
I think there’s a general method lurking here. People resist learning hard things — be it a graduate student mastering fundamental physics or an online marketer taming a new digital analytics tool — because learning is hard and requires significant amounts of deep work. Dedicating a notebook to a new learning task, however, can provide concrete cues that help you stick with this hard process. At first, the notebook pages are empty, but as they fill with careful notes, your knowledge also grows. The drive to fill more pages keeps your motivation stoked. It’s a simple idea: translate your growing knowledge of something hard into a concrete form and you’re more likely to keep investing the mental energy needed to keep learning. But sometimes a simple idea is all it takes to unlock a new level of potential.

“Imagine life is a game in which you are juggling five balls. The balls are called work, family, health, friends, and integrity. And you’re keeping all of them in the air. But one day you finally come to understand that work is a rubber ball. If you drop it, it will bounce back. The other four balls family, health, friends, integrity—are made of glass. If you drop one of these, it will be irrevocably scuffed, nicked, perhaps even shattered.”

A notebook (NonVirtualHardCopy) where you log and probably describe and explain your activities while performing it. Not an agenda.

A log book keeps track of knowledge acquired over time. It can be a record of data, thoughts, or activities. It answers the question "What did you know and when did you know it?" It documents the rationale for the actions you take.

Keep a notebook beside you. Log everything you do, including the rationale you followed. A specialized log book is best; they are sold at places like http://www.bookfactory.com/.

This is called a LogBook and is current practice in many activities, like Experimental Physics.

Observation And required in many others (e.g. my better half - a biotechnology research scientist - is required to keep them). When they’re full, they get stored in a controlled atmosphere and environment in a cave somewhere in southern England. Log books might provide evidence for later patent cases. So, she should keep two, a second one for her.

Normally people quit a habit using willpower, but willpower is a limited resource. When we rely on willpower we encounter ego-depletion - We lose all motivation to keep fighting and give in to our raging craving.

For example: When you first quit, you can do well for a few days…​ Then you start to think "Maybe just this one time" or "I’ve been good, I can just do it a little".

And you give in.

But don’t worry, THERE IS ANOTHER WAY:

You bad habit or addiction has it’s own voice, the AV.

The AV wants you to give in to your cravings, and works by hijacking your inner monologue.

It will say things in your own voice like "Why don’t you just smoke one more time, it won’t do any harm!" or "You need to smoke, or you will get grumpy and damage your relationships."

The truth is, everything the AV says is a lie to get you to give in to your bad habit.

Your AV can be brought to light by making The Law. The Law is unbreakable, and doesn’t require any willpower to follow.

Does it require willpower for you not to steal a car or rob a bank?

NO!

The Law cannot be broken at any point.

Write down your law if it helps, but the most important part is defining it.

E.g. "I will never smoke again".

But how can this help you recognise your AV? Because any thought that pops in your head that contradicts the law is the AV, not you.

Assign an avatar to your AV.

For example, my smoking AV was an old, ugly man who chain smoked and had cancer. Whenever I’d hear him say "Go on, just have a quick one, it can’t hurt!" I’d say "Screw you old man" and give him the finger.

This also helps with cravings. Cravings aren’t really happening to you, they are happening to your AV avatar. Your AV Avatar wants to give in, not you! Without you giving in, they will disappear and die!

Your true self is already free of this addiction, so the cravings aren’t happening to you, they are happening to your AV.

Reading is addictive. And so is watching educational Youtube videos. Learning in an of itself is addictive. We looove learning about the world around us, about other people and ultimately about ourselves. That’s just the way we’re wired – to explain the reality around us and to give our best shot to improve it in some way. That’s why you’re here. You want to improve your reality i.e. yourself.

But here’s the shocker: You aren’t improving yourself right now. Reading this isn’t improvement. It’s procrastination. It’s you trying to avoid what you should do.

I was always an avid reader. My friends couldn’t understand me when I tried to explain how I felt each time I would open up a new book – excitement you feel in your stomach that makes you want to jump as high as you can. Learning about productivity techniques; learning about social skills; about happiness; about different life philosophies, and the list goes on. Learning about these subjects was always the brightest part of my day.

Did you notice how I worded that last paragraph? I think it’s about time for you to make the distinction between learning about something and actually learning it. It took me a couple of years to really internalize this piece of knowledge I’m about to share with you – I hope you’ll do it faster.

When I was a little kid my friend taught me how to juggle. It was simple. Trow one ball into the air, when it stops climbing trow another one and catch the first one. And just repeat it. I knew that for more than 10 years but I didn’t know how to juggle. I had the knowledge but I didn’t have the skill. And this is what I wanna talk about: Knowledge vs skill.

While you are here reading this, another dude read how to pick up chicks and he went on his way to try the techniques out. What do you think, who won’t sleep alone tonight? While you’re here, another dude read about how to hold conversation and small-talk and he went on his way to practice. Who do you think will be able to talk endlessly by the end of the month?

Do you see where I’m going with this? Reading about a skill is useless (unless you wanna write a book about the skill). You’re wasting your time because you won’t get ANY benefits from doing that. You might as well play video games and jerk off. You can read 200 articles on eye contact but if you don’t look people in the eyes that knowledge will be useless. Sometimes knowing less is better than knowing more. Sometimes it can even hinder your progress or even kill it completely – but that’s the topic for another article.

Let’s go back to juggling. What do you do when you want to learn juggling?

But what would happen if you were to stay at the first stage by watching videos for 5 hours? First of all you wouldn’t learn the skill. Second, you wouldn’t be able to make use of the knowledge you’ve acquired because you didn’t practice – I can tell you all about how you should position your feet, your hands, how your palms should turn by about 30°-40° etc. etc. but you won’t be able to use that knowledge to your advantage – you can just use it to tell others how to juggle.

And this is exactly what I see most of the people in self-development are doing. They learn about skills they want to have. Some people learn so much as to even write blogs and books about skills they themselves don’t possess.

What I’ve found is that this can be a pretty good indicator if you’re doing it right or not. If by the end of the day you can talk for hours about the skill you want to have and you don’t ever mention how hard it was for you to practice it than I know why you won’t have any big changes in your life. It’s because you know more about the skill and you don’t have the skill itself.

Reading 50 books and who-knows-how-many blog posts about skills and techniques is the same as you trying to memorize the entire map of the world. In most of the cases it’s impossible and even if it is, it’s much much slower than just learning how to get to the next city. While you looked at the globe, a guy who read 1 blog post and than went on to try the techniques out only looked how to get to the next city.

There is a battle in your head every single day: your lizard brain and your rational self fight each other - if you are reading this instead of working, you know what I’m talking about. Strangely they both want to help You. Why the conflict then?

Our ancient lizard brain was in charge for a very long time and hence it is brutally powerful. Its impulsiveness was necessary for survival. But times have changed: these days we rather need the genius of the rational mind to thrive. The lizard guards the status quo and when opportunity comes, it unleashes its warriors. These warriors are your new demons - they block your progress. But do you recognize these new enemies? It’s time to face them.

Understand it as a biological problem. Your body has excess, or sensitivity to, adrenaline, cortisol and norepinephrine (stress hormones). Anxiety is a physical state that has mental side effects, treat it physically and the mental effects will resolve themselves.

Understand it as a biological problem. It bears repeating. You can’t 'think your way out of it' you need to cultivate habits that will make you more biologically resilient to stress.

Stop taking stimulants. Anything with caffeine, avoid. If you smoke, quit. Avoid alcohol. Unless you can be very sure of the CBD/THC ratio, also avoid weed (CBD will calm you, THC will make you more anxious and paranoid) even then, it’s a crutch, so better ditching it.

Eat properly. Complex carbs, healthy fats, and protein. Eliminate sugar and refined carbs. Eat a big protein and fat heavy breakfast first thing. Don’t have dinner too late and make it carb heavy and smaller.

Exercise. Every day. Hard. Whole body workouts, weights and cardio. Body weight training circuits are a good choice. It is very hard to be anxious after a strenuous workout.

Sleep. Sleep is crucial. It’s how your body performs maintenance on your brain. Disturbed or insufficient sleep on a regular basis almost guarantees anxiety. Part of the importance of 3,4,5 is to make sure you sleep properly. People vary, but shoot for eight hours. No screens before bed etc. I can’t overstate the importance of proper sleep.

Learn to breathe and mediate. The best way to learn to manage anxiety in real time (including panic attacks) is to be able to control your breathing. There are lots of resources online on this. Likewise, meditation will help maintain calm. Don’t try and learn either of these when you are acutely anxious though, you need a baseline level of calm to be able to learn them properly. Once positive lifestyle habits have made a bit of a difference, learn to add even more tools to manage your anxiety.

Visit your doctor and consider medication. I would be very wary of barbituates or any downers. SSRIs, on the other hand, can be very effective in helping reduce anxiety enough to kick off positive lifestyle habits after which you may no need them.

If you dillingetly follow the above. It is almost impossible for you not to get significantly better. It will not be easy but the difference can be life changing. Good luck.

Your subconscious never rests and is always on duty because it controls your heartbeat, blood circulation, and digestion. It controls all the vital processes and functions of your body and knows the answers to all your problems. What happens on your subconscious level influences what happens on your conscious level. In other words, what goes on internally, even unconsciously, eventually becomes your reality. As Hill further states, “The subconscious mind will translate into its physical equivalent, by the most direct and practical method available.” Consequently, your goal is to direct your subconscious mind to create the outcomes you seek.

“Never go to sleep without a request to your subconscious.” — Thomas Edison

It’s common practice for many of the world’s most successful people to intentionally direct the workings of their subconscious mind while they’re sleeping. How? Take a few moments before you go to bed to meditate on and write down the things you’re trying to accomplish. Ask yourself loads of questions related to that thing. In Edison’s words, make some “requests.” Write those questions and thoughts down on paper. The more specific the questions, the more clear will be your answers. While you’re sleeping, your subconscious mind will get to work on those things

You want to acquire social skills? You want to get rich or become financially independent? You wanna carve your body to perfection? You wanna have a hot 10/10 GF? 99% of you won’t get any of these things (unless you win the lottery, in that case you’ll have the money, girls will start chasing you and you can stay fat/skinny). Why? Because you don’t need social skills. You don’t need a lot of money. You don’t need to go to the gym. You don’t need a hot GF. You want those things. We all do. But not all of us need those things. Not all of us need to change their lives. Not all of us need to work hard for years to accomplish those things. We want them. We don’t need them. You know how I know this? If you really needed the money/looks/gf you would already have those things or you would be well on your way to get them. Take a honest look at your life right now – are you well on your way to accomplish your dreams? How much time do you spend in the gym? How much time do you spend developing your skills to earn more money? How many girls did you approach last week? You see what I’m talking about? You want those things. You don’t need them. Remember this distinction for the rest of your life because at the end of it this’ll be the easiest way for you to explain why you didn’t succeed in life.

Getting things in life is hard. Accomplishing worthwhile goals is hard. Your primitive primal brain doesn’t like hard. That’s why you would rather choose to sit and read some bullshit online and to browse Reddit for 5hrs today than to actually get up and get shit done!

Some of you, less than 1% of you to be honest, will really need those things. Those are the people who are angry. Those are the people who hit the rock bottom. Those are the people who will do anything it takes to accomplish what they want. And those are the people who will do just that!

Today we are surrounded by the cheap pleasures to fill this void. Porn, video games, drugs, alcohol, Internet etc. give us a pleasure we so desperately crave. Once we’re comfortable we won’t need anything. Once we’re comfortable we’re gonna dream about fucking a hot girl, we’re gonna dream about buying a nice car and a nice house with a stunning view. We won’t feel compelled to go after those things because we’re comfortable with what we’ve got – porn, Internet, alcohol and drugs.

Does this make any sense to you? Do you understand why you’re such a procrastinator? Do you understand why you haven’t accomplished anything worthwhile in your life? You haven’t hit the rockbottom. You’re comfortable with what you have now. You won’t work hard to accomplish what you want because you don’t need to.

Think about what you want to change in your life. Is it your social situation? Are you soc. anxious? Are you 20-something virgin? Are you poor and unemployed? Are you afraid and ashamed to show off your body in public? If I were to ask you to go shirtless in public would you be able to do it proudly? Do you smile at yourself whenever you pass by a mirror? What aspect of your life is the worst? Think about it every single day as much as possible. Think about what a failure you are. What a looser you are for putting up with that shit. Do everything you can to build anger and antipathy towards it. Your goal is to start building negative emotions towards that negative aspect of your life. To stop being comfortable with what you already got. To create a snowball of negative emotions that’ll get bigger as the days go buy until it gets so big that you snap and say: I won’t put up with this shit anymore! I’m gonna change! Starting from this very moment look at your life from a different perspective. Look at how that negative aspect of your life has affected your whole life in a negative way. Give yourself a lot of reasons to start hating on your current situation. This is the hardest way to go from want to need. But it’s the most effective. Once you hit the rock bottom and once you get angry, nothing can stop you.

If a man were to appear right next to you threatening to pull your eyes out with a spoon unless you devote your full focus towards accomplishing your goals, would that be enough of motivation for you to get off your ass and start working? I love asking people this question. Not only it’s fun to think about such a scenario, but it’s also a great way for us to understand how motivation works.

This scenario perfectly describes what happens when we go from want to need. From should to must. When not doing something is more painful than actually doing it. Someone pulling your eyes out with a spoon if you don’t work hard is a commitment device. Using a browser add-on to stop you from visiting distracting websites while you work is a commitment device.

Using debit cards instead of credit cards. Having a bet with your friend you’ll eat dog food if you don’t accomplish your goal is a commitment device – weird but highly effective. A commitment device is an external source of motivation. It’s a way for you to overcome not following through with your second order desires – wanting to watch TV all day is a first order desire. Wanting to study all day long is a second order desire.

There are a lot of different commitment devices out there. But in essence they all work the same: either they create bigger obstacles to increase the cost of you following your temptations (e.g. blocking distracting websites), or they make not following through on your goals more painful (emotionally and/or physically) than getting shit done.

The latter approach to pre-commitment can be highly effective. Our motivation is based on what we think will give us less pain. That pain can be emotional/mental, i.e. negative emotions, or it can be physical, e.g. a friend punching your in the face if you don’t accomplish your goal/eating dog food for the same reason.

Money can be used as a commitment device as well. We love our hard earned money. And we hate to lose it. That’s why putting money where your mouth is can increase your motivation tenfold. And that’s what people behind Beeminder do. Beeminder is a commitment device. You enter in your goal, if you accomplish it you’re good. If not, you lose money. In reality Beeminder is far more complex and advanced than this and I encourage you to check it out. I’ve been using it for a couple of months now and it helped me to accomplish a lot of my goals. Of course, you don’t need an online service as a commitment device. A close and trustworthy friend can be of a great help too. A friend with whom you can make a deal – if I don’t accomplish x you should x. A friend who will follow through with a punishment. Who will make you feel that pain if you fail. Be it to take your money and burn it, to make you eat dog food or to punch you in the face.

Practice. Just like everything in life. I’ve actually consciously worked on this myself so here’s what I did to increase my attention span and focus.

Over the last 6 years, I have deliberately put myself in "no retreat" situations.

I have moved to a new city, I have set a hard deadline, or signed up to do something out of my comfort zone. Whenever I’m becoming a big fish in a small pond with my personal development, I jump into a bigger pond – even if I’m not ready.

I’ve done this so often, in fact, that I developed a process that helps me achieve the "unrealistic" goals necessary to make it in the "bigger pond."

Right now, I have yet another unrealistic goal. So here is how I planned to achieve it:

In 2014, Adam Grant’s ability to create at an absurdly high rate for his field made him the youngest full professor at Wharton. It wasn’t only starring at one of the world’s best business schools nor the unusually high number of papers he was publishing in major journals, but also his ability to write one massive bestselling book after another.

As Cal Newport later found out, none of those achievements were random: Grant was indeed obsessed with the mechanics of producing at an elite level — a level where you produce not only quality work but also deliver it at a wildly high pace.

He saw productivity as a scientific problem to systematically solve. And one idea seemed central to his solution:

According to Newport, those stretches enabled Grant to achieve a deep state of focus like no other — working for extended periods free from distraction with full concentration on a single task unlocked peak productivity.

As Blaise Pascal said

Most people cant’t even sit still in their chair for a few minutes, never mind keeping their attention long enough to get their monkey minds to focus on a single task. They aren’t doing the thing, instead they do everything else in order to postpone doing the thing.

Between bottomless Instagram scrolling and trying to do at least some work here and there, they spend their entire days staring at a screen. Yet when they get home in the evening, they’re exhausted and nervous. And guilty. Guilty of not having achieved anything.

Punishing themselfs with more work or promising to make a fresh start the next morning doesn’t work. New beginnings aren’t any different — they require concentration, too. That’s when their brain chose to run for the next exit. Hopping on to the next stimulus it bumped into felt good. Facing the actual work means mental effort instead.

But success in most creative endeavors requires the exact opposite: to sit and think. Take the field of writing. To write is to think. To write well is to think well.

And the trouble with our monkey minds begins right there, in our inability to sit alone with our thoughts.

We can’t stay away from those who consume because we can’t tolerate boredom.

We dread the silence of our very existence so we choose aimless distraction.

In author Zat Rana’s beautiful words, the issue at the root isn’t our obsession with any particular worldly stimulation. It’s the fear of nothingness — our addiction to a state of not-being-bored:

Coming to such a realization can be life-changing. For me, identifying the root of my attention problem marked one of the most crucial turning points in my journey.

If I can teach myself to choose boredom over aimless distraction, I thought to myself, I can fix my attention problem.

If I wanted to work for extended periods with full concentration on a single task, I had to learn a new skill: The ability to sit alone with my thoughts and bear the unbearable boredom it brings.

Understanding the fundamentals of uninterrupted work requires understanding that very exact effortless focus which sits on the thin line between loose focus (one that risks losing it to distractions at any second) and forced focus (one that eats up your limited mental stock).

The effortless focus is the sweet spot. It’s the ultimate mental balance we are looking to reach by mastering our minds.

Terms like “mind training,” “self-reflection practice,” or “mindfulness” can easily sound philosophical or vague. And it’s important to understand that what we are talking about here isn’t a mystical activity.

What matters instead is understanding the true purpose behind it all — which is all about spending time undistracted and alone, in self-examination.

How you do one thing in life is how you do everything. Over time, you automatically start bringing such self-reflection into your day-to-day life. You start catching and observing yourself outside your 10-minute daily practice.

For instance, if you are distracted by a loud person in the office, you notice it, label it as “just noise” and return back to your focused work without getting caught up in it.

You don’t need any fancy tools to get great results. All you need is to make time regularly, whether every day or every week, undistracted and alone, in self-reflection mode.

A pen and paper will do it. Some people follow a daily journaling practice, while others prefer retreats, walks in nature or other self-reflection methods.

You might as well carry on with the bottomless finger-scrolling and continue to consume what the elite class has created for you today. Or you might choose to stay away from the crowds and move over to the creators’ side.

Observing the elite class’s obsession with producing at an elite level is a wake-up call for all of us to finally get serious about learning to sit alone with our thoughts.

Whatever controls our attention controls what we are capable of. And taking that control back in our hands begins by training our brains to embrace the boredom that comes with hours-long work in full concentration.

Choosing boredom over aimless stimuli is choosing the silence of our very existence. After all, we learn from the silences, not from what makes the most noise on the surface.

Once we cross that initial barrier, we realize boredom really does provide its own stimuli. We begin getting curious about the present moment.

And not surprisingly, the present is also where we have to do the focused work — it’s where the blank page stands in front of us.

In order to avoid disorientation in my life, I needed to have absolute clarity over three fundamental facts:

Whether it’s an unfulfilling job, toxic relationship, bad politics, poor health, lack of education, or something else, we all have had experiences when we felt we should have taken action to change the situation, but we never did. Why? Making an alternative choice is hard because we are neurologically wired to favor the default solution, even if it brings suboptimal results. As the complexity of a decision increases, so does our tendency to stick with the answer we know.

Continuous action. I quit focusing on the results and instead directed my attention and evaluation of success, on a daily basis, to what actions I was taking to 1. provide myself with income 2. get closer to a long term goal I had. Basically working and then focusing on trying to improve at what I wanted long term. I didn’t know what I wanted long term, so I started out with trying to get a better understanding of a particular area of business in a particular field. In taking that action I got a little bit more of an idea as to what area of business I was interested in, while also feeling like I had improved a little bit. This helped to increase my intrinsic motivation, which in turn made me want to learn more. Basically it helped to motivate me to WANT to do the next right thing for myself, which seemed like it was to read up some more and watch some videos about a particular field of interest. Without realizing it, this started creeping into my work where I noticed things I hadn’t before, and it didn’t seem quite as mundane, especially since I felt like I was living with a little bit of purpose. It was only through learning about things that I wasn’t all that interested in that I realized what I was drawn to, and as I learned more about that, it because much easier to realize little things that I could start to do to gain some experience in that field.

Like if you eventually realize you are interested in Marketing, and you start reading more about what that entails, you start to see things like entry level volunteering opportunities that you can do on the weekend with a AA baseball team. Doing that doesn’t mean you are magically going to be offered a full time six figure position, but it gets you further exposure of how certain types of marketing are done in practice, rather than just theoretically. Not only does this then serve as a networking opportunity, it also allows you to better focus your own individual learning, while also getting to parlay the experiences of others you may encounter to better focus your time and energy.

Basically it was all about taking some action, and not going into it with the expectation that it has to produce a tangibly beneficial result to be a success. Because it’s through this type of trial and error that we not only become more well rounded, but also become more confident in our own abilities and potential. It helps create good habits, stronger feelings of mental wellness, and basically helps us become more well rounded individuals all the while exposing us to different opportunities we never would have thought we might come across in different situations.

Things start to build on themselves in ways we can’t predict, but the bottom line is I can’t think my way into right acting, I have to act my way into right thinking, which really is just taking actions that are an attempt at bettering myself or pursuing something constructive that makes me happy.

Depeding on what you regret (which is super important for HOW you deal with it later on) - you can deal with it various ways. You can deal with any kind of regret, you just have to find a way for every type.

I generally try to solve an issue as fast as I can, if I can’t solve it within a short time - then I just let go, it fades with time.

This is a practice that takes some time (because we’re sensitive beings) and it’s not done in one day, one day you’ll become real good at it - and dealing with it that way is a lot better because you free your mind from clutter to think clearly, thus avoiding future regrets.

Ouch. Sounds like you’re having a tough time max. That sucks. I’ve been there, so I kinda know what you’re talking about. I’ve been in the ever circling vortex of self doubt, frustration, and loathing. It’s no bueno. I know. If you don’t mind lemme tell you a couple things. You can read em if you want, read em again later if you feel like it. But honestly man, if I spend all this time typing this out to you and you don’t let it be a little tinder for your fire, well, you’re just letting us both down. And you don’t HAVE to do that. You don’t HAVE to do anything. But you get to choose.

(Who am I? My name’s Ryan and I live in Canada. Just moved to a new city for a dream job that I got because of the rules below. I owe a lot of my success to people much cooler, kinder, more loving and greater than me. When I get the chance to maybe let a little bit of help out, it’s a way of thanking them. )

Rule numero uno - There are no more zero days. What’s a zero day? A zero day is when you don’t do a single fucking thing towards whatever dream or goal or want or whatever that you got going on. No more zeros. I’m not saying you gotta bust an essay out everyday, that’s not the point. The point I’m trying to make is that you have to make yourself, promise yourself, that the new SYSTEM you live in is a NON-ZERO system. Didnt' do anything all fucking day and it’s 11:58 PM? Write one sentence. One pushup. Read one page of that chapter. One. Because one is non zero. You feel me? When you’re in the super vortex of being bummed your pattern of behaviour is keeping the vortex goin, that’s what you’re used to. Turning into productivity ultimate master of the universe doesn’t happen from the vortex. It happens from a massive string of CONSISTENT NON ZEROS. That’s rule number one. Do not forget.

La deuxieme regle - yeah i learnt french. its a canadian thing. please excuse the lack of accent graves, but lemme get into rule number 2. BE GRATEFUL TO THE 3 YOU’S. Uh what? 3 me’s? That sounds like mumbo jumbo bullshit. News flash, there are three you’s homeslice. There’s the past you, the present you, and the future you. If you wanna love someone and have someone love you back, you gotta learn to love yourself, and the 3 you’s are the key. Be GRATEFUL to the past you for the positive things you’ve done. And do favours for the future you like you would for your best bro. Feeling like shit today? Stop a second, think of a good decision you made yesterday. Salad and tuna instead of Big Mac? THANK YOU YOUNGER ME. Was yesterday a nonzero day because you wrote 200 words (hey, that’s all you could muster)? THANK YOU YOUNGER ME. Saved up some coin over time to buy that sweet thing you wanted? THANK YOU. Second part of the 3 me’s is you gotta do your future self a favour, just like you would for your best fucking friend (no best friend? you do now. You got 2. It’s future and past you). Tired as hell and can’t get off reddit/videogames/interwebs? fuck you present self, this one’s for future me, i’m gonna rock out p90x Ab Ripper X for 17 minutes. I’m doing this one for future me. Alarm clock goes off and bed is too comfy? fuck you present self, this one’s for my best friend, the future me. I’m up and going for a 5 km run (or 25 meter run, it’s gotta be non zero). MAKE SURE YOU THANK YOUR OLD SELF for rocking out at the end of every.single.thing. that makes your life better. The cycle of doing something for someone else (future you) and thanking someone for the good in your life (past you) is key to building gratitude and productivity. Do not doubt me. Over time you should spread the gratitude to others who help you on your path.

Rule number 3- don’t worry i’m gonna too long didnt' read this bad boy at the bottom (get a pencil and piece of paper to write it down. seriously. you physically need to scratch marks on paper) FORGIVE YOURSELF. I mean it. Maybe you got all the know-how, money, ability, strength and talent to do whatever is you wanna do. But lets say you still didn’t do it. Now you’re giving yourself shit for not doing what you need to, to be who you want to. Heads up champion, being dissapointed in yourself causes you to be less productive. Tried your best to have a nonzero day yesterday and it failed? so what. I forgive you previous self. I forgive you. But today? Today is a nonzero masterpiece to the best of my ability for future self. This one’s for you future homes. Forgiveness man, use it. I forgive you. Say it out loud.

Last rule. Rule number 4, is the easiest and its three words. exercise and books. that’s it. Pretty standard advice but when you exercise daily you actually get smarter. when you exercise you get high from endorphins (thanks body). when you exercise you clear your mind. when you exercise you are doing your future self a huge favour. Exercise is a leg on a three legged stool. Feel me? As for books, almost every fucking thing we’ve all ever thought of, or felt, or gone through, or wanted, or wanted to know how to do, or whatever, has been figured out by someone else. Get some books max. Post to reddit about not caring about yourself? Good first step! (nonzero day, thanks younger me for typing it out) You know what else you could do? Read 7 habits of highly successful people. Read "emotional intelligence". Read "From good to great". Read “thinking fast and slow”. Read books that will help you understand. Read the bodyweight fitness reddit and incorporate it into your workouts. (how’s them pullups coming?) Reading is the fucking warp whistle from Super Mario 3. It gets you to the next level that much faster.

That’s about it man. There’s so much more when it comes to how to turn nonzero days into hugely nonzero days, but that’s not your mission right now. Your mission is nonzero and forgiveness and favours. You got 36 essays due in 24 minutes and its impossible to pull off? Your past self let you down big time, but hey… I forgive you. Do as much as you can in those 24 minutes and then move on.

I hope I helped a little bit max. I could write about this forever, but I promised myself I would go do a 15 minute run while listening to A. Skillz Beats Working Vol. 3. Gotta jet. One last piece of advice though. Regardless of whether or not reading this for the first time helps make your day better, if you wake up tomorrow, and you can’t remember the 4 rules I just laid out, please, please. Read this again.

Have an awesome fucking day ☺

tldr; 1. Nonzero days as much as you can. 2. The three you’s, gratitude and favours. 3. Forgiveness 4. Exercise and books (which is a sneaky way of saying self improvement, both physical, emotional and mental)

Someone asked what I meant by "much more when it comes to how to turn nonzero days into hugely nonzero days". The long and short of it is a simple truth, but it’s tough to TOTALLY UNDERSTAND AND PRACTICE. It’s this: you become what you think. This doesnt mean if I think of a tree, I’ll be oakin' it by august. It means that the WAY you think, the THINGS you think of, and the IDEAS YOU HOLD IN YOUR MIND defines the sum total that is you. You procrastinate all the time and got fear and worry goin on for something? You are becoming a procrastinator. You keep thinking about how much you want to run that 5 k race in the spring and finish a champion? Are ya keeping it in mind all the time? Is it something that is defining your ACTIONS and influencing you DECISIONS? If it is, then you’re becoming the champion you’re dreaming about. Dreaming about it makes it. Think and it shall be. But do not forget that action is thought’s son. Thoughts without actions are nothing. Have faith in whatever it is you’ve steeled your mind to. Have faith and follow through with action.

Ok, Ryan that’s a bunch of nice words n shit, but how does that help me turn slightly nonzero days into hugely nonzero days. Do you believe all these words you just read? Does it makes sense to you that you BECOME WHAT YOU THINK OF? Ask yourself: What do I think of? When you get home and walk in the door. (how quickly did you turn that laptop on? Did turning it on make you closer to your dreams? What would?) At the bus stop. Lunch break. What direction are you focusing your intentions on? If you’re like I was a few years ago, the answer was either No direction, or whatever caught my eye at the moment. But no stress, forgive yourself. You know the truth now. And knowing the truth means you can watch your habits, read books on how you think and act, and finally start changing your behaviour. Heres an example: Feeling like bunk cause you had zero days or barely nonzero days? THINK ABOUT WHAT YOURE DOING. and change just a little bit more. in whatever positive direction you are choosing to go.

thinking/planing: If you cant think of three ways plan can go wrong, or three different solutions to a problem, you havent thought it through enough.

social/emotional iteligence: 5 aspects of Emotional Intelligence: Self-awareness, Self control, Motivation, Empathy, and Influence.

Difficult Conversations: Be mindful of what you want and what you want to avoid. Make them feel safe. Focus on respect & shared goals. Contrast criticism with praise. Show you care. Paraphrase to ensure understanding. Get the facts straight. Make sure you have a resolution by reaching consensus or someone to decide.

If you use this (without manipulating them) in every sentence, mail etc people will get instant chemical reward and you ll get what you want.

In the monkey world, he’s got it all figured out—if you eat when you’re hungry, sleep when you’re tired, and don’t do anything difficult, you’re a pretty successful monkey.

Solicit external support by telling one or more friends or family members about a goal you’re trying to accomplish and asking them to hold you to it. If that’s hard for whatever reason, email it to me—I’m a stranger (-moved-) — and just typing out a goal and sending it to a real person can help make it more real. (Some experts argue that telling people in your life about a goal can be counterproductive, so this depends on your particular situation.)

tl;dr eat like an adult.

Recepies I collected over years from my family, found on internet, or made up myself.

Quick and simple to make meals. Ideal when you are a newbie, feeling low, or just want to snack something quickly.

I make a carbonara using eggs, milk, with a tiny bit of chorizo with rosmary and a kick of chili, and it is amazing, and the eggs replace the cheesyness I crave. I base it off this recipe but half the chorizo, very little cheese if any, and no salad

sweet potato wedges are a very low calorie replacement that hits the same spot as fries. Just wedge em, spray with some of that 1 calorie spray, add herbs/spices depending on what flavour you’re going for.

This list assumes that you have basic staples like seasonings, baking powder/soda and oil/butter/shortening at home already. Hopfeully you have a couple of onions and garlic cloves, too. If not, adding them to your shopping list won’t increase the price too much.

If you have an extra $5, you can afford a few little luxuries like tea bags, cheese, and some extra fresh fruits or veggies.

This plan assumes you have a decent set of spices (salt, curry powder, tumeric, paprika, pepper, ginger, garlic powder, bay leaves, cumin, dill, thyme, parsley and basil) pantry staples (cornstarch, baking powder, brown sugar) and condiments (mustard, ketchup, worcestershire sauce, hot sauce, lemon or lime juice etc…​). If you don’t have them, many spices and condiments can be picked up at the dollar store without too much additional cost. If you set aside a few dollars each month, you can gradually build a pantry.

Weekly prep will vary based on the recipes you choose. Many foods, like french toast and quiche, freeze well so you can just make them the first week then eat from the freezer other weeks. You should plan to buy some fresh veggies and lettuce each week.

For obvious reasons, planning is key when it comes to meal prepping. Keeping things organized will make for the quickest and easiest prep. First things first, decide on what your nutritional goals are. Your meal prep is going to be significantly different if you’re an 18 year old girl trying to get healthy vs. a 32 year old guy trying to get in those gains.

Decide on your meals for the week before you hit the grocery store so that you know exactly what you need. Things can start to taste ‘bleh’ if you’re eating the same meal every single day of the week. A good way to start is to create a combination of 1 Carb + 1 Protein + 1 Green. You can obviously alter this if you’re on a low carb kick and whatnot. Here are some general ideas:

Once you’ve decided on your meals for the week and have bought all the necessary ingredients, it’s time to cook. I cook in the following order: meats, carbs, veggies.

I like to get all the meat out of the way first. Your oven is your best friend. It’s the cleanest and quickest way to get your meat cooked. It’s going to get super time consuming and messy if you cook everything on the stove. For the meal prep in the photo that I posted, I roasted two whole chickens (ate some for dinner that night) and made mini meatballs out of lean ground beef (also baked). The meat takes a while to cook which leaves you with time to get other things done.

If you’re going with quinoa, brown rice, pasta, or any other carb that needs to be boiled then that should be step 2. Set timers or write down times so you know how long everything has been cooking. Try to keep this chaos as organized as possible! If you’re cooking up some sweet potato, now is the time to clean, peel, and chop. Get it chopped, seasoned and on a baking tray so that you can pop it in the oven once the meat is done.

Clean, cut, and season your veggies. If you’re going to cook them on the stove, do it now! If you’re going to roast them, prep them so that they’re ready to go in the oven once the meat is out. FYI – I prep ALL my veggies for the week on Sunday night. That’s why there’s containers of carrots and whatnot. If you keep everything washed and cut, it literally takes a few minutes to put a meal together. A salad or stirfry will be quick, easy, and best of all…. you’ll have ZERO mess. It’s also great for when you’re looking for something to munch on. If your veggies are clean and cut, you’re more likely to eat them.

If you make exercise easy and accessible, you are more likely to exercise. Set up your equipment at home so that you can walk in, do a set and walk out.

A quick and simple, 'bare minimum', balanced exercise routine for people who just want to move more and get the benefits of regular exercise.

You can do this routine every day but if your goals include strength and muscle growth three times per week with gradual progression to harder exercises is better. Consider mobility & flexibility training and/or low-intensity cardio if you’d like to do something on the days you’re not doing this routine.

strength, muscle gain, fat loss. Warm up + strength work

Cheatsheet

You’ll work on bent arm ring strength and straight arm ring strength

Cheatsheet

You’ll work on muscle gain, using rings

You should be able to run until something else causes you to stop without ever getting out of breath.

The real problem is actually the intensity, or speed, of the run. If you’re getting winded, the issue is that you’re going anaerobic to some degree. That is, your muscles aren’t getting the oxygen that they need at the rate they are using it. They can operate for a while in a deficit, but pretty soon you’ll be gasping for air and unable to continue.

So what to do? Well, the answer is easy: slow down! Yup, simply reducing your pace a bit will allow you to run until you have to stop for some other reason. When you run, you can expect to breath a bit more heavily, but you should still be able to speak a sentence without too much trouble.

"But my body can run so much faster", you might be saying. Well, sure enough, you probably have the leg muscles to move yourself at a nice pace without it feeling too hard. The problem is that a chain is as strong as its weakest link. In this case, your muscles are at one end of the chain and your lungs are at the other. In between are red blood cells that carry oxygen, a heart that moves them and capillaries that deliver those oxygen carrying cells to the muscles. In a new runner, some or all of those links aren’t as well developed as the muscles. As a result, that oxygen just isn’t getting there fast enough.

How do you fix this? You just have to run more and do it at slower speeds. With just a little bit of strain on the system, and your body will go to work ramping all of those parts up. You’ll start building more red blood cells to deliver oxygen. Capillaries will grow to make sure it can all get where it needs to go. Your heart will get stronger and more efficient, so it can pump more blood to more places that need it with each beat.

The good news is that this happens no matter what pace you’re running! By running slowly, you can run for a longer time and provide stimulus for longer. The process doesn’t work faster when you run faster, so all you really accomplish there is that you have to stop sooner.

These adaptions, as well as others related to metabolism and energy production, mean that you can get a lot faster just by running more miles at an easy pace. In fact, the best thing you can do as a new runner is to run more at almost an exclusively easy pace. With each easy run, you are increasing the ability of your body to work harder for a longer duration. This translates into the potential to run faster for longer when you want to, like in a race.

So what about speed work? Well, you are building up your potential by running slowly, and in the beginning, that will yield huge gains. In fact those gains will be much more substantial and more sustainable than what you’ll get from speed work. As the returns start to diminish and you have a body with the ability to run much better than it once did, you can start doing speed work. Intervals, tempos, fartleks, etc will allow you to come closer to the great potential you’ve built up. The base you’ve built will help you do speed work much more effectively and with less chance of injury. For beginners, though, it isn’t all that important.

As with any sport, or any skill for that matter, you get the fundamentals down first, then start getting fancy.

If you feel increasing pain while or after running this is your body telling you to stop! If you get a new pain and it is made worse as you continue to run, stop running! Something is clearly up and running through pains is rarely a good idea and is likely only going to do more damage. Some people find it difficult to "give up" on a workout but don’t be stubborn - why risk more damage? A minor injury can become something major if you continue to make it worse. If you can’t run without pain then you shouldn’t be running. Rest, visit a doctor or physio, do some other sports (cycling, yoga, swimming…​) but don’t run until you know what’s up.

Look up specific pains. When starting to run for first time (or after long while) you might for example experience pain in the calves while or after running. Quick search on topic should give you penty of info.

Couch to 5K will transform you from couch potato to regular runner—one that can even exceed 3.1 miles—in just two months. Though it may be tempting to run out ahead of your training plan, resist the urge. If the program feels too strenuous, just lengthen it. Patience is the key.

Each session should take around 30 minutes, three times per week. Be sure to build in rest days between run days to allow your body to recover.

Tendons and ligaments can be injured all too easily if you go from ground-zero to 5K-racing too quickly. Before you start training for your first race, establish a six-month foundation of running. During that base stage, slowly build through easy, consistent training runs as your body adapts to the rigors of the road.

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" Your level is approximately intermediate. Search for content at CEF level B2. If B2 level content is too easy, then try content at C1 level."

https://takeielts.britishcouncil.org/take-ielts/prepare/free-ielts-practice-tests/speaking/part-1

Dictionary: - Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary

https://www.bartleby.com/141/index.html Teaching English Grammar by Jim Scrivener - the practise sessions are good here Practical English usage by Michael Swan