This thing in front of you. This issue. This obstacle – this frustrating, unfortunate, problematic, unexpected problem preventing your from doing what you want to do. That thing you dread or secretly hope will never happen. What if it wasn’t so bad?
Ryan Holiday
With these words Ryan Holiday starts his book “The Obstacle Is The Way”.
If I was given a task to describe my November in a couple sentences the above excerpt would be a perfect summary.
It’s a bit comical Kuba recommended me this book shortly before I met one of my recent obstacles (or as I should rather name it – opportunities I should be grateful for). Probably that’s nothing weird or unusual if we think of what psychology calls a priming effect.
Most likely it’s not a summary of my November only. But could be a summary of any other month. Of any other person. Nevertheless, it’s something I learned and experienced myself pretty recently.
I’ll get back to the book, obstacles, and the topic of perspective the other day. What’s in front of me now is to do a review of my last month.
When we first started thinking seriously about Vision Quest, Kuba and I decided to do monthly reviews of our goals. We wanted to keep it as a routine. The kind of exercise that feels awkward and uncomfortable. But to which we want to stick no matter what. At least for some time.
Let’s do it, then.
Powerlifting
My goal for December was to participate in a powerlifting competition. And this was my primary focus for November.
I’m proud I did accomplish it even though 2 weeks before the competition I had to stop my training due to some health issues.
| Powerlifting Rookie Level: ★ Participate in a powerlifting competition ✅ Accomplished: 07.12.2019 S: 120 / B: 92.5 / D: 145 @ 73.9 kg BW |
The road was bumpy, needless to say. Still I put the effort and hours into the training, working on mobility and improving my technique. I said NO to all other activities (running, swimming, biking, etc.) so my body could get stronger.
Some obstacles on the way slightly derailed me off the course, forced me to step back and lower my competition numbers – but that’s life. Nothing you can control.
I’m very thankful for having so many awesome people around me who helped me achieve this goal:
– Josh Wright, my strength coach,
– Frank Kraft, my movement coach,
– Kuba Rojek, my mental support,
– Bartek Bak, my #noslackwhatsoever dude,
– And of course – my wife & my daughter ❤️
Sleep & Recovery
I didn’t do a good job here, although this way of thinking (i.e. my perspective) might be wrong. I need to remember that my expectations might be set too high in this particular area.
What’s important is that I didn’t ignore my milestone and did my best to have enough time for sleep & recovery.
| Quality Sleep Level: ★ Sleep at least 52 hours weekly for 4 weeks in a row ✅ Accomplished: 24.11.2019 CW44: 53 h / CW45: 53 h / CW46: 54.5 h / CW47: 54 h |
Sleeping and resting is difficult. At least for me.
Having bought my Fitbit tracker last year, I have been already tracking my sleep for more than a year. However, tracking per se doesn’t improve someone’s performance. Even worse when a tracker provides you with results that are more a speculation than a medical report.
In addition to Fitbit I created my own spreadsheet for tracking my wake up times and rating my feeling of restfulness in the morning. Let’s see where it brings me.
Meditation & My morning routine
Meditation has simply become a part of my every day life. It’s like brushing the teeth – I don’t think too much about it, I just do it.
It’s difficult to assess how advanced I am, as I always think of myself as a novice and I treat meditation purely as a practice. Sometimes the practice is easy, sometimes not. But what does “easy” in the context of meditation even mean?
My next milestone is to meditate for 90 days in a row. If I stay on track, I should get there pretty soon.
My morning routine is a completely different topic. I did develop a morning routine and sticked to it most of November. At the same time I learned a lot what works for me and what’s too much.
I didn’t manage to do The Miracle Morning (TMM) for 30 days in a row. I need to apply some changes to my morning routine and re-test it for some weeks. Seems like a goal for 2020 ??
Mindful About Money
Eventually I created a personal finance tracker that I am able to stick to. I am able to track my finances in a way that I enjoy it. Still I don’t really enjoy the numbers on my accounts ?. But that’s another story.
| Mindful Money Level: ★★ System for tracking my personal finances ✅ Accomplished: 11.2016 |
Reading
In November I read my 10th book this year. It doesn’t sound like a lot, or like a big achievement. On the other hand, if you think of it as a habit building goal, integrating reading with my daily routine was indeed a big achievement.
| Reading Level: ★ Read 10 books in a year ✅ Accomplished: 17.11.2019 |
The list of books will come in a separate post.
The positive side effect (i.e. unplanned achievement) of reading more books (both by me and by Kuba) and launching this blog was a habit of regular Vision Quest meetings. 0730 am – espresso, some butter, some coconut oil – and 1h of mental jiu jitsu.
As the last part of this exercise I listed the challenging milestones that require a little bit more of my attention. Probably these are the areas I will focus on in the next weeks.
Areas for improvement (or re-thinking):
- Career / Business
- Increase Personal Income
- Personal Blog
- Fun & Recreation
- Beyond Love
As David Goggins would say – Stay hard! ?
See you in a month!
Good job!