21-Day Lifestyle Revamp Program – Day 6 Review
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This is part of the 21-Day Lifestyle Revamp Program series.
I just watched How To Train The Dragon (3D) yesterday. I love it – I'd easily give it a 5 out of 5 stars. Love the story, the message and the friendship between the boy and the dragon. And fantastic animation to boot. I highly recommend it especially if you are looking for a nice film to kick back, relax and enjoy to.
It's Day 6 of my program now. It's Saturday morning 8:10am, I'm eating strawberries at the comfort of my room, and it's raining outside as I'm typing this. A nice day to rest in and get things done, while relaxing and enjoying at the same time.The past 5 days on the program felt natural. The first couple of days felt really new, fresh and exciting. Now as the days go on everything has become automated. I automatically turn in early at 12am (early compared to my past standards of sleeping at 3~4am or even later), I wake up early, I leave early for my appointments so that I reach on time, etc. There's little resistance to this new lifestyle.
Here's some quick updates on the 8 habits so far:
- Wake up at 5am. – Surprisingly easy, as long as I ensure I have enough sleep the day before. Sleeping at 12am is definitely a key enabler for this.
- Sleep no later than 12am. – There are days when some of my tasks overrun which risk cutting into my bedtime. Since everything will impact the schedule the next day, what I do is (1) Evaluate and eliminate the unnecessary tasks (2) Schedule the necessary ones for the next morning to complete them. Sticking to the bedtime routine is critical.
- Spend at least 4hrs 6hrs / day on my blog. - I enjoy working on my blog, so there's no problem in getting to work on them. I easily spend more than 4 hrs/day on average for them.
- Timeliness: Being on time for my appointments. – Surprisingly easy as well. What really helped is waking early and intentionally leaving early for my appointments. I never have to rush and I reach early, which feels terrific.
- Stick to my skincare regimen (morning+night). – There are some resistances sometimes as it can be a hassle. Yet, I'm beginning to see improvements on my skin over the past 6 days (possibly from doing the skincare routine, getting proper sleep and/or the raw diet), so this is reinforcing the habit.
- Spirituality: Meditate every evening. No problem on this. This has helped to reduce the total amount of sleep required and is critical for me to wake up early.
- Self-Enrichment: Read a book or listen to a podcast. – Great for bedtime reading, after my meditation. In fact, I've added this to my mornings too where I listen to a self-help podcast while I clear my mail/FB/Twitter msges/requests.
- Start raw vegan diet: Out of all the habits, the ease of this one took me by the most surprise. I was expecting resistances eating raw again, but it was surprisingly easy. I automatically reach out for fruits/salads/nuts, and I don't have the urge to eat cooked food. There are times here and there when I think about eating cooked food, but that's few and far in between. I'll continue to monitor this in Week 2 to see the progress.
My Schedule
If you are interested, my daily schedule has been normalized to this:
- 5am – Wake up, Wash up, Breakfast
- 5:15am – Review the day ahead
- 5:20am – Process email/tweeter/FB/blog comments + Listen to podcast
- 7:30am – Write a new blog post or guest post
- 9am – Work on TSOPE or blog related tasks
- 11:30am: Lunch
- 12:30pm – Work on TSOPE or blog related tasks
- 5:30pm – Dinner
- 6:30-10:30pm – Either Work, Coaching, Meeting Friends, Recreation, Exercise, depending on what I have planned
- 10:30pm – Wash up, Brush teeth
- 11pm – Plan for tomorrow
- 11:10pm – Meditate
- 11:30pm – Read book/Listen to podcast
- 12ampm – Sleep
I go to lunch / dinner earlier to avoid the crowds. If I happen not to make it on time, I'll go at a later time after the peak hours. This helps to save a lot of time lost in jostling with crowds, queuing and waiting. Also I work from home several days a week, so that cuts out the commuting time and gives me more time to get things done.
Tips To Make Your Habits Stick
I notice from the comments that some of you have difficulty making your habits last beyond the first few days. I've written a guest post at LifeHack.Org on 6 Ways To Make Your Habits Stick which you might find helpful. Those are my personal tried and proven methods that have made the transition to my new lifestyle almost seamless.
Don't feel that you're alone in your habit change because you aren't. There are always people around you who are more than willing to support you, Personal Excellence and its readers included. It's amazing seeing all of you posting and sharing your commitment to change your habits in the original articles. We are also here to support each other too, so feel free to extend for help if needed.
Next 2 Weeks
If things go as they are in the past 6 days, I don't foresee any difficulties in staying on track for the next 2 weeks. This has been a terrific trial so far and I'm very glad I embarked on this program along with all of you guys. I might post an update in Week 2 if there's a need, and do a round up at the end of the 21 days. Meanwhile, feel free to share your experience so far or your thoughts, whether you're on the trial or not.
Tags: 21-day trial, day 6, lifestyle revamp program
Day 6
Well it’s becoming a habit now, It’s going to be even easier for me to do what’s on my habit list for the next 2 weeks since the school holidays have begun… The most difficult day for me was day 4 because I was really badly sick, even with all the pain and exhaustion, I still did everything on my list: I played football while sitting down, I did the homework and meditation in my bed, I’m better now and feeling like nothing during the 15 remaining days to go will be as difficult as Thursday^^…
Hope everyone is doing well in their trial and thanks for your so useful tips Celestine!
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Way to go Alexis!
I’m really proud of you for pushing through Day 4. Sounds like the habits are now getting auto-pilot for you too, which is fantastic! Continue to share with us any other updates you may have too.
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Hi Everyone!
Mmmm… these changes do sound great.
Congrats! Guess I join the group with 21 days of:
1.) Bedtime routine (sleeping from 12 to 09, or earlier).
2.) 3 or more hours of work on my thesis.
3.) Inner Child – Inner Parent written conversations, _every single day_: I sweared myself as a kid to be a great parent of my future children – and the most helpful way I’ve found for learning this is to become a great parent of myself. Sending myself to bed in time, calming myself when I’m upset (and not letting anxiety lead to perfectionism and/or procrastination); having an eye on how healthy is the food I eat, trusting and encouraging myself, being responsible and patient, etc. (AND switching my mind into my childlike-self is also a great source of the creativity, playfulness and sincerity that children usually have.) I still too often fail with this.
4.) My spiritual excercises: one for 10 minutes, and one for 50 minutes.
5.) Taking the 6changes program* for a longish meditation (as this gonna be a hard one, I’ve decided to be patient and walk it with baby steps).
*: Credits: http://www.6changes.com is from the author of zenhabits, too.
I was suprised, Celes, that one of your links above lead to his blog (wasn’t expecting it, rather, as two of the five blogs I read most likely won’t EVER connect with the other three) — but it was a nice reminder that after all, it’s really a net. 
Have a nice day, everyone!
Melinda
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Hi Celes, I came late to the party so this is my first exposure to your lifestyle revamp. I am in the middle of a revamp but is minor compared to what’s happening here. You are some great points and I thinking perhaps I need to get more serious in my efforts. I’ll be following along as time allows to learn from your incredible example. Thanks for the inspiration.
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Hi Celes! It is a great blog you have and I really enjoy your posts. I have a question about meditation – why are you doing that in the evening, isn’t it more effective in the morning or does it depend on purpose (like relaxing in the evening etc.).
I am in the middle of my third pregnancy, so I really cannot make any plans for myself right now – just have to follow the needs of my body and mind, but I’ll definitely will remember all this, and hope to use some day. Thank you for sharing it all!
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Hey Helena!
I know many recommend meditating both day and night as a practice. I meditate at night because it’s a great way to clear out the clutter/ongoings for the day. Whereas in the morning, I’d be waking up fresh from the sleep, so I’d rather get up and get right into action. That’s my preference, and there’s no one way. Let me know if you have other questions. Congratulates on your pregnancy Helena! 
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Thank you Celes!
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