The 3 hour hack to reclaim your daily life!

I was recently talking to someone I care a lot about, conversing about how to build motivation when feeling stuck in the daily grind of life and cycle of instant pleasures. I realized that there are many online posts on how to reclaim your life, but I consider this to be among the easiest and shortest way to turn it completely upside down. This is my bare attempt to recall and summarize our conversation:

The main idea lies in rewiring your brain to appreciate the "effort" instead of the "immediate outcome". It is not about what you will do, but the fact that YOU value YOU and get something done, everyday!

Step 1: Create some ME space in your daily life...

Remove (or atleast reduce) one activity in your life that takes most of your daily time while adding minimum value to your being such that you now atleast have 3 hours everyday to do something else. Examples of such activities - online browsing, social media, gaming, watching shows or movies etc.

Our brain is amazing at recognizes patterns. Try to remember, how you always tend to fall on the same side of the couch after work, picking the remote and continue watching your series on Netflix, almost at the exact same time everyday. Its like you are on auto-pilot mode, which btw is something brain loves. Now this is great, if it is happening for a good habit and we can exploit this weakness of the brain. We want to make it easy for it to recognize our good patterns. Try to spend the same 3 hours (can be split across the day) at the exact same time, ideally at the same place. This will help to create a strong association of time and place with the task you are building a habit for.

Step 2: Build a positive chain, instead of a negative one...

Remember how one bad decision makes you keep making more bad decisions until that day of that month (in an unknown future) when you will finally change your life? How about we use our UNO card and reverse the process.

Let a good decision help make more good decisions for yourself. Make a small list of good habits that think you can fit within those 3 hours daily. Start easy and improvise!

Its highly recommended to put a small exercise regimen in these 3 hours, anything that pushes your heart beat for atleast 30 min and release all good "chemicals" that will make this all sustainable in the long term. Also, journalling (writing or even audio) can be a great idea (only if you share your RAW THOUGHTS and EMOTIONS with your self).

Some examples can include - Exercising, Reading, Cooking Healthy Meal, Taking Care of Yourself, Praying, Meditating, Talking a walk Outside, Learning new knowledge or skill, Studying that course, Building that project etc.

Step 3: Be Better, NOT Perfect...

Now, you spent only 2 hours today, or maybe you slacked on some good habits and you suddenly feel like taking a break for a few days - weeks - months - decades? Take a moment, and ponder where this type of thinking has landed you in the past. Okay, it never did you any good, we know. 3 hours is definitely great, but so is 2, or 1, anything more than 0 is better (even 0.001). Don't ever think of perfection, think "better". If you even spent 1 minute today (atleast you thought about it), its always better than a 0. So keep at it, even if you don't seemingly make progress.

Moreover, in the beginning, aim for only spending X minutes on the activity and don't think at all about the results. Don't think I need to finish 2 chapters in 60 min, but only I will spend 60 min reading chapters everyday, whether I learn something or not. Now this may sound stupid, but we need to realize that we are rewiring a complex brain. Here consistency matters most, the outcome doesn't as much. The brain eventually will make you push for outcome, let it do that, you just focus on the "TIME" you spend on each habit.

We are forcing your brain to make these new connections, where "EFFORT MATTERS MORE THAN THE OUTCOME".

Step 4: You can Miss, but are not allowed to Fail...

Now we know than even 1 minute is better than 0. We know we are not perfect and we will have a day where it was seemingly "impossible" to do these 3 hour activities, or maybe we just didn't feel like it and now we regret it. Its okay (remember step 3). However, just to ensure that this skipped day doesn't convert to a week, a month or a lifetime, we want to make a rule.

The rule is simple yet powerful. If you MISSED one day at a time it is all good (step 3), but if you miss 2 or more days then you are starting to FAIL. Stop immediately when you realize this and recover yourself (remind yourself the reason you starting all this in the first place). If you missed a day, make it a hard rule that no matter what, you will do atleast something the next day so you break the bad streak.

In case you missed two or more days (for real), check Step 3 and restart because "MISSING TWO DAYS IS STILL BETTER THAN MISSING THREE!!! Never Give up on your own self!

Step 5: Document your progress everyday...

The last and most important step, briefly write down your progress everyday (either in the morning or before you sleep). Even if you have to write a big 0 or maybe a few 0's, keep documenting. This again may seem unnecessary, but this will keep sending messages to your subconscious brain and soon your brain will figure out a way.

Furthermore, it helps reinforce Step 2, building that long streak of goodness in your life.

If by any chance, you spend hours debating if you should use a paper, or an app, or an excel sheet to write things down, please check Step 3 and make any decision.

Any decision in such cases is far better than no decision, like really!

Final Thoughts:

I feel that if anyone sticks to this plan for at least 90 days, their life can change, maybe forever, and for all the right reasons. Now you think there really is no way to take 3 hours daily for this, then how about two hours, 1 hour, 30 min, 5 min? Remember, the thing we are doing here is to rewire the brain to value the effort, not the outcome. Now what happens after that? If you stick to this, I can guarantee that you will become a person who can figure out the rest of the journey themselves.

Now this does require some effort, but don't you think you are worth putting this effort for, no matter how down you feel? If you don't agree, please check Step 3 again and re-read my last sentence again!

Hope this was useful for someone out there in someway. Until next time!