Day 4 / 108 Challenge

#4

"I bow to find my true self"

Another early morning start, but at this point I am trying to take advantage of my adjusted sleeping schedule. As soon as I woke up, I headed straight to complete 2 sets of Pomodoro flows.

For those of you who are not yet familiar with Pomodoro technique, it is simply breaking your focus session into two parts: hyper-focus mode and rest mode. I choose to work on a task without any distraction for 25 minutes followed by 5 minutes of doing something I enjoy (unrelated to the task). This way you get to be laser focused 50 out of 60 minutes, which is way more efficient than trying to focus 50 straight minutes.

My fellow challenger also recommended me to listen to Andrew Huberman podcast episode with David Goggins. They spoke about a structure in every human brain called anterior mid-cingulate cortex. Many scientific studies point to a positive correlation between the size of anterior mid-cingulate cortex and our "willpower" or "will to live". It can also grow in size when we continue to do things that we simply hate and do not want to do.

Looking back in my 75 Hard Challenge days, I mostly hated the reading part. But I had to read at least 10 pages a day. One morning, I vividly recall me feeling like I could conquer the world if I wanted to. I now understand why I felt that way. I believe by repeatedly reading every day despite my hatred towards it, increased the size of my anterior mid-cingulate cortex. Thus, my eagerness to achieve things at the moment.

I am now seriously considering adding "doing at least one activity that you hate" as another wildcard portion of 108 Challenge.

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Challenge Log

Today's distraction 😈

Requirements
No Snacks No drinks or desserts exceeding weekly limit	Avoided chocolates presented in the office
Water intake (min 3L)	3.75L
2x Pomodoro flows (read min. 10 pages)	Completed chapter 4 with 2 flows
Productive activity (write a journal or a blog; create a product)	Journalling + working on a weekly newsletter
Physical activity (min. 45 minutes)	REST DAY - Outdoor walk commuting to the office)
Wildcard (any 1 of read/produce/exercise above)	Listening to 2.5hrs long educational podcast + meal prep & cleaning

Should've/Would've/Could've

-- Not a big setback at the moment, but I lack in planning the day part. I still wake up and spend few minutes strategizing my day. Instead, I could be strategizing the night before, so I can simply get to work as soon as I wake up in the morning. Food for thoughts.

Drink/Dessert tickets remaining: 3