I’ve felt stuck for the last little while. Or maybe more accurately, I’m feeling like I’m not running on all cylinders.
Above is an assessment that I did to help diagnose what the problem was. As soon as I saw “Emotional Regulation” the answer was obvious to me.
I’m typically fairly organized and reasonably focused, but I feel those have been slipping. My current best guess is that my emotional regulation is lacking and that is pulling the rest down.
This process has reminded me of one of the early self help / business books I read called Managing Yourself.
To be completely honest, I barely remember anything specific from that book, but I do know that it set me off in the right direction.
Figuring out to manage yourself before moving on to anything else is such an obvious thing to do once you think about it. Unfortunately, many of us, self included, are technically making through each day, but not in the way that we probably want to.
This is a Harvard Business Review book so its context is primarily in the business realm, but I found the advice applies equally as well to personal relationships as well. If you don’t have yourself figured out, it is difficult to interact with others in the way you want to.
The classic axe sharpening analogy comes to mind. I have chopped my way to a dull axe, but insist that if I just swing harder I can keep cutting trees down.
The main story from the book that stuck with me was a story about how someone always rested on Sunday and would never do work on that day. He went on to describe how his basketball team eventually had their finals game on a Sunday and he refused to play because that would break this rule.
I am still conflicted in how I feel about this. On the one hand, it seems ridiculous to not play in your basketball finals, something that only happens once a year. On the other hand, this person has clearly figured out a system that works for them. If I genuinely had a full rest day every single week, it is highly likely that I would avoid these troughs where I’ve pushed too hard.
Speaking of systems, I think this is fundamentally what’s missing for me. I mostly know what I want to have as part of my life operating system, but I’m not following through on sticking to it.
Change is hard. I think most people believe that real change in adulthood is impossible. But I think that is so demonstrably false.
What I feel I need to do is write out what this system is for me. What that really boils down to is a set of habits that I slowly adopt.
Sleep has always been the foundation of my system. If I’m failing to sleep, or not getting enough, my mental health deteriorates extremely quickly.
Because I value sleep so much, I mostly avoid the risk of caffeine disrupting this. Some people have their “no caffeine after 12” rule, but for me even an early morning caffeine will still disrupt my sleep at night.
One of the other hacks I’ve come up with when falling asleep is a problem, is to just remove any alarm clock that wakes me in the morning. The body knows how much sleep it needs. Usually, my schedule puts me asleep early enough that all is well to wake up at a specific time. But for when sleep starts getting disrupted this is a strategy I use to make sure that I still get the amount of sleep I need, even if I end up staying up til 2 AM.
Exercise is the next foundation block for me. If I don’t move and get my heart rate up, my anxiety will do it for me.
I’m still deciding between a couple of options for timing of exercise in the day. Historically I’ve had really good success working out first thing in the morning. It wakes my body up and brings a level of clarity to nearly the full day.
Recently I’ve been experimenting with a 2 PM workout. This is consistently the time of day where my mind starts to fall apart. In the past I’ve tried to just push through and keep doing stuff, but I end up super ineffective and then feel terrible by the end of the day.
In writing this out, I think the answer is obvious that I need both. I think the longer 2 PM workout makes sense and that I need to find something for the morning.
I don’t think I necessarily need intense exercise in the morning, so maybe a meditative morning walk is the answer. This gets me outside and also covers the mindfulness that I try to practice in the morning.
All of this brings me back to the “Miracle Morning” SAVERS acronym. Silence, Affirmation, Vision, Exercise, Reading, Scribing.
I think that this routine needs to be sacrosanct. This basically means that I need the first hour of my day to myself without major distractions.
Thinking about this, I’m getting excited about reading every morning. I always have a book on the go, but right now progress is so sporadic that I’m losing context between reads.
On the writing side of things, I can keep my morning writing for myself. For the last few weeks, I have stumbled on Tuesday later afternoon / evenings as the time I write something I share publicly.
It makes me nervous sharing my writing publicly, but I find such a significant boost from knowing that there’s an audience and also from the small amount of engagement I receive from a post. Keeping this as a weekly habit feels important to me.
The other obvious gap is my social life. I need to make doing something social a weekly thing. I make so many excuses for not doing this, but it’s clear that this is necessary for me.
Learning something new or improving a skill is also hugely restorative for me. To the point that I’d love for this to be a daily part thing. Dancing and climbing are two obvious bigger candidates that also conveniently cover the social side of things as well. I’d also like to reserve time in the evenings to practice something that is calming.
There are still some organizational things I’d love to systemize a bit better, but I think that will be for another day.