I see far too many people down these days.
Three years ago, my life was in shambles. The only thing that pulled me out of that hole was to move my body and subsequently my mind.
I never thought I would be at rock bottom. And yet, there I was. It can happen to anyone. But, anyone can pull themselves out of that dark place, too.
It is a choice; we can stay down, where our minds can be a prison cell, or we can break free.
You can unf@$! yourself, and get back to living a life of higher purpose.
Only you can decide this for yourself, nobody else is going to do the work for you.
You’re here, and that is a great start.
Today, the first day of 2024, is day One for you.
Start with the basics #
If you are at square one, you are not going to be able to get up at 5am, run a marathon before you get to work at 7am, and work for 12 hours straight. This is not the goal here, perhaps one day in the future. What we must do if we are so depressed that we can’t leave our bed, or that we haven’t left our house in weeks, is that we must do the very basic things that will snowball you towards a life in which you see that you control much more than you feel like you do at this moment.
In my book, Mountain I discuss this in great detail, but the base of the pyramid of a life well lived is simply built on a foundation of basics that we live without even having to think about. If you are in a position where you don’t feel like a human being, it is likely because you have let this foundation crumble, or you never had it in the first place.
There is no better time to start building it than right now. I will give you a 90 day plan to create habits that you will create the base for every single day of your life going forward.
Month One: #
Starting Right Now - Drink 3L of water per day #
Today, you will simply drink water throughout the day. That is all I want you to do. For one whole week, you will drink 3 litres of water per day.
If you are reading this at 11:30 at night, start tomorrow when you wake up. Don’t consume 3 litres in a sitting, but have a glass by you at all times, and cumulatively drink 3 litres over a 24 hour period.
Why? #
When we let the basics erode, we likely don’t even hydrate our bodies properly. You will start with the basic need of a human being, water, and make it a pillar for the rest of your life. Three litres per day is not a tremendous amount of water, nor is it insignificant. It is enough for you to start your body feeling better, and when the body starts to feel better, that begins to allow us to move forward.
After a few days of doing this, you will notice your joints feel better, your breathing easier, and your overall wellbeing improved.
Week Two - Set a Consistent Wake up Time #
Upon the beginning of week two, you will set a time that you will get up in the morning. In addition to drinking 3 litres of water per day, you will abide by this schedule for the rest of the week (and for the rest of the 90 days). So, you are drinking 3 litres of water, and you are getting up at a given time. Continue with this until week three.
Why? #
Setting a time to wake up allows you to normalize a rhythm in your day that permits you to build a daily schedule. If you wake up at 7am everyday, when previously you were waking up at any hour of the day, you set a beginning (and inevitably, because of fatigue, an end) to your day. This allows you to build a schedule where you know what time you are getting up and around what time you are going to bed.
No more staying up until 3am playing video games or trolling internet forums. No more talking to people late into the night, no more watching “videos”.
You will be in bed at a certain time to wake up in the morning at a certain time.
Give yourself 8 hours of sleep. So, if you wake at 7am, be asleep by 11pm.
You will have some difficulty in the beginning, but over a week, you will have a normalized schedule which will now be religiously adhered to.
Week Three - Get Outside for a Walk #
Then comes week three. You will get out of your home for a walk in the Sunlight for this whole week, including the two previous tasks (you remember right? 3 litres of water per day, and get up at the same time everyday.) Start with just 10 minutes. It is best to do so in nature, but if you are unable, around your neighborhood will do just fine.
Why? #
Getting into the sunlight and walking helps to stabilize your mood, as well as get your out of the four walls that surround you. In walking and moving your body, you start to feel yourself loosening up, you start to breathe the fresh air, and feeling more alive as you begin to look around at the sights and sounds of life. Walking allows you to get out of your head and to get into your body. You will even start to see yourself thinking more positively as you move.
Sunlight helps to set a circadian rhythm that will help you go to bed and get up in the morning, too.
Week Four - 100 Pushups per Day #
You will now be 3 full weeks into this path of resetting yourself. You might be feeling the best you have felt in recent memory. Continue with your daily walk, 3 litres of water, and normal wake time. To begin week four, we will do 100 pushups per day in addition to those last 3 habits. It does not matter how long it takes you to complete these, you could do them in an hour or take the whole day to complete them.
Why? #
You need to move your body, everyday. If you are feeling as if you are stagnant, it is likely because you physically are stagnant. 100 pushups for someone that have never done a pushup before is not easy, but is completely achievable over the course of a day, 5 here, 10 there. You likely will even feel sore the next day. Good! Push through the soreness and keep going today, and tomorrow.
Your first month to UnF@$!ing yourself is complete.
End of Month One #
Your day will now include the following:
- 3 litres of water drank per day
- You are awake at the same time every single day
- You are going for a walk outside every single day
- You are doing 100 pushups per day
What happens if I slip up? #
We are not perfect, and it will happen that one day you wake up a little late, or your miss some water intake.
The thing to remember is not to ruminate, not to let that “miss” get you down. Tomorrow is a new day, and you can continue the process tomorrow.
When I was recovering from a broken spine and re-learning how to walk with the paralysis that came with it, there were days that were not “good” days. I didn’t do anything to further my position, I wasn’t 0.1% better than yesterday. It didn’t matter, tomorrow was a new day, and another chance to work on my health and getting better.
So too, is it with you. Take each day individually, and aim to win as many days in a row as you possibly can. For each daily win is a confidence boost that shows you what is possible.
Month Two #
Welcome to Month Two! Don’t stop doing those 4 habits we started. We are going to add a little bit more to your schedule. If you have been doing all of these things on a daily basis, your energy levels should be improved. You should have some clarity of mind, you should feel better than you did a month ago.
Week Five - Get rid of junk food and buy natural/whole foods #
To start week five, you will clean out your home of junk food. You will remove every single item of food that contains seed oil, that has high sugar, that came in a box instead of naturally grown from the Earth on which we live.
You will dump all of this disgusting slop out of your home, and will buy good food from the supermarket in which you know that there are no hidden ingredients, no processing, nothing. You will eat a diet consisting of this good food for the following week. On sunday, you will go to the grocery store or the farmer’s market and will buy more of the same: fruits, vegetables, meats, eggs, beans, rice, potatoes, etc. You will eat this going forward. You will learn to cook with these ingredients and create a diet which makes you feel better and more alive.
Why? #
Our food dictates what we feel like, it makes us feel nourished and complete or it makes us feel shattered and weak. You may ask why it took a month for us to get here, and the answer is that we have to establish a routine and cover the very basics before we go up changing our diet and that which we consume. If you are to go out and pick up healthy food at the beginning of this guide, I am not going to stop you! But, if you have followed up until this point, you will be feeling much better simply because of the routine we have established; the food that you now consume will turbo boost this feeling of wellness as you progress.
Week Six - Begin going to the Gym #
Next, to begin week six, you are going to go to the gym every single day. I don’t care if you are working out at all, just that you get to the gym every single day! You will put on your gym clothes, get in your car or walk on over, and get into the gym. I am not saying you should do any sort of weights, or cardio, or anything at all - just that you get into the gym. That is it!
If you want to - you can absolutely work out in the gym. But you need not have to. You just simply must get into the gym.
You might be saying “Josh what is the point of going to the gym to simply not workout?” The point is to establish the routine of going. You will start working out next week if you don’t this week. You might even want to work out since you are going to the gym anyway - Go for it!
Weeks Seven and Eight - Workout Regimen #
Week seven, you will do 20 minutes of exercise in the gym per day. Week eight, 45 minutes.
You are still doing all of the things we previously discussed right?
By week eight your day will include:
- 3 litres of water drank per day
- You are awake at the same time every single day
- You are going for a walk outside every single day
- You are doing 100 pushups per day (you can do 100 air squats or 100 pullups in addition or to supplement these)
- You are eating good quality foods, with out processed garbage
- You are exercising 45 minutes per day in the gym
Month Three - Continue and Remove Vices #
You will simply continue these activities throughout this month to instill them as your new norm. You will not deviate one bit. If you do miss a day, don’t beat yourself up about it, just resume the plan tomorrow. Do not allow yourself to miss more than a day.
The final piece to the puzzle is that for the final 30 days of our practice, we will remove extrinsic vice from our lives. We will get rid of the caffeine, the marijuana, the alcohol, the pornography, the video games, and the escapism. We will remove the social media scrolling, the cheap dopamine hits, the worry of what other people are thinking or saying.
Replace these things with positive actions such as reading a book, trying a new skill, cooking yourself a new meal, writing, playing an instrument, creating something, hanging out with friends and family, and other hobbies you might have forgotten you used to have.
Final Words #
You are now 90 days into a routine. Hopefully you can see that you are in control of much of your life. You can now take this and do with it what you will? Do you want a better job? Do you want to start a business? Do you want to find someone that you could be in a relationship with? Perhaps expand your social circle and meet people that mesh with you?
All of these things are within your power to do, because you are more powerful than you previously thought. I assure you that you will find you are accelerating towards your goals with reckless abandon now, because you know that you are capable of controlling much more than you once were.
The Hard Reset #
If you feel that you need a kick in the ass, you can do what I will refer to as a hard reset: your living space should be tidied up to the point in which you are proud of the place that you live. It is funny that the movie “Limitless” espouses just this for the main character. You should take a day, and clean up your home to the point that you would be proud to have the King of England over.
Upon completion of this task, begin to look at how much you had within your control already, you had the ability to live in a place that was completely in order. Now, what else do you think is within your control? What about your body? What about your relationships? What about your mind?
Going for it right from the get-go #
You may have read this guide all the way through and decided you will start the next 90 days with the routine that is described at the end of month two. God bless you! The only reason I have laid out 8 weeks (and then a month of adhering to the schedule) is that it takes time to integrate a habit, and in the past, I have tried to do everything all at once, to succeed on day one through three, and then fail forevermore afterwards.
If you are able to, feel free to start with the end in mind and carry yourself through, but the habits will likely stick far more effectively (and with less effort) if you introduce one per week.
Conclusion #
This 90 day outline is to show you that you have control over your body and (in turn) your mind.
In seeing that you do have some control, you begin to see that it was always you versus you - you were always the one that was holding you back, you were always the one that was placing limitations on yourself and where you thought your life could go, who you thought you could be.
Depression and feeling down is brought on many times by a lack of control over our own lives.
We work on the body first so that we can see that which we can control immediately in this physical plane. The interesting thing is that your mind and spirit follow as you move your body, they start to see that if you are not listening to your mind that tells you cannot do something or that you are “too tired” or “too sore”, they start to shut up and stop working against you and rather for you.
Train the body, the mind follows.
Feel free to email me your success stories to josh@joshblais.com and tell me about how you feel after 90 days.