I woke up at 5:30AM, for the 34th day in a row.

And let me tell you, whoever said it takes only 21 days to build a new habit, would dramatically change his mind, if he saw me crawling outside of the blanket this morning.

Most days were OK, and I truly loved waking up early, finishing my working day around 12PM (for the Deep Work part of the day).

But this morning… My day went out of control.

I woke up at 5:30, for sure (breaking my 34-day streak would make me freak out), but I was totally unable to step out of the bed.

Stuck.

Monkey mind took control of the operations.

Negociations were tough…

7:30AM, I still didn’t have my coffee, were even too lazy to just go to the bathroom to take a pee.

Holding it felt more comfortable than walking for 10s to the bathroom.
Really.

Have you ever lived this kind of day?

I started to get angry at myself, and to feel guilty.

Then I remembered, it’s one of my current focus, I wrote it this way: “whatever happened, don’t feel guilt. You can’t change the past. Focus on what you can actually do, now.”

I finally went to the bathroom, took a pee, washed my face because I was too lazy to take a shower, and went back to my bed.

Shamelessly.

I took my phone, and checked the video I was working on yesterday.

I didn’t like it, but it’s still better than if it didn’t exist at all (it’s a short video for the background of the website of Reconnect).

“It would look better with some subtitles to share a few ideas about the project itself.”, I said to myself.

I was not supposed to work on this, at all, today.

But compared to going back to sleep, working on the video seemed like a decent alternative.

So I worked on it.
On my phone.
From my bed.

Note: I love editing videos on the phone, it’s the most extreme version I know of the 20/80 principle. It’s even a 1/99 principle in this case.

I finished it, 
and I still didn’t like it.

But I was happy.

Because it looked decent enough for me to share it and use it as a background video for the website.

Because it helped me telling to my monkey mind to shut the fuck up.

Then, I felt super lazy again. 
Spent 1h doing absolutely nothing.

There was a mismatch between what I decided to do today, 
and what my lazy mind was actually ready to handle.

“Ok, let’s just go somewhere. Anywhere.”

I took the motorbike, heading to… anywhere.

On my way there, I passed this café where I used to achieve a shit ton of work last year. And they have awesome croissants (it’s called Monsieur Spoon, check it out if you’re in Bali).

I instantly shifted.

“Fuck yeah, let’s have some croissant, bread and butter, eggs, and coffee!”

I arrived 7h ago, and didn’t move my butt even once from the chair.

But this time, because I was too busy getting things done, to even consider interrupting my focus to go to pee.

I did things like:

  • Automating (almost) 100% of the onboarding process for the Hustlers Villa, because it usually take me too much time to monitor, capture payments, send infos, etc.
  • Improving my mental framework on WorkFlowy, and making it more efficient to handle on a daily basis
  • Reworking Reconnect website, optimising the video, uploading as a background, and drawing the structure of the second version I’ll use to give more infos and capture more qualified leads
  • Settling a bunch of extremely boring administrative stuff
  • Writing this blogpost

A day like this one is usually one that would drive me crazy, angry and feeling guilty. All at the same time.

Because of how it started.

But there’s a useful take away, about how it went in the end.

Sometimes, things just don’t go as planned.
Even when you have the greatest routine and strong habits.

Shit happens, and sometimes your mind embrace the “monkey side of the force”, and you feel terrible.

You know what?

It’s fine.

Just fucking feel terrible, 
accept the monkey.

Don’t fight it.

It’s like when it rains.

You can be as angry as you want, 
the rain doesn’t give a shit.

So you accept the rain.
So you accept your monkey mind.

Let it jump around, let it be silly.

And while you keep your energy, instead of fighting something you can’t change anyway, take a decision.

Go somewhere,
Do something that makes you happy,
Meet someone.

Get out of the current environment, where the monkey thrives.

New actions = New results

Just apply the formula, and eventually, 
the monkey will get tired and run away.

And if he doesn’t…

Then, maybe the day is just fucked up.
Maybe you won’t be able to do shit today.

It sucks, but it will also help you appreciating it more 
next time you have a great day.

Do nothing,
don’t even feel guilty.

Eat things you love,
Watch a movie,
Get a long night of sleep.

And come back tomorrow, ready to nail it…

…eventually.