Tag: Energy

3-2-1 Flying Fridays

3-2-1 Flying Fridays

AP2

Hello lovely readers and welcome back to 3-2-1 Flying Fridays! The only weekly post that takes an extended break without telling anyone… (I missed you all too!)

Following a 3-2-1 approach, it contains 3 thoughts from me (that you should ignore), 2 quotes from others (that you should read), and 1 something special (maybe). 

As a bonus I’ve finished with one joke that’s so bad, it’s good!

Let’s begin!

3 x Thoughts:

1) If you think of a task in its entirety it can often feel overwhelming. Like staring up at a dragon. If that’s the case, don’t tell yourself you have to take down the whole dragon today. Just see if you can take a step closer to the cave that it’s residing in. Simply sharpen your sword. Get your armour ready. Whatever it is – reduce your ambition till you find the task you are willing to do and then move towards it.

2) A low energy life is a dangerous one. To live optimally you need look after your energy levels. You need to match the amount you’re carrying to the amount of drive you have available depending on the time or day. That might mean letting something go, which can be hard. But if you don’t – if you carry too much weight – you run the risk of stalling. This makes things much harder.

3) Often the reason we don’t gain energy from/motivation for an activity is to do with our relationship towards it, not the activity itself.

2 x Quotes:

“Show me a man who isn’t a slave; one who is a slave to sex, another to money, another to ambition; all are slaves to hope or fear.”

— Seneca

“Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakes.”

— Carl Jung 

1 x Thing:

This Psyche article: How to take things less personally by Joel Minden. I particuarly liked the advice about distinguishing thoughts from feelings. Quote:

“A good way to distinguish feelings from thoughts is to remember that feelings can often be summarised in one word – nervous, happy, surprised, scared – and thoughts are the ideas that drive or follow the feelings… practise labelling them whenever you have the opportunity. For example, if during a dinner, your guest suddenly got quiet and you thought: ‘He doesn’t like talking with me,’ acknowledge that you’re working with a thought that may or may not be true, and then consider the feeling that came with that thought. An example of a more accurate way to describe what happened is: ‘When he got silent during dinner, I felt sad because I thought he didn’t like talking with me.’ Remember that feelings are not debatable – you just feel how you feel, even when you wish you didn’t. Your thoughts, on the other hand, can be challenged, revised or replaced with more realistic and useful ones.“

1 x Joke:

We took our kids to beach yesterday.

I turned to my eldest and said, “How does the sea say hi to the beach?”

…

“It waves, of course!”

PREVIOUS NEWSLETTER:

3-2-1 Flying Fridays – 25/03/22

***

You can find more of AP2’s writing here at: https://pointlessoverthinking.com

You can also find him on Medium at: https://anxiouspilot2.medium.com

Or on Twitter at: @anxiouspilot

Thursday’s Top Tip

Thursday’s Top Tip

AP2

“Sleep is the best meditation.”

– Dalai Lama

Treat the time you wakeup as the central-axis point of your being.  

The point that keeps everything in balance.

The point that sets everything you want to happen in motion.

The point from which all order springs.

Don’t lie in. Don’t hit snooze. Don’t think about it. 

Just. Get. Up.

No matter how bad your nights sleep, make sure you wake up at the same time.

Every. Single. Day.

This will be hard at first (if you’re not doing this already), but the longer term benefits are massive – especially for those who have trouble sleeping. 

Why?

Because our bodies are biological clocks that love routine. When we wake up at the same time we reinforce our circadian rhythm.

Not only does this prompt us to go to bed at the same time, it allows our bodily functions and cycles to operate at optimum efficiency – keeping us as strong as a mother fucking Ox y’all!

(Add to this regularly scheduled meal times and you’ll really start to notice shit changing for you. In fact, you’ll notice your shit happening at the exact same time every single day, like clockwork.)

Seriously!

Waking up on the dot affects everything. Energy, metabolism, mood… 

Conversely, when our lifestyle has been out of sync with our circadian rhythm for a long time, we start to put ourselves at greater risk to all sorts of diseases and mental health issues. (Check out this article for more info.)

And you can take all of this from a pilot who has been disrupting his circadian rhythm for ten years now with one exception: this past year.

Because of COVID I’ve seen a lot less flying through the night and a lot more regular sleep.

How do you feel, you ask?

Strong as a mother fucking Ox y’all! (And also scared for my job, but let’s blow past that…)

Now allow me to let you in on a couple of tips within this tip!

It takes 40 days or so to form a new habit. So stick with it. It will pay off. 

Do I have to get up at 5am, you ask? 

No, not at all. 

The other important thing to understand is that you have a unique chronotype. (Have a look at this article for more info or take this quiz to help you find out which.)

I happen to be a wolf (side note: awesome).

I hate early mornings. I like to take things slow when I do get up – which is later than most I’ll admit.

I meditate, do a little journalling and reading with a leisurely coffee, and then I do some exercise and/or stretching before I crack on with the day.

I’m at my most alert in the evenings. So when everyone else sits down to binge watch Netflix, that’s when I get to work. 

Unfortunately for us wolves, society is biased towards bears and lions (early birds). I used to believe I was lazy for the longest time.

It wasn’t until I understood my chronotpye that I really started listening to my body instead of forcing it. This in turn allowed me to formulate a routine that has me firing on all four cylinders.

It’s important to stress that while the early bird may catch the worm, the night owl gets to hunt mice mother fuckers!

So don’t feel bad about setting your schedule to match your chronotype.

We’re all different!

Whether that means you get up at 4am or 11am, the most important thing is that you wake up at the same time.

Every. Single. Day. 

You’ll thank me for it eventually.

I promise. 

Previous Top Tip