Developing and Tracking Habits
To prioritize human-optimizing habits, I created a “Habit Tracker Board” in which I document daily progress on my most important high performance habits. By doing so, I keep myself accountable to prioritizing my health, happiness, and performance. Self-development and performance objectives are all rooted in the principles of a growth mindset and The Probability Assessment, enabling me to constantly strive to unlock my human potential.
My Most Important High Performance Habits
For each habit on the “Habit Tracker Board,” it is either marked green or red at the end of every day. Green indicates growth, meanwhile red indicates stagnation or regression. As far as I am concerned, if I did not do something to get better, I got worse. And thus, it is either green or red. The goal is to try and have the board completely green every day and every week. While this is unattainable and unrealistic to be perfect in my pursuit of all of my goals, it helps to keep me focused on the most important priorities in my life.
Below are a few of the high-performance habits that I implement:
Morning Routine
The morning sets the stage for the entire day. By curating a morning routine designed to optimize my mental state and happiness, I am framing myself for a successful day. To begin a day with negative energy, distractions, and poor energy, is to set yourself up for poor performance.
My morning routine includes the following aspects:
• Wake up 5am every day
• Keep phone on airplane mode until completion of morning routine
• Spiritual Reading: 15 minutes
• Meditation & Breathing: 15 minutes
• Morning gratitude journal entry
Evening Routine
Equally important to the morning routine, my evening routine is a critical part of optimizing my sleep, recovery, and sustaining high levels of performance. The circadian clock is a priority, so avoiding evening eating and blue light are very important aspects. Additionally, a series of habits that help prepare me for sleep work to maintain my circadian clock. Just as important, taking space for mental health is important to process the events of the day, clear my mind, and go to bed in a positive mental state. This makes it a lot easier to begin the next day in a positive state of mind.
My most important nightly habits include:
• Last meal at least six hours before bed
• Blue-light glasses or red-light mode at least one hour before bed
• No screens for at least 30 minutes before bed
• All devices set to airplane mode 30 minutes before bed
• Essential oils diffuser
• Educational Reading: 30 minutes
• Evening gratitude journal entry
• Ear plugs if distracting sounds
• Mouth taping
Exercise
As a lifelong competitive athlete and fitness enthusiast, this is very important to me. Not just for optimized health, happiness, and performance, but for fun! To maximize efficiency with my time, I look for short, high intensity workouts coupled with active recovery sessions. This keeps my body feeling energized, healthy, and happy.
Notable aspects of my exercise regimen include:
• 3-4 high-intensity workouts per week
• Active recovery workouts on all other days
• Yoga, Stretching, Walking, Massage Therapy, etc.
• All workouts in a fasted state
Nutrition
In line with the key points from the What To Do section, I make my nutrition a top priority in my life. Proper fuel is essential, and something I happily invest in. I have one body and one life, and I intend to keep this machine running for a long time.
Here are my top nutrition guidelines:
• Attempt to eat 100% whole foods
• Diet is 80-90% plant-based
• Regularly rotate between Keto (75% fat, 20% protein, 5% carb) and high carb (50% carb, 35% fat, 15% protein) for metabolic flexibility
• Incorporate one high calorie/carb/protein refeed day weekly
• Drink at least 3L (~100 oz) water daily
• Daily supplementation
• Vitamin D
• Vitamin K2
• Vitamin B-complex
• Calcium
• Fish oils
Fasting
As explored in detail in Episode 006, fasting has been one of the most influential lifestyle changes I have made, improving every aspect of my life. In fact, I don’t expect to ever go back to a standard western eating pattern (breakfast, lunch, and dinner).
Although I frequently adapt my eating window and meal times, I have some guidelines that I typically abide by:
• 20:4 intermittent fasting daily (20-hour fast, 4-hour feeding window)
• Prefer to eat between 10am and 2pm
• Incorporate a 48-hour water fast once a month
• Incorporate a 72-120 water fast every 6 months (supplemented with sodium, magnesium, and potassium)
Cold Exposure
As explored in Episode 007, I am a big believer in the wide-range of health benefits of cold exposure. Although often uncomfortable, I have made a lifelong commitment to becoming best friends with the gain for the performance optimizing benefits of being cold.
My regular cold exposure habits include:
• Daily cold showers
• Weekly cryotherapy treatment
• Keep room cool at night
• Spend time outside (if cold) everyday
Do any of you have similar habits? Or suggestions for other techniques and habits to optimize human performance?
I’d love to hear about them – let’s start a discussion!