We live in a world filled with distractions - or so we’re led to believe.

In fairness, the chips are stacked against us.

You have a whole team of engineers behind each application on your phone trying to pull you into their world by rewarding your brain with little treats of dopamine to keep you coming back for more.

Our brain hasn’t evolved fast enough to keep up with the pace of technological advancements.

But it doesn’t stop there.

Even without the pull of technology the majority of us find ourselves being pulled towards activities that aren’t really beneficial for us.

We stay up late, we feel tired the next day. We eat like crap, we feel like shit. We go out on the weekend, it has a knock-on effect into the next week.

There has to be some way out of this mess.

I think we have to be honest with ourselves when it comes to all of these actions and how distracted we all are. We have to take some responsibility and realise that we’re letting ourselves be distracted.

If we have nothing to focus our attention on then of course we’re going to be pulled towards all these short-term pleasure activities. We’re not getting any fulfilment or rewards from making progress towards something we know we should be working towards.

I’ve found myself in this vicious cycle in the past. Wasting my time. Draining my energy and feeling like shit as a result. But I’ve luckily made my way out of it by hitting a hard reset on my daily actions.

This hard reset is what I like to call Monk Mode.

What Most People Think Is Monk Mode, Is Not Actually Monk Mode

If you search what Monk Mode is on the internet you’re going to see loads of posts and articles about going HAM and just doing as many things as possible. It’s boils down to just doing more.

If anything, I think it needs to be the opposite at first.

It’s more about doing less and eliminating things… to then recognise you now have the space to do meaningful and impactful things, if you so choose.

If you look at the actual lifestyle of a monk in a monastery this is obvious.

They’re not sitting in front of a computer cranking away at a million miles an hour.

They live a life of asceticism - abstinence from worldly pleasures.

This is such a crucial step in the process. If we’re really going to get an value from going into Monk Mode. We have to pull back from all the things that give us pleasure.

Don’t worry.

I’m not advocating that you become an actual monk. We’re just mimicking their behaviours for a period of time to gain a new perspective on how we’re living our own lives.

Now one key thing to realise about the monastic life is that they pull themselves out of society and create an environment so that they can rid themselves of distractions and worldly pleasures.

This is one of the problems with this way of living.

The philosopher and mystic George Ivanovich Gurdjieff was aware of this problem when he created his theory of The Fourth Way. He observed that a lot of the ways in which awareness or consciousness was cultivated by different traditions involved some form of extraction from society.

The first three ways relate to The Way of the Fakir, The Way of the Monk and The Way of the Yogi. There’s a whole lot of detail I could go into here but I’ll save that for another newsletter.

For now just know that one of the main premises of The Fourth Way (Gurdjieff’s theory) was that instead of extracting ourselves from society, it’s actually possible to develop within society itself through combining different aspects of the other three ways.

This is how we take the idea of Monk Mode and use it to our advantage.

Like the famous Bruce Lee quote:

The Horror of the Situation

Let’s contrast the two lifestyles for a second just to get a look at the whole picture.

This is what a day in the life of a Buddhist Monk in Myanmar look like. I got this from an article (link) by Gabriele Rodriquez.

4:00am - Wake up call (including weekends)
4:00 - 6:00am - Recite mantras, meditating, chanting, personal hygiene
6:00am - Walk down to the local village barefoot to ask for alms of food and money
8:00am - Breakfast with what was collected from village
8am - 11:00am - School for novices, temple duties etc.
11:00am - Light lunch (last meal they will consume), free time
1:00pm - School and learning
6:00pm - Two hours of meditation and prayer
8:00pm - Homework, free time
9:00pm - Bed

I’m not saying that we need to do all of this.

I just think it’s interesting to contrast this to how we all typically live in the Western World.

I’m going to use full poetic license here to paint the picture of a “typical” day. I know not all of this is the case but I think we can all resonate with how awful a day like this sounds because we’ve all been there once or twice in our life.

And for some, yes some, this is the reality of day-to-day living.

Most people are hitting snooze a million times before they eventually get up. They most likely feel crap because they stayed up late the night before and probably had a few drinks. They’re dehydrated, head is banging and they only got about five hours of sleep.

They slept in, so no time for breakfast and maybe just enough time to wash themselves before heading out the door for school work or whatever.

Chug a few cups or coffee, faff about with work. Check your phone 56 times before noon.

Finally lunch, first meal of the day. Stuff your face with processed food and more coffee.

Back to work, crash of energy. Struggle your way through work and once again check your phone another 56 times split between messages, emails, checking social media and not actually getting much work done.

Head home absolutely exhausted, order takeaway because you’re too tired to cook. Sit on the couch for the rest of the evening watching TV while scrolling on your phone.

Go to bed way later than you should.

Rinse and repeat.

Yikes.

Yes, I did just paint a pretty terrible picture but I bet I’m not too far off what a large majority of people are doing on a day-to-day basis.

I hear it constantly from people around me that they’re stressed from work, distracted by their phones, they don’t have enough time to train and they just feel exhausted all the time.

The idea for this newsletter actually came to me from my students. When I work with people I help them to look at themselves in a holistic way. You’re a human being, with lots of complex things going on in your life and they all effect each other.

When you’re trying to train and practice, it’s not as simple as “yeah just go to the gym and do this programme”.

There are a whole load of lifestyle factors that either help you or hinder you.

What I’ve started to notice over the years with my students is that within the early stages of implementing all of these new things into their life, there is often a sudden realisation for them.

When we start to track and take note of all the things they’re doing, they start to notice how many things they’re doing in their day that aren’t really helping them make progress towards their goals.

They report back to me on a regular basis and start to notice the trends:

They’re drinking way more alcohol than they thought they we. Their nutrition actually isn’t that great. They have way more nights out than they realised. They’re not sleeping as much as they should. They’ve got no consistent routine with things. They feel like they have no energy. They feel anxious and stressed and think they don’t have enough time to do a 5 minute task (when really they do!)

Now this is a huge step in the right direction.

The first step towards any major behaviour change is awareness. You have to first become aware of the situation so that you can see exactly what needs to change and to what degree it needs to be changed.

When I track habits with my students, it’s a slap in the face as to how they’re living their lives.

It sounds pretty simple and almost like a mute point but the distraction filled lives we all live blind us to this reality.

We can’t see the forest from the trees and we have no idea how long we’ve been in this downward cycle of bad habits and a poor routine.

I’ll use some of Gurdjieff’s theories and systems to help us understand what’s going on and how we go about developing ourselves.

One of the first principles of The Fourth Way is that “we are machines.” He makes a strong argument for determinism and that we have no free-will.

This doesn’t really paint the best picture of the reality that we face. But it can help us make sense of our mechanical ways and how we are pulled towards distraction and actions we KNOW we shouldn’t be doing.

In the popular behavioural science book Influence, by Robert Cialdini, he talks about what he calls “Click - Run” processes we go through that are like hard-wired automations. There’s some form of stimulus in front of us and without any thought from the individual, they go through a “Click - Run” process and unconsciously take an action.

He uses examples like: - We think things are of a higher quality if they’re more expensive - We want things more when they’re unavailable to us - We mimic the actions of others around us without even realising why

We are machines.

But there is hope for us.

Gurdjieff also says:

What this means is that in order to stop being so mechanical in our actions, we have to become conscious of our mechanical actions. This level of conscious awareness will help us put a hallt to the “Click - Run” actions we go through everyday.

To Stop Being a Machine, You Need to Set a Goal

In my last newsletter I talked about setting meaningful goals. I want to pull a few bits from it just to set the stage for what I’m talking about in terms of behaviour change.

If you want to get a full scope of the goal setting process and how to set more meaningful goals then click HERE.

We want to take advantage of the fact that our goals are what shapes our reality.

Our goals act as a frame of reference for our actions where we’ll start to derive more positive feelings from our actions if they’re aligned with our goals.

One thing I talked about is the idea of creating an Anti-Vision and a Vision.

Your Anti-Vision is a vivid picture of a potentially realistic outcome for your life if you let things spiral towards the negative.

It has to be strong and meaningful enough that it acts as a motivator in the negative sense - something you want to move away from.

Your Vision is a vivid picture of what your ideal future could look like if you were to actualise your potential.

Once again it was to be filled with meaning for it to light an emotional fire within you to motivate you in a positive sense - something you want to move towards.

How Will Our Vision and Anti-Vision Help Us?

At this very moment or at some time in the future, you may find yourself in an unfortunate place where you feel like you’re distracted, low on energy and like you need to make a positive change. I want to give you an understanding of the road ahead and why something like going into Monk Mode might be the exact thing you need.

Let’s take a look at why behaviour change is so hard in the first place. Then we’ll see why the Anti-Vision and Vision were needed (check the article HERE for a full breakdown).

First thing, nobody really wants to change.

It’s hard. It takes time and effort. It can bring up a lot of negative emotions, stress and anxiety.

We don’t really WANT to change our behaviour.

What we really WANT is the end result without the hardship.

This is the core reason why we need our Anti-Vision. The pain you’re experiencing, or could experience if your Anti-Vision became a reality, has to be great enough for you to want to take action. How else are we going to overcome the effort and work that behaviour change presents.

If we’re using the negative as a fuel to motivate us into taking action despite the difficulty, then our Vision combined with SMART Goals will shape our focus and attention going forward.

This is the real magic of having deeply rooted and personally meaningful goals. Nothing will bring more conscious awareness to your actions than this. Every decision you make now has a filter.

Let’s say for example you have a decision in front of you.

You’re tired. You’ve had a long day. You had a training session planned and a part of you is pulling you towards the couch to sit and watch some TV. You say to yourself “I’ll just take 5 minutes to rest my feet.” Now you’ve been on the couch for 5 minutes and it has you firmly within its comfortable yet tightly held grasp.

You remind yourself: “You said you were only going to relax for 5 minutes.”

It may not seem like much. But the action you have to take can feel somewhat monstrous as you have to pull yourself off the couch and go exert more energy in your training.

But remember.

We have our Anti-Vision and Vision fresh in our mind to help us zoom out from the current situation, so we can take a positive action towards our goals.

I don’t want you to think that it’s going to be like this forever. Behaviour change in the early stages is hard but we can build momentum and consistency with our actions to the point that they now become the default actions we take.

The thing to recognise is that when changing a habit, you WILL feel a pull back to your old ways of doing things. It will also feel more intuitive considering it’s what you’ve always done. The neural pathways in your brain have been strengthened overtime which means you’re primed to take that action if it’s been repeated multiple times.

We need to set things up so that we can see through this early phase so that we can overcome the gravity of our poor habits and create stronger connections in our brain with more favourable habits.

Habits Are At The Root of Our Behaviour

We don’t want to rely on willpower to change our behaviour. Roy Baumeister is one of the world’s leading authorities on willpower. A lot of his research has shown that willpower is actually a limited resource, it drains quickly throughout the day AND it’s hard to increase over the long-term.

Because of this, willpower alone is a terrible way of getting things done in the long run.

What we can change is our environment.

This has been shown to be a stronger predictor of behaviour than relying on self-discipline and willpower. If you set up your environment to avoid resistance in the first place then you won’t be reliant on willpower alone to help you take action.

This is why we don’t want to rely on the motivation from our Vision and Anti-Vision for all our actions. They may help kick us into gear a few times but we won’t be able to sustain that for the long-term.

So each little decision and action we take right from the moment we wake up starts to drain precious willpower.

Porridge or eggs.
Blue shirt or white shirt.
Pants or no pants.

These might seem like small things but they start to add up if we don’t have any form of routine or habits around what we do on a daily basis.

You may have heard before that the likes of Bill Gates and Barrack Obama famously outsourced their wardrobe to someone else to make that decision for them. They’ve most likely got huge decisions to make that day. So why waste precious decision-making resources on what type of tie you’re going to wear!

While I know a lot of us can’t just simply outsource all our daily tasks to someone else, we can take some inspiration from them. We can attempt to set up simple and repeatable routines that require as little conscious effort and focus to execute.

There is something called the Default Mode Network of the brain. This is the state we’re in the majority of the time when we’re executing tasks we’ve done a million times before. We can all mindlessly brush our teeth and hopefully walk and talk to someone without having to think about how to take each step.

If we can consistently execute on daily habits and routines that are favourable towards our goals, then we can slowly build up enough energy that these newfound habits and routines just seamlessly become a part of our day.

This is where we want to be after Monk Mode.

So how do we get there?

Monk Mode Process

We’ve established our Anti-Vision: The place we’ll end up if we continue to let our bad habits compound and pull us deeper towards a negative future.

We’ve established our Vision: The emotionally laden future that we’ve drawn up that fulfils us on a deeper level in all major domains of life and gives us a sense of purpose and meaning.

We’ll use them to frame our decisions and actions in an attempt to make them as conscious as possible.

This help us with the initial stages of behaviour change and provide much needed strength to break free from the gravity of our bad habits.

Then we’ll use the power of habit and routine to pick up the slack and effort when willpower starts to fade, which it will.

This is where most people get Monk Mode or a period of intensity wrong. There’s no look towards how things are going to operate AFTER everything is said and done. That’s why we’re going to channel our energy towards our habits rather than intensity of action. I’ll show you what that looks like.

Stage 1: Pre-Start Date

Step 1 - Establish Your Anti-Vision and Vision

I gave a full breakdown in my last newsletter so I’d advise having a read of that if you haven’t done so already. Click HERE.

Step 2 - SMART Goals

Same again here. Full breakdown in previous newsletter! Click HERE.

Step 3 - Establish Your Morning and Evening Routine

You don’t have to go through a 30 step morning routine to start your day.

But you do have to establish some basics to set you up in the best way possible for the day ahead.

Remember, your daily habits or routines are the strongest predictors of your behaviour. So if you have no morning routine and you’re just chaotically going about your day, you’re going to drain willpower with all the decisions you now have to make.

Include the simple things like personal hygiene and any other responsibilities you may have.

Feel free to add in some form of contemplative practice like meditation or journalling but my advice is not to go overboard on these. You can easily add three or four different things and make it harder to execute this routine rather than keeping it simple and easy to execute.

If you want to add in some form of activity like training or walking then perfect. You’re the captain of your own ship. Just make sure it aligns with your goals and Vision.

For your evening routine you want to once again make sure it all aligns with your goals and Vision.

My bit of advice here is to make sure you wind down and prepare for sleep. No screen, no harsh overhead lighting. It’s another opportunity to add in some contemplative practices if you feel they suit.

I’ll reiterate the fact that you’re in charge here. I’m more of a morning person so I prefer to front-load my day and have as little tasks to complete at night when I feel like simple tasks are a burden. For others they have a little more energy at night so maybe a simple morning routine and a more complex evening routine would suit. Despite being a night owl, you should still include activities that are low energy or more calming at least an hour or 45 minutes before bed.

Step 4 - Set Your Start Date and Loosely Plan Your Next Month

I use Google Calendar to keep track of all my events and commitments I have. If you’d prefer to use a physical diary or planner then be my guest. I’ll sit down on a week-to-week basis and plan out the week ahead every Sunday or Monday.

You want to have a 30 day overview of things in terms of random events like a birthday or a work commitment that you don’t usually have. These things creep up on us when we’re not regularly looking at our diary. We can easily get railroaded by two random events that make it very hard to organise around. We want to reduce the likelihood of this happening and pre-empt them as much as possible here.

In terms of planning your week ahead you want to attach a location and a time to all your priority tasks. When you say exactly where and when you’ll do something, you’re way more likely to actually execute on it.

So don’t just say: “Ah yeah I’ll go to the gym at some stage today”.

Write it down in your calendar so you know when exactly you’ll be there and how you’ll get there from where you are beforehand. These simple logistics need to be known for us to figure out what our best schedule is.

I personally plan out most of my commitments the week in advance. Then part of my morning routine is to put more of a definite plan for my day. This is more to do with mapping out the finer details of my work tasks. But the fact that I have my other events in there means I know what my constraints are and what I need to work around. I’ve zoomed out so I can zoom in.

Now you’re ready to set your start date for going Monk Mode.

The thing I don’t want you to do here is push this off.

Yes, next week might not be the perfect week for this but there’s no such thing as the perfect week. If you have the motivation and desire to do this now then don’t push it off.

Get going sooner rather than later.

This is the biggest issue people have and it’s pretty simple. Taking action. It’s simple, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy.

People will get caught in a loop of planning and researching but then never get their hands dirty. Systems need to be tried and tested. You need to run through this process and fail. That’s what we want. Failure is going to help us identify what’s not working and what needs to be adjusted. You’ll never figure that out by thinking and planning. You’ll only find that out through action.

As a wise man once said:

Stage 2: Going Monk Mode

Week 1 - Dopamine Detox

You may feel like this is not exactly necessary for you. If you feel like you have a good handle on your media consumption, kudos.

But for the majority of us, the distractions are the reason why we’re not getting anything done. And I’m speaking from experience here. I’ve found tremendous value in the past from going on some form of media blackout or dopamine detox to help me get a handle on how I’m spending my time.

We’re doing a Dopamine Detox for two reasons:

First is to reset or recalibrate our dopamine reward system. We’re constantly being fed dopamine through all forms of media. The fact that we now have a phone that follows us around and gives us the ability to get a quick hit whenever we feel bored is kind of scary.

The logic is that by cutting back on media and entertainment giving you the reward chemical dopamine on a regular basis, you give the new habits and routines centred around your goals more of an opportunity to use the dopamine reward system.

The second reason for not consuming any form of media (bar reading) for a full week is, you’re going to become aware of how often you’re looking to be entertained. We want to become as aware and conscious of the current reality.

There’s nothing more confronting than realising how often you pick up your phone to check social media when you’ve intentionally set the task of NOT doing that.

So the rules for this week are simple. You’re allowed to read books and that’s it.

You’re most likely not going to get quick, cheap dopamine hits from reading a book. It’s a good habit anyway and we don’t want to be climbing the walls by the end of the week so we need at least one thing to occupy our spare time.

All other forms of media are gone.

No TV
No radio
No podcasts
No music
And most importantly, no social media

You’re probably thinking of some reason why you have to use one of these forms of media.

Don’t let the ego cling to its vices.

You’re only doing this for a week. You’ll survive.

The insights and perspective you’ll have after this will be worth it.

After the Dopamine Detox

After you’ve gone through your Dopamine Detox week you now have an interesting problem in front of you.

If you’re someone who was very distracted by media prior to this week, you’ve probably gained a lot of insight. You can see in front of you how much time you really have on your hands and how much media hijacks your attention.

It can be a tough pill to swallow.

In staying true to the idea of living like a monk, you could consider extending your media blackout for the rest of the 30 day period. I understand this is a huge ask given the world we live in.

But for those who now realise where their time is going, take the extra challenge and extend the media blackout for the rest of the 30 days.

For those who feel they have a better understanding and control of their media consumption, do what you will for the remainder of the 30 days and reintegrate media back into your life in what feels like the most harmonious relationship with your goals.

The Rest of Monk Mode

I want to list out some potential things you can do for the remainder of the 30 days.

Remember the idea for Monk Mode.

We want to take an eraser to the whiteboard of our life and completely wipe out everything and then direct our energy towards installing new habits around the lifestyle that most aligns with out goals.

Our willpower should be directed towards this and not towards the intensity of action.

Let me give you an example of what I mean by this.

Let’s say you said you were going to go to the gym everyday for the next 30 days and you’ve never gone to the gym twice in one week.

I’m exaggerating of course but you get my point.

I’m assuming that from what we discussed in terms of your Vision and your SMART Goals that you’ve set a REALISTIC target for your training.

If the goal is 3 days of training this week then perfect. Now it’s a little more realistic.

Another mistake of intensity people make here is going to the gym and absolutely red-lining each of their sessions. In my experience as a coach, this is the number one reason why beginners aren’t successful with their goals.

The motivation and expectation is high and that channels its way into intensity of action by pushing themselves hard in their training.

But remember, what was our goal in the first place?

It was just to go to the gym 3 times this week.

Instead of killing yourself, go to the gym for the first month of your new goal and never go above 75% effort in any individual movement or session as a whole. Leave each session with plenty left in the tank.

This right here is crucial. You’re focusing on the habits and long-term systems, not on isolated intensity.

For those that have some form of work and career goal as their intention for Monk Mode, the same advise stands.

What’s the point in going HAM for 3 days and doing 12 hours each day when you’re dead by Thursday and you want to give up.

If you really want to get more out of your work then focus on undistracted deep work compared to the distracted work you’re currently doing.

Some other bits of advice for the rest of Monk Mode:

Introduce a meditation habit - This will help you become more self-aware of your actions, thoughts and tendencies. A powerful tool for behaviour change and self-development.

Limit Shiny Object Syndrome - Don’t get pulled towards something new. Lock-in, put the blinkers on and don’t get distracted for this period.

Take yourself serious and commit to this - Your ego will try to distract you and pull you away from the idea of this but if you know deep down you need to “get your shit together”, then do it.

Don’t dip your toe in - You won’t get any value from this by not committing fully and whole-heartedly. In Gurdjieff’s work he would talk about vivifying factors - things that give you life-force or libido.

There’s a quote from one of his books where he says:

Meaning, you need to invest your energy into things. You can’t just walk around the edge and stick your toe in.

When we make a commitment to do something we do it as fully as we possibly can.

Engage in learning - Learning is pivotal for change. If we commit to lifelong learning we open up to the world around us and the teachings it has to offer.

You’ll be reading for week one. Why not read something that aligns with your goals or challenges your current thought process.

Engage in some form of creative outlet - This might be second nature for some people already. If it also feels as if your adding too much to your plate and it might distract you away from your goals then don’t worry about this.

But here we have another source of life-force or libido that aligns with “The Good Life”.

What’s All This For?

Not everything has to be added right away. You don’t even need to add some of it to get value from Monk Mode.

The main thing is that you commit to a period of self-control around the things that are currently distracting you, wasting your time and pulling you towards complacency, self-doubt and laziness.

I’m speaking from a place of experience here.

I know personally how shit it feels to not really have any objective in life and to just be filling your time with mindless activities.

All aspects of Self start to suffer. You feel sluggish and unenthused about almost everything around you. A grey cloud of depression and anxiety starts to hang over your reality. Getting out of bed seems like a drag and it seems the only thing you’re motivated to do is the bear minimum by just showing up to work.

I typically tell students not to go and change too many things at once when looking at their habits and routines.

It’s a lot to take on and even the smallest addition to your schedule can feel like a huge burden to take on because of the amount of conscious effort you have to apply to it.

But sometimes that’s just not enough.

The negative cycle that’s present when a lot of variables in life are not going well means a clean slate is needed.

When everything gets wiped then it’s a complete shock to the system. A shock is exactly what’s needed to wake you up to what’s going on in your life and where it’s leading.

The energy needed for something like this is of course much bigger than the amount needed to change one habit, but that’s why we wanted to create a big emotional spark with our Vision and Anti-Vision in an attempt to summon more willpower in the early stages.

As you move forward day by day, you’re going to start feeling better with all the positive change you’re going through.

Sure, it won’t all be easy. You will have to battle with yourself on some days and not so much on others. You need to be ok with that. Not everyday is going to be an epic victory. You’re going to feel the pull back towards old habits we talked about and a few things might creep their way back in.

But the perspective shift you’re going to have after all this is what we’re after.

You’ll have new thoughts, ideas and beliefs around the areas of your life that matter the most to you. You’re on a much better platform to re-evaluate and make a decision as to what you’re going to do from here.

I wish you the best of luck if you decide to take on this challenge.

If you want some structure and support over the next four weeks then you should check out 4 Weeks of Free Movement Coaching.

My focus with my students is on holistic development so it’s not just about training.

We’ll look at your habits. Add in some new routines. There’s even a meditation programme within there that will help you build the habit and practice of meditation.

I’m also there to help you with videos and advice around the typical issues people face within the early stages of movement coaching.

If you’ve never done any form of online movement coaching before I think you’ll like just how much help and support you’ll be getting with this.

If you have done some coaching before I think you’ll be amazed just how much is packed in here in terms of value for the 4 weeks. I’ve seen what some people charge ridiculous prices for and it has nothing on this.

Check it out HERE.

I’ll see you on the next one folks!