This morning at friskis – intense back workout

Saturday morning – isn’t that just the best thing ever? waking up and doing the things that make you relaxed, feel good and distance yourself from the reactive life we often tend to find ourselves in. Now, I strive to have the ‘Saturday like feeling’ every day, but that’s just not my current reality.

Although, I have some things I make sure to start my day of with no matter what day of the week it is. Habits that over the years have become a solid part of my life. Not as a ‘I’ll feel bad about myself if I don’t do them experience’, but as something that I want to do as it kicks my day of in the right spirit. And the beauty of a habit is that it becomes autonomous once it’s implemented and you no longer have to put in an effort to make it happen.

My habits vary to some degree depending on how my day will look like, but they usually contain the following:

• Exercising – I work out every day, and nine out of ten times I make sure it’s the first thing that happens when I wake up. I run/bike to work or go the gym. It gives me energy and releases all kinds of feel good hormones, and I know that even if the day goes to shit, at least I’ve got my workout in to be proud of. Bonus – I get to eat m
  ore!
• Gratefulness – spending a minute or two thinking of all the things I’m grateful for. Usually during my run/biking. My life, that I get to live with my brother, that I have a family I love and that loves me, that I have friends in my life I deeply connect with daily, that I’m healthy; that I have eyes to see with, ears to hear with, arms and legs to move around with, that I live in a place, time and situation that enables me to control my own life, etc. Sometimes I imagine myself not having these things, I close my eyes and imagine an dreadful reality; not being able to see, not having a family, etc. And I embrace that awful feeling before coming back to reality with a deep sense of appreciation for what I’ve got. Life’s daily small little problems often seems irrelevant after doing this.
• Meditation – Sitting down, focusing on my breathing not trying to think of anything (aka meditation) – Sometimes it’s only for a couple of minutes, sometimes longer. When I run to work, I have 20 minutes on the train I attribute to the “WimHof-breathing method”, which kind of is a meditation practice but a bit more intense (Watch me at the train doing it). When I go home, it’s more of a traditional meditation practice. It has been a real tough one for me to implement, but now is something I couldn’t bear to be without. The key is to find a que when and where you will make it happen. Daily. Que: sitting down on train. Routine: meditating. Reward: Feeling calm, relaxed and in control of my life. In the weekends, I don’t havethis clear que, and it often tends to be forgotten.
• Cold showers – also a part of ‘The WimHof-protocol’. After my morning workout. Just wakes me up like nothing else, claims of health benefits are out there – but that’s not why I’m doing it. It just makes me feel a live. Plus, I usually combine it with…
• Self-love – When I run/bike or at its most intensive moment, in the shower, I say out loud ‘I love myself, I love myself, I really really love myself’. Over and over again. When I started doing this it really felt wired (it’s because it is Alex, psycho). But as I’ve gotten used to it, it just releases a feeling of deep self-love, and I can’t emphasize the importance of this ( video where I go deeper into the topic). ALTOUGH, you don’t need to repeat this mantra to love yourself, you can just sit and think about the things you really like about yourself, the things you’ve done, and embrace those qualities deeply. Feel a sense of proudness for who you are.

So that’s it that’s all. Then I also do some journaling and daily planning, but that could be an entire chapter on its own. How does your morning routine look like, love to hear all about it. Especially if you got a good tip for me in how I could tweak mine for the better.

Saturday Morning Breakfast isn’t too bad either

Have a lovely day guys,

/Alexander 

YouTube Video of the day:

“A Good Day” With Brother David Steindl-Rast

From My live stream today

Hey guys, hope all is well! It’s Friday morning (not really anymore). And I’m sitting here at my desk listening to the beautiful sound of some lovely piano music accompanied by my little brother laughing to some You-Tube music. I’m sorting my thoughts through as I’m about do to my Live Weekly YouTube-stream – evaluating my little challenge of the week; finding my ‘Why’.

Currently my mind is a bit cluttered from yesterday’s sharing of my inner most ‘issues’. It’s kind of like the social hang-over (link) I get at times after a social event – revaluating everything I said, every action I took. But it still feels good and I don’t regret a word.

My last 3 months I’ve worked intensely with not caring what people think of me, mentally and through focused actions. This climaxed into the December Christmas calendar I did (https://youtu.be/QjWEsrXAXLo) – one video every day for 23 days, each one containing a little challenge where I had to expose myself to uncomfortableness. It was awful, yet amazing, and I can truly feel the deep impact it has had on me. In short it has made me able to apply what I’ve always known to be the truth, but just haven’t had the guts to live by.

That’s all I’m going to say today… Or well it’s really not because I’m going to ramble on in my live stream in a bit. The idea is to evaluate my challenge I put up every week, sharing insights and reflections. Once and a while some people join in as well, and we have some discussions around a specific topic or a question. It usually tends to be kind of a mess and last for about 15 minutes up to my longest stream of 5 hours. These days around 30-60 min mark. I Know the quality is lacking, I lose grip on structure, and my english sometimes miserably falls apart. It’s uncomfortable and I kind of always think that I shouldn’t do it because no one cares anyway and often I have no viewers. ‘What’s the point of a live stream Alex if no one is watching?’ But then I always remind myself that it’s exactly this feeling that is my que for doing it, being uncomfortable and feeling like not doing it are always going to be tied to those growth moments. And I sure as heck grow from doing this.

We can’t improve on ourselves unless there’s some emotional pained attached to it. That goes for creating deep relationships as well. It’s perhaps my biggest lesson from all my uncomfortable challenge videos I’ve done. Lessons are perhaps an understatement for what it has resutled in, because it has become a deeply rooted habit within me.

source: https://layiadeyemi.wordpress.com/2013/11/28/how-your-brain-works-in-breaking-habits/

You see a habit contains of three parts, the que, the routine and the reward (the habit loop). These days every time I feel that anxious feeling keep crawling, my mind makes the connection to all the amazing moments I’ve had during my challenges. Which goes like this; I’ve put out an action I’m supposed to do. Perhaps approach a girl I think is cute and tell her that. I experience deep anxiousness and nervousness coming up with all kinds of stories and arguments to not go through with it. Feelings I’ve now learned to call excitement instead, which makes it easier to coop with and it literally is the same physical reaction that happens in our body.

Anyways, most of the times I eventually go through with it. Sometimes the action I do results in a painful rejection and sometimes I have a great moment and connection with the person(s) I’m interacting with (great majority). But that usually isn’t the main thing, the true reward – and boy is that a great feeling – is the proudness for doing what I’ve sat out to do. I took action in the direction that aligned with my values, believes and goals. It made me grow as person and it strengthened my self-esteem. This feeling is a dopamine kick my brain has learnt to love so much it now knows that when the feeling of anxiousness comes when I’m about to face a challenge of mine, it means that a dopamine kick awaits on the other side. And boy is that a good one. Actually one of the few things better than food.

The beauty of this is that the exact same que is triggered in all my uncomfortable situations in life, whether I need to talk to a boss or have an uncomfortable conversation with a random person. Or as in this very moment when I’m about to do a live stream, put myself on the stand and be vulnerable. Exposing myself to other people’s opinions. Throwing a tomato at me are you? It’s alright, i love fresh fruit and vegtables. So let’s get to it.

– Is this the best habit ever to have implemened or what?

See you later, ciao

/Alexander

P.S If you want to see the live stream in reply you can find it here:

Topics discussed in this week’s live stream (and yeah, I’m extra ‘all-over the place’ right now, so it’s going to get messy):

• I met a girl
• Finding your why
• New Year’s goals and implementing habits
• Channels future.

Summer of 2014, just got back from studying a semster in Taiwan.

Ah, Thursdays. I Love Thursdays. You see it’s my Friday. I work four days a as a week as mechanical engineer, but I put in my 40hrs plus those days. It’s not something that came with the job description, it’s something that fits my lifestyle. So, I made it happen. And I made it happen by daring to question the norm and have a few uncomfortable conversations with my bosses.

Why should you care? Well you shouldn’t. None of the things I say here or in my YouTube videos, I say to gain pity or sympathies. I love my life and have a great one, but great ones contains shitty moments as well. And I’m dealing with my own shit, but it’s golden shit necessary for my growth. I say what I say because you just might relate to it or get a new perspective on things. If I can put a seed in the pot you relate to as your mind, then I’m doing what I aim to do. Shake’n bake. Create a reaction within & make you reflect over Your life. ‘Could it be better, have I settled?’

But why do I care? Well, because I know of so many people living crappy lives, feeling like shit.  Our western society is creating ideal images of perfect lives, lives everybody is living except for you (watch this). And we don’t dare to admit it, because that’s being vulnerable, and that’s scary as shit. I’ve been there, so I know. But I’ve also experienced the transformations to the better life. But it’s not a one day event, it’s a long stretched out journey called living. I’m not saying it won’t leave out all the shit. You’re still going to need those rubber boots. It’s just better shit, the kind you consciously chose and in some wired way smells kind of good. Like being on the countryside and that nostalgic smell of cow shit brings that huge smile on your face (not realating?!).

 “Life is essentially an endless series of problems. The solution to one problem is merely the creation of another…  

…To be happy we need something to solve. Happiness is therefore a form of action…

 …This is the most simple and basic component of life: our struggles determine our successes…

…Who you are is defined by what you’re willing to struggle for…” 

– Mark Manson, the subtle art of not giving a f*ck

Anyways, let’s lay another piece on the my-relationship-to-food- puzzle I started laying a couple of days ago. In short, eating is the absolute best thing I know of but it’s also the single biggest threat to living my potential. It brings me joy, anxiety and it makes me go totally crazy and lose all sense of rationality.

I think about food approximately 95 % of my waken time. I never feel satisfied, I can always eat a little bit more. The only thing making me stop eating is practicing deep self-control or something urgent calls me. Every time I know I should stop eating, is an epic battle to overcome. You know when Frodo is about to throw his ring into the lava in Mount Doom? That’s how I feel every time I should stop eating and put that food back in the fridge. Literally. My precious. ‘Don’t leave me, just a little bit more.’ And the second I actually win, the countdown down to the next meal clearly pop up in my head. Tick-tack.

Overall it’s much better now than it has been in the past, but I’m still choosing to stay home and eat over hanging out with friends at times. I can go dreaming an entire week about having a Saturday evening to myself just eating for hours and hours while watching a good movie. Now the truth is that it’s not always this hard. I’ve found my ways and system for dealing with this. It’s spelled control. I write up everything I eat in an app, and I limit my ability to eat by pushing my meals later to the evening with the promise of eating a lot then. Because if I push it, eventually the natural ending of the saga comes when I have to get some sleep. But this is also the tricky part, often I push it for too long and when it’s time for bed I’ve eaten way too little. And when you workout for at least an hour every day, that’s not god either. One of the biggest reasons I don’t drink alcohol actually is due to the loss of self-control I experience. Hangover days are nothing but non-stop-eating-feasts(miseries). Which this Monday evening reminded me of.

I’ve just came out of a bad period where I tried to loosen up the control and stopped writing down what I ate. That didn’t work. During December I kind of never stopped eating from waking up to going to bed, but at least I gained back some of my weight I’ve lost. The thing is, if you once were a fat kid, you’ll always look at yourself as a fat kid in that mirror. I’m working on it, and it’s getting better. But that mirror still serves best at a Tivoli.

My fear of not having control actually made my Christmas holiday at my family place intentionally only last for three days. Knowing I was in a bad place, and coming home to a never ending deep fridge, that spelled trouble. That’s like telling a drug addict it’s snowing cocaine and he can have as much as he wants. But I cut down on the exposure and I had a great Christmas. The best in years actually. But it sure as heck didn’t come without a struggle.

With my new year’s goals, habits and a deep motivation to sort this out once and for all, 2018 is off to a great start, and I feel more confident than ever that I eventually will have a healthy relationship to food. In my own twisted way. My precious.

There’s a lot more to it that I could say, but I’m going to leave it for now. BUT, before you leave me I just want to say one thing. This does not mean I’m an unhappy person, it’s just one of my struggles. And it forces me to get to know myself and grow out of my problems. My last two years have been the absolute best of my entire life, and it’s just getting better by the day. As I’ve already hinted, I love my life deeply and I feel blessed for every each one of my days that I get to experience. And that’s by choice, because that shit doesn’t happen by itself. It’s called taking responsibility for oneself, and it requires daily action in the right direction.

You have a great evening now and see you tomorrow ,

#throwbackthursday YouTube Video of the day (Which is one of my favourites I did not so long ago):

Asking Random People about Loneliness – Rejection Therapy

Quote of the day:

“To love yourself right now, just as you are, is to give yourself heaven. Don’t wait until you die. If you wait, you die now. If you love, you live now.”

Alan Cohen

/Alexander

Just got home. It’s 00.43. I’m supposed to wake up in 5 hours and bike my 23 km to work outside of Stockholm. Or wait… Nope, that’s not happening. It’s going to rain, and I’m not doing that, not tomorrow. It’s not that I don’t love biking in the rain, because I do. But not on less than 5 hours of sleep. That means I’m running instead. Some of the parts at least.

Why did I start off with such a negative tone? I can do better – Let’s start over.

I just got home. It’s not 00.43 anymore. And I don’t care that I’m supposed to wake up in 5 hours because I just had one of the most amazing evenings in ages. Context. Met Russian Girl Anna three days ago. She was awesome. Romantical me fell a little bit in love and I didn’t do anything to hold him back. Convinced her to teach me Yoga. She agreed. Time 19.00 at my gym. Had to pay 150 SEK to get her in. No wallet. ‘you can pay later’. Later: ‘You don’t have to pay’. Nice.

I’ve tried Yoga once before and that experience taught me that I suck as hard as when I have a delicious Alex-made-smoothie with a curly nice straw in front of me. This Time, totally different. The fact that I had the most beautiful girl guiding me both physically and mentally, surly had something to do with it. because it wasn’t comfortable in the way you’d define comfortable. But it was something. It was special. And after ~2 hours of Russian taught Yoga, I was mentally as relaxed as I’ve ever been and so deeply connected to Anna that I only have made up words to describe it.

Yaba-Yoga-doo

So what happened then? Well, Gym kicked us out. Walked back to her hotel, had Robioos Tee with her friend Vicky (as funny as me!). Talked some. Asked if I could kiss her. Got turned down. Got taught some Russian. Apparently I have a stunning Russian pronunciation (suck up?). Da. Said god bye. Four times. Tried to leave. Asked if I could kiss her again. Silence. We kissed. Felt like a little boy again. Hope on life restored. The end?

What about your so very ‘special’ food relationship you started going on about yesterday Alex? Not that I care, but If you start something, you better finish it.

Well, I’ll get to that tomorrow. But as an appetizer, I’ll fill you in on my daily caloric budget. Two hours of continues intense biking, 10 hours of working in front on ca computer, which according to my training watch added up to a total daily caloric expenditure of 3500 kcal. Food intake 1500 kcal. Trying to catch up here as we speak, but today that just won’t happen.

When I do have time to actually catch up. Iäm in the lead, and there’s no breaks. That’s why I’ve gained ~6 kgs since this summer. This Monday for instance, having the day of and all, I tracked how much time I spent eating that day ( part of my January habits). 5 hours plus. And it added up to 4 times

the amount of calories I’ve had today. Balance – yeah that’s what I’m trying to find.

What.. it’s 2.22 now.. Nuff said, See you tomorrow, and I wish you the most amazing day (and if it’s shitty, so be it. That’s life sometimes. But know that the great day will taste even better when it comes, because it will come if you let it come )

/Alexander

Quote of the day:

Dream Big. Start small. But most of all, start. – Simon Sinek.

Literally. Damn me. I hate that I’m too stubborn to quit on something I’ve promised myself to do. Why should I write for 30 days when I love making videos, and this is for sure going to capitalize on my video making efforts. I work 10 hours+ each day, have more than two hours of travel time, and now this? And did I mention I’m trying to implement like ten new habits this month. Also, This Week’s YouTube Challenge is to define ‘My Why’, life purpose – call it whatever! Let’s just say It’s not something you do in five minutes. Yeah, I’m having a hard time chewing all this. BUT, I also know that life happens when I’m all and about life. Through experience. It’s a balance, and I prefer it this way in contrast to the other way around.

Okay, so if this is going to work I need some boundaries. I’m going to give myself a time span of 40 minutes maximum each day. That’s it, that’s all. With that being said, in case my timer runs out before I get to what has been my top moment of the day – let’s spill it out:

My Russian crush I went on a spontaneous staged-but-kind-of-real date with yesterday has stayed in my head all day long. In a good way, like when the alcohol actually does do something good for you. I just have to see here again. Did I mention she’s a Yoga teacher? Well she is – and that shaped an idea in my head. I read a lot of things about healthy living. A lot. And Yoga kind of always pops up. Get some meditation in there, become more flexible, hang out and sweat together with good looking people – easy sell!

No, it’s really not. It’s just too boring to do on my own or with some random YouTube guide. At least the very thought of doing it doesn’t excite me enough! And when I’m at the gym.. Well, all the other things are so fun, and I did try it once in a group session. I felt like the odd man out not doing things even remotely similar to how the instructor did it. I have more fun lifting or doing other wired stuff on my own, and hence I never returned. So much for that stubbornness hu?

BUT SO, perhaps this could be my opportunity to get some first hand Russian pro-yoga-awesome-skills? Getting home from work two hours ago (not allowed to use facebook during daytime – one of my newly implemented productivity habits), I wrote her and asked:

Yepp. A good idea will play out tomorrow evening, and I bet you are as excited as for how this will turn out. Or maybe this is the very last sentence you’ll read of my blog, realizing you have more important things to spend your time on. Seriously – don’t you? Or she reads this and think I’m wired and cancels the whole thing ( I know you won’t ? ).

Anyways, I thought I’d briefly discuss my relationship to food in this post… Because it isn’t normal and it runs my life. Which I intend to change. I’ll give you the short story – When I was a kid I was kind of fat. The end.

Can you find me 😉 ?

Well, I guess there’s more to it. I Loved eating all the junk I could come over (that’s what families ate in the 90’s – sugar, sugar, sugar) Having a mum making the most delicious buns ever, like all the time, you can imagine how that ended.. Eventually at around 12 years of age, I hit a turning point after not being able to eat for like two-three weeks (thank god for the flu!). I lost a shitload of weight.

Eventually I started exercising as well, and gradually went from eating everything to eating nothing (corner stone habit). I got the hang of it after a while when finally educating myself and realizing that you kind of need to eat too to get big and strong. The girls liked that, at least I bought in to that idea. Or they (you?) don’t want you skinny as a leaf!

Today, my life is on the healthier side, at least on surface level, because it’s still not a ‘healthy’ relationship I have. Far from it. Once you see yourself as fat, you’ll never abandon that self-image. At least I haven’t. And that kind of works against you at times and messes with your head. And health.

Ops, I just realized over an hour went by. And I need to eat.. This is a good example of how this plays out today. I’ve trained three times,  a total of 13 km plus some intense boxing at the gym, yet I have failed to eat more than 1500 kcal. I trick myself to push the meals further in to the evening – it’s my big reward. And now the clock is almost eleven, and I need to get up 1 t 6. Thank god for peanut butter, bananas and almonds..

See you tomorrow, and I guess I know where to big up the thread..!

Hej då, Ciao,  привет тогда

/Alexander

Weirdest moment(s) of the day:

When I said hello to three different random girls while running home on my way from work, I kind of go desensitised after this challenge I did some weeks ago: https://youtu.be/wPsc5pWpyiw

Quote of the day:

“Not giving a fuck is not about being indifferent. It just means you’re comfortable with being different. Don’t say fuck it to everything in life, just to the unimportant things.”

– Mark Mansson

 YouTube video of the day:

I’ve seen it a bunch of times, but it’s a good one in the teaching of mastering humor!

3 Jokes Guaranteed To Make People Laugh –  https://youtu.be/T6Ea6fPfMeQ

Monday, the day after New Tears Eve. A bit tiered. Got myself a bit drunk for the first time in 8 -9 months (who’s couting?). Drunk being I felt alcohol in my body. One beer and a shot of Rum doesn’t do much, but I felt it. And I didn’t like it. So, I stopped. I really don’t need it in my life. But still, I don’t want to have a black and white relationship to things, and I felt like taking a glass with my old dear friends, so I did. It does add something to the atmosphere – laughter, numbness, tiredness, anxiety and feeling like shit ( in that order ).

Besides last night, the weekend has been just great. I’ve had my best friend Christoffer staying at my place for a couple of days, and we’ve have done only what we love; training, eating food, filming and watching movies. Miss having that dude around (lived together for three years). Shoot some great scenes for my upcoming channel YouTube trailer. For instance, the instant date I had with a Russian girl name Anna. Oh yes, that happened.

Christoffer and me were having fika in a crowded Espresso House at Drottninggatan yesterday afternoon. I mentioned to him that we should have some ‘date’ material for the trailer. We had been out shooting some throught the weekend, and I had already done some interviews, flirted with a girl I approached, hugged people and executed some PPP (Perfect Public Pushups). The idea was to get some content to show what I’m all about on my channel. Christoffer laughed, looked at me with I don’t know what in mind, and encouraged my date-idea. I looked to the table on my left where I had seen a very beautiful lady sitting by her own. ‘Hmm, I wonder…’

“What the heck, should I ask her Christoffer?”

Before giving myself time to thing through my actions, I spontaneously leaned over towards her and introduced myself

“Excuse me, do you you speak Swedish? No, where’re you from?”

She replied friendly and said that she was a Yoga teacher from Moscow visiting Stockholm for five days with her friend ‘Vic’. Short for Victoria (this took 3 minutes to clear out – her English wasn’t top notch).

“Would you mind if we staged a little date between you and me while my friend films us?”

Hesitation. A smile. ‘Sure’. It was on. And what was supposed to be something staged, actually turned out to be as great as I ever could have wished for. I just had such a blast and we really connected. After a while her friend sat down next to her and got some attention too. 20 minutes later, and I was as happy as ever and walked out from the cafe with a little bit of a Russian crush. Hopefully we’ll meet up again before she flies back to the country of Vodka.

Anyways, new year’s, new goals. I’m kind of delaying my real habit implementation for tomorrow. Excuses? No, I just need to structure out the practical details for making my habit implementation work (OneNote-tracking!). But I am a bit overwhelmed, and a bit scared that I’m grasping for too much here. BUT, I’ll do my best and I’ll  posts daily here on my progress so I have someone to report to. Perhaps mostly for my own sake (yes), but if anyone happens to be motivated – hey, that’s great!

One of my January Habits is to do a blog post daily, and I’m already sensing that this will take too much time. Too much I want to say, as always. Must learn how to throw out the garbage. Less is more!

But so, what’s the purpose? Never do anything without a clearly specified purpose ( I’m not living by those words btw, but it sound good in theory). Well, I’d like to improve my writing. But also I just feel certain stuff is worth sharing. And I do journal every day, so why not just put in a little more effort and share my wordpoo. I have nothing to hide. Although it might take a while for me to find my voice, daily status updates are as interesting as, well daily status updates. It’s worth shit. So, we’ll just have to see what direction this takes off in.

See you tomorrow! And no, this doesn’t mean I’m quitting YouTube. Love that too much. This is just a complement for things that don’t fit there. Also, I am a bit lost there right now so we’ll se what happens there!

TOP MOMENTS OT THE DAY:

• Repping out squats until I cried like a baby, and then cried some more while killing my calves just after.
• Watching through the video from the ‘date’ – those ‘can’t help but to smile’-moments
• Eating up all the leftovers from yesterday’s New Years dinner (this will happen tonight, and yes it’s going to be amazing)

Youtube-Video of the day:

Only watched one (damn), and it was so so, but the execution was nice. Doing a lot of stand up comedy and storeytelling -analysis

Norm Macdonald- Best joke ever told

Update: Okay so I went througb a fiew more, and this one is by far the most see worthy. Nothing new really if you’ve read the 4-hour work week ( great book!);

Why you should define your fears instead of your goals | Tim Ferriss

Quote of the day:

“Easy choices, hard life. Hard choices, easy life”

– Tim Ferris

Have an amazing night people, now I’m going to go do my three-minute Yoga!

/Alexander

P.S. If you missed my facing fears Christmas calendar where I faced some kind of fear every day up untill christmas, you can check it out here: https://youtu.be/QjWEsrXAXLo

December was intense with the Christmas Calendar, and in the last episode I said this week was going to be about setting goals for the upcoming year. But setting goals and then failing on reaching them has been my main previous experience with goal setting.

“The problems with the conventional pursuit of goals (i.e., new year’s resolutions) are well-documented at this point.

People tend to rely too much on self-discipline and eschew forming useful habits. People tend to bite off more than they can chew, so to speak, setting goals that are far above their ability or knowledge level and then becoming frustrated when they make little to no progress towards them. People are tempted to take “shortcuts” to achieve a goal that may actually sabotage themselves in the long-run, like starving yourself to lose weight, or cheating to get a good grade on a test.”

My take on Goal setting this year will hence be focused on 30 day periods and building habits. Now the Habits will still have to tie back to some kind of goal, but it’s not about earning one million dollars. My goals are for instance to be a more charismatic person, that can socialize and have fun in all contexts, to live a strong and healthy live and become at least 130, etc. And from these I will create habits that will take me towards that end goal, but the end goal in itself is just to point out the direction. The focus will then be all about incrementally shaping me into becoming that kind of person.  A good read on this mindset, which I strongly recommend you read, can be find here: https://markmanson.net/goals

You can read what my January habits here: http://alexandernilsson.nu/my-goals/

There’s also a very good free little YouTube-course which will guide you through this process up understanding habits on a fundamental level –  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8JjuyRIxOg&index=2&list=PLE_vQWWxgaiED3B2gbKWzXItVNIQErstT

But frankly as I write this I’m a bit split on what the focus of the week should be. You see, the result of the Christmas calendar has also made me realize the importance of having that deep motivation for what we do. We are in a position to make the right calls for what we really should care about in life, when we have clarity on what actually are important to us, what values and believes that act as our decision-making guidance. But so, in order to actually know what kind of goals and habits to support us moving towards those goals, we need some idea of what those values, believes are – and what our “why is”. What gets us excited and create that deep driving force within. Because when we have that, the hard things become so much easier.

Take just my Christmas Calendar as an example, I put up a line of awful challenges for myself, things I would never had thought of doing if I wouldn’t have had this channel and my deep-rooted motivation for personal growth. But with all this in my head when facing that anxiety before doing my weird things, it gave me that edge to push myself to do it.

So what I’m getting is that we need to sit down and take time to think about these things. Which personally is something I’ve done before a lot of times, but every time I do it, it gives me more super valuable insights. And that’s why the challenge of the week is going to be an internal journey to seek out a greater understanding for what our purpose are – ‘Your Why’. Because your life, if you want a good one, should be steered in a direction where you get to live your why every day. And that could mean so many different things, and really doesn’t have to be end world hunger. Raising a child, spreading joy, making art that make people feel good, or fixing peoples broken cars to ease their pains are just as viable. But they are individual, and we owe it to ourselves to at least have some idea of a purpose. With clarity comes focus, and with focus comes result.

But so, the challenge for next week will be to define and find my why with the help of a guy that has made a career out of finding people’s and companies Why’s – Simon Sinek. Or in particular this book:  http://www.summary.com/book-reviews/_/Find-Your-Why/ . You can read the first chapter here, describing  the importance of “the why”, https://startwithwhy.com/find-your-why/ .

Now you don’t have to do this that way, you can simply sit down and think about your life with the help of these questions bellow – or google some other because there’s tons of similar content out there.

“We should take a step back and ask ourselves some questions. You can start by asking yourself a few of these:

  Why is it that you do what you do?

  What thrills you about your current job role or career?

  What does a great day look like?

  What does success look like beyond the paycheck?

  What does real success feel like for you?

  How do you want to feel about your impact on the world when you retire?

You could also ask yourself these follow-up questions:

  What do you hate about your current job role or career?

  Why don’t you do something else?

  What does a bad day look like?

  What is it you don’t enjoy about your job and why?

  What does failure look like beyond the paycheck?

  What does real failure feel like for you?”

 (Source: https://www.goalcast.com/2017/05/09/find-why-discover-professional-purpose/)

I’m just hoping I’m not asking too much of myself this week, implementing a bunch of new habits and doing all this ‘why’-work. Focus is key, and this week I’m all over the place, but I want to utalize the momentum i get from the power of starting a new year! We’ll see, otherwise we’ll just go at it again next week.

– 2018 here we come!

Also, if you missed it, here’s the playlist to all the Christmas Calendar Episodes:

https://youtu.be/QjWEsrXAXLo

And I wish all of you a happy new year, and thank you all for this year. We just reached 250 subscribers and I value every each one of you tremendously. You make this journey called life even more fun, in good and in bad times?.

/Alexander

I’m starting daily blogging!

So I’m going to be starting daily blogging for january to see how that works out for me! I do this to improve my writing skills, but also to share thoughts I don’t always to include in my videos.

As I talked about in the livestream, Instead of focusing in on big grandiosa 2018 goals, Im’m going to work with monthly habit implementation challenges. Habits that aligns with my, values believes and goals. And evaulate the result of them it after 30 days.

The idea is that by focusing in on the habtis that supports the process of reaching those higher goals, the result will be much greater. And easeir to meassure, evauluate and tweak. It’s more about the process, beacuse the actual  end goal seldom is worth any in itself. It’s about the person you become in the process.

Inspiration: https://markmanson.net/goals

But so, as for right now, the first 30 day habits I’ll implement will be:

The key is to just start the habit and do the minimum I’ve specifed, usually I’ll do more once I’m going!

January Month challenge

Area 1: SPIRITUALITY

3 min meditation daily

Area 2: HEALTH & WELLBEING

Directly after I’ve eaten something, write it up in the Lifesum app

Follow the Not-buy-Food-list (trigger foods for my overeating)

Area 3: Social

Say hi to at least one random girl a day

Talk/text with at least one friend a day

Meet with one friend a week

Area 4: Personal development

Read listen to a book for 5 min daily

Area 5: Business / Career

Blogg daily

3 minutes of writing down thought on the company I’m going to start before 21st of march 2018

Area 6: FINANCES

Read one financial article a day

Area 7: Fun things

Watch one funny standup sketch a day

But so the challenge for next week will be, except for starting to implement these habits, to define and find “my why” with the help of simon Sineks content, or in particular this book: http://www.summary.com/book-reviews/_/Find-Your-Why/

NOT CARING WHAT PEOPLE THINK OF YOU – That’s what this week’s challenge is all about. How to be yourself. And Oh – it’s a tough one! But when we learn how to not letting other people’s opinions impact our behaviour and actions, boy is that a good life. But it’s not easy, and the cost might be high. But the price is worth it. Read my text from last week on this topic:

Being Your True Self – Weekly Challenge 87

The challenge is roughly the same as last week:

Every day, Monday through Friday, put in a serious effort to go into every situation as your real self. Voice your opinions and stand by your values and believes. Being silent could be just as much of a statement as agreeing with something you don’t agree with.

• Take at least one action each day were you push yourself and show who you really are in a social context. Then very briefly write this down and how you felt about it. This gives us the focus of accomplishing one thing daily, and the act of writing it down makes it concrete! Then in the end of the week, if you’d like, share it in the live weekly evaluation video. Friday Swedish time, lunch time – 12.00

I have no commercial gain or copyright rights to the videos I “borrow” some pieces of. The full videos can be found here: ( And I recommend you to watch them as well )

Videos in the video:

• How To Stop Caring What People Think

Charisma on command: How To Stop Caring What People Think

• Brene Brown and Oprah –   Brené Brown on Faking It, Perfectionism and Living Wholeheartedly | SuperSoul Sunday | OWN: https://youtu.be/_YeulUgWNp8

Dr. Brené Brown on Faking It, Perfectionism and Living Wholeheartedly | SuperSoul Sunday | OWN

• Susan Pinker: Susan Pinker: “The Village Effect” | Talks at Google

Other good sources on the topic

The six pillars of self-esteem – the practice of self-assertiveness:

https://youtu.be/mfFUVnwCNVY?t=1h40m20s

/Alexander

Imagine yourself not being controlled by other people’s opinions of you. To show up as, and act in accordance with, who you truly are in every situation, in every context. No paranoid thoughts to taint your mind. Trusting yourself enough to be vulnerable and exposed, because you know on such a fundamental level that this is when life happens, and this is the only way to be. Yourself. Wouldn’t that life be great?

You see, not only will it grow your self-esteem like crazy every time you act from a place within, not impacted by external factors and how you think the “world” would like you to act. But It will also release you from being addicted to confirmation and fitting in. It will enable you to truly belong to yourself, which opens up a world of belonging for real.

“You are only free when you realize you belong no place—you belong every place—no place at all. The price is high. The reward is great.”

― Brené Brown, Braving the Wilderness: The Quest for True Belonging and the Courage to Stand Alone

Not only is this the story the social scientist and author Brené Browns shares in her latest book ‘Braving the Wilderness’, but after looking at my own life through these new glasses the book gave me, it all makes so much sense to me. I’ve had to face the truth that I intentionally choose not to talk about things that is the most precise representation of who I am because of the fear I feel of what other people will think of me.

An example of this is the topic of my YouTube channel, which basically has been my life for the past 1,5 years. With friends, and work colleagues, I don’t go there often, because I’ve just realized, I’m a shamed of it. SHAME. Furthermore, I don’t dare top post all my stuff on Facebook, because I’m fearing other people’s judgement. I’m ruled by external factors I can’t controlled. Uncertainty. Fear. Judgement.

And this is not easy to admit, buried on a deep subconscious level, and it has required some serious self- consciousness to realize. But hiding such a fundamental piece of who I really am creates a sense of loneliness – at times. That’s why I can feel the furthest away from loneliness when I’m at home creating, and on the other side of the spectra be the loneliness person in the world at a social gathering I’d do anything to get out of. But it’s not those people’s faults. It’s a matter of taking responsibility for myself, my life.

When we spend time with people and not showing who we really are, that’s hiding. From ourselves, and from the world. And when we hide, loneliness is the result, even if we are surrendered by an infinite amount of persons. Or what we really seek – the solution – the need to belong.

“Belonging is the innate human desire to be part of something larger than us. Because this yearning is so primal, we often try to acquire it by fitting in and by seeking approval, which are not only hollow substitutes for belonging, but often barriers to it. Because true belonging only happens when we present our authentic, imperfect selves to the world, our sense of belonging can never be greater than our level of self-acceptance…

…True belonging is not passive. It’s not the belonging that comes with just joining a group. It’s not fitting in or pretending or selling out because it’s safer. It’s a practice that requires us to be vulnerable, get uncomfortable, and learn how to be present with people without sacrificing who we are. We want true belonging, but it takes tremendous courage to knowingly walk into hard moments.”

― Brené Brown, Braving the Wilderness: The Quest for True Belonging and the Courage to Stand Alone

But it’s not only a ‘desire to be part of something larger than us’, which deprives us from feeling joy, happiness and a sense of fulfilment. It will also increase the likelihood of you dying with 45 %. For me, that’s just such a huge motivational factor, being the health guy trying to increase my chances with food and training almost absurdly, and the realizing those things are only marginal impacting my health in contrast to feeling lonely.  That’s just a game changer. But you have to look at what’s driving your motivation, and use that as fuel. Maybe you just want to enjoy hanging out with people without paranoid thoughts.

So how do we do this, ‘being our true selves’?

Just saying ‘be yourself’ won’t change things. We know that intuitively. Usually I do facing fear challenges, – working on facing our fears and push ourselves in social situation like approaching a girl and telling her she’s cute. Because this do relate to fear, in fact fear is just an expression that stops us from being who we are – or want to be! So that’s why we are strengthening this ‘being ourselves’ muscle every time we do these facing fear challenges.

But so, this week I want to aim the focus more into the people we are interfering with on a recurrent basis, the daily interactions with the people around us. Family, friends, work colleagues. Because it’s one thing to do it with strangers we are not so invested in – less to lose. But with friends and people we are going to see again, then we feel a greater cost of losing their view of us. The thought of people disliking us is tough, even more so if we must face them daily! And that’s why this week’s objectives are to remind ourselves of expressing our true selves in every single interaction we’ll have this week. ONE FOCUS, ONE OBJECTIVE.

Now both you and me now this won’t always play out this way. And that’s okay, you, me, we are enough as we are. But if strive for improvement, if we set out to at least try our very best and repetitive put in small actions that takes us a little bit closer to where we want to go, the results will come. Slowly, progressively, but it will come. And we will like it. It will open a new world, which will give us new glasses to look at the world with, or boots to walk in it. And that taste of life will create a positive spiral to make you want to keep doing this practice. But for now, in the beginning, it will require you – me – to turn on that fighting spirit! Because it will be so freaking scary and unconformable. But that’s the only way through, to the new world. The only way to start belonging to yourself, to the rest of the world, our world.

In order to remind ourselves trough the shit storm of everyday life that will happen, we are going to equip ourselves with a small token. I’m going to wear a bracelet that will be my visual que. You should try find something visual too; a bracelet, a ring or, perhaps the changing the wallpaper on your phone. Something that can remind you to get the focus back on what’s important this week!

So that’s it, that’s this week’s challenge. I owe it to myself to focus in on this, and I know this is the only way forward right now. This is a hurdle I need to overcome to grow in other areas of my life.

To further deepen my understanding of the topic I’m going to read the book the village by Susan Pink,  which is the researcher that did the health and longevity studies on the effects of loneliness. And I’ll properly share the insights of that book in the coming weekly evaluation on Friday.

I’d love to hear if you have an easier time being true to yourself when your with strangers or with people in your surroundings?

Have a great week,

/Alexander

Full Brené Brown Interview:

Brené Brown: The Quest For True Belonging | Chase Jarvis LIVE

The book: https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/55699050-braving-the-wilderness-the-quest-for-true-belonging-and-the-courage-to

Other tips on how to be yourself:

https://www.wikihow.com/Be-Yourself

Do you often feel alone? Is loneliness just something we’ve created as a result of the social norms or is it actually a fundamental human need we must satisfy?

Being an introvert, I love to be alone. And short micro moments of connection can last me long. But once and a while I get overflown with a feeling of loneliness after isolating myself for too long.

I If you look into the shame researcher Brené Brown’s latest book “Braving the Wilderness: The Quest for True Belonging and the Courage to Stand Alone”. She differs one being alone and feeling alone, it will tell you that it’s far more dangerous to be alone, than it is to be smoking. Damn.

So, with a curiosity dying to be satisfied, my quest of the week is to deepen my understanding of the topic. Not only because I want to share it with you guys, but I need to find answers to adopt better to cop and adapt better with my own relationship to loneliness.

So the challenges of the week will be to read this book, and look into other sources, and try to share my take on it in the Friday live evaluation.

BUT, also, personal growth is mainly built through ACTION. That’s why I’m also taking on some facing fear challenges, doing at least one social push out of my comfort zone every day. However, I’m starting of this challenge with a big one, going out there in the real world, asking real people what their take on loneliness is. Now this is for sure going to result in some rejections, and that’s great! It’s Great because getting use to handle rejection is invaluable ability to have.

So if you’re up for some social challenges – commit to me in the comments and make this week become a week of personal growth.

Youtube video will be posted in the week!

See you in the next one,

/Alexander

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Check out my Rejection Therapy / Facing Fear Challenges:

Week 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxEVmwWsaHw

Week 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUTocnY8Mxs

Week 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anw0keWIf-8

Week 4: https://youtu.be/GFHK7O5DrxI?list=PLxw2jMXwRfskSFEl6sI9PzjgMUBZogiGG

Week 5: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Od3M1x6UDCs&list=PLxw2jMXwRfsmwkP3SvSSK7cegXB4eutFg

Week 6: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8aGxvi5qw1A&list=PLxw2jMXwRfskKqy6INIjOFJDJI8_jPAE1

Week 7: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-T1I6j_04xs&list=PLxw2jMXwRfsluXabU_1_o4ucowiz118gG

Week 8: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XM1GPDsP-18&list=PLxw2jMXwRfsl7LL_1QfrV_G0AU35o5YWS

Week 9: https://youtu.be/m-gx1cmBGH8?list=PLxw2jMXwRfsnYfBFiRZid3g3KhSGDvOaS

Week 10: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrKk416Sh4I&list=PLxw2jMXwRfslj5Eq20SWAcd6GPLU-sfRH

Week 11: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrSOXiOYKr0&list=PLxw2jMXwRfsn9NHLgWJWCdV1l89LqACFR

Week 12: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RsT4SXifA8o&list=PLxw2jMXwRfsnoM1TBnJzmnKTBRUmgRY1y

Week 13: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLxw2jMXwRfslhlXAcVvgpt1yWVTtY_5bz

Week 14: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8Mh8BTFpwU&list=PLxw2jMXwRfskIc-kuuQr4XiNk6n4vefmf

Week 15: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8Mh8BTFpwU&list=PLxw2jMXwRfskIc-kuuQr4XiNk6n4vefmf

Week 16: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Fg9ZZUAUtQ&list=PLxw2jMXwRfsnmU2GPTV0VtCGYV10_o8mi

Week 17: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqGJ4-ec9Z0&list=PLxw2jMXwRfslZxvhjDPftjZFJmyKFtyXU

Week 18: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSgpe6-tGIk&list=PLxw2jMXwRfsmaw0IzuffS19wwuDMltJEM

Week 19: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLxw2jMXwRfsn35TJDmhd5-ng4UkZDJEI3

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