MonkMode — The Ultimate Life Protocol
How I Embraced a Total Shift in Personality and am loving it!
I have recently embraced a total shift in personality. Nah, I don’t like the sound of that. Let’s rather go with — I have more closely aligned myself with the person I want to become. That first sentence sounds pretty tough, pretty challenging, pretty demanding. It isn’t.
We all have heroes we look up to. These people are usually people that have accomplished great things or amassed great fortunes. Anything that is exceptional really. Thing is though, they’re just people, like us. So maybe it is about time we looked in the mirror and we thought ‘dayuum, you’re really kicking some ass at the moment’. You know, the same way we look up to our heroes and think that’s exactly what they are doing.
When Snoop Dogg received a star on Hollywood Boulevard he gave a speech which included thanking someone that most people probably wouldn’t have expected him to be thanking. Rightfully so — he thanked himself!
Thing is, you can only actually thank yourself after you have put in the effort and work.
It was about time I did that. It was about time I looked in the mirror and was proud of the man staring back at me. It was about time I aligned myself with the person I want to be.
🪜Creating the identity 🔨
The people I look up to are very successful with great jobs, income and families. Maybe some of them came from a more privileged position than me with more money and better connections but the majority of them actually came from far far less than what I have. Maybe it was just luck? Sure, there’s always going to be luck involved — right time right place etc. But c’mon no one can be that like right?
Nope.
It’s in their personality. It’s the values and traits that are embedded into their very beings. It’s with this merit that they can go about their days carrying out their purpose at such a high degree.
I want some of that!
Okay fine. How?
Well I looked in the mirror and really broke down who I was at that very moment. Was I anything like my heroes? Not a fucking chance.
I needed to create a new identity, one more aligned with what would bring me joy and closer to what I really wanted to be.
“New identities require new evidence” — James Clear, Atomic Habits
To be who I want to be I have to act as if. I have to do as if. I have to believe I am — which means I have to take on a whole new set of habits and traits. I really want to be the person that wakes up early. The only way I can become a person that wakes up early is to quite literally *wake up early*! I want to be someone with great discipline, that can say ‘no’ even though that glazed doughnut is glinting at me in fluorescent lighting at the supermarket. Getting that doughnut will **NOT** make me the disciplined person I want to be — so I will not get it.
You get the point!
We’ve all dealt with things like this though and you know what — it’s easy to just say and easy to just write that I will go to gym tomorrow. What’s not easy is actually doing it!
💆🏼♂️ Mindset 💆🏼♀️
I am quite an extreme person in a lot of ways and when I find something I like I go HAM on it. A full on deep dive into whatever arb thing has caught my eye. As fun as that is, it’s not sustainable. With this method I have tried a lot but haven’t stuck to these things as I just burn myself out. I can’t learn enough quickly enough to keep up with just how much I want it. So it fizzles out.
After many attempts using this method I have changed my mindset completely. Now it’s about longevity. I’ve managed to do this with going to the gym. It started off with me going far too often and pushing far too hard. When I noticed what I was doing I slowed down dramatically. I’ve come to realise just how much I enjoy it and I can see myself doing this for many years. Toning it down has allowed me to learn a lot more with a focus on the fundamentals and getting in the reps, pun intended.
Sometimes we have to ‘slow down to speed up’. This is something I read and it has now sort of become a motto for me. Practicing deep work is what I am trying to achieve now. One hour of solid deep learning on a subject is much more beneficial than three hours of distracted ‘learning’.
With this mindset change I have applied it to learning and taking on new challenges. One being learning to code well — to create my own applications.
I could spend six hours a day trying to learn a new programming language but honestly that’s not going to be of any benefit to me as I know myself. I know my mind will not be concentrating for such a long period of time. Plus the idea of sitting down everyday for six hours is daunting as hell!
Now I ensure that I spend everyday doing one session of deep work on a subject I am trying to learn. It can be one hour, two hours maybe not even, maybe just thirty minutes. The point is to be completely focused on the task at hand and to be fully immersed.
Along with this I gave myself permission to forgive myself if I did not do a lot today. As long as I put in the effort to completely concentrate and work efficiently — I was happy.
In the back of my mind I knew that if I did this for long enough, it would become a habit of mine and become a lot easier.
After fifteen days of doing this, what happened? It became so easy that I really looked forward to my learning sessions! I can now very easily pass an hour without it even feeling like an hour has passed.
It’s with this mindset shift that I approach everything in my day. Focus on only one task — do it properly. It doesn’t matter if the task takes me an hour or ten minutes. Whatever it is, I must do it properly. If I can only do a little bit of it now, it’s okay. I will come back to it later or tomorrow. I will continue to pursue it until it has become a habit. Until the hard becomes the easy. Pushing this until one day I am easily sitting through six hours of whatever task — feeling like only an hour has passed.
🪷 MonkMode 🧠
The secret to how I am doing this! As previously mentioned in my Slow Hustle article — I am using a protocol called MonkMode. I first heard about it from Iman Ghadzi (HERE). I didn’t get into any detail of what it is in the Slow Hustle article — so let me give a brief explanation.
MonkMode is used to get ahead, ahead of the competition, ahead in life, ahead in any sense of moving the needle forward. It’s a productivity protocol to better your life! I started on January 1st and have been going 15 days strong — it’s been fucking great thus far.
You do it for 6 months of the year — not consecutively though which is one of the greatest parts. The breakdown is as follows: 6 months of hard work, 3 months of chilling and 3 months of prepping (getting ready for the hard work sprints). I’ve called the hard work phases ‘sprints’. You give it your all for those months.
What do those months consist of?
There will be 3 non-negotiable rules to follow plus multiple of your own that you can stack on top of this. These are to be done every single day without fail. The 3 I am using are:
Meditate for 10 minutes
Gym / stretch / yoga
Stay sober
On top of these you can add your own, don’t go too wild and add too many otherwise it becomes very hard to keep up with. I’ll give an example of a few of mine I have added:
Spend everyday learning something — indulging in deep work
Diet — I am doing a lot of work in the gym and have to consume a set amount of calories each day so I have decided upon meal prepping to ensure I attain my goals.
Wake up each day at the exact same time no matter the time I went to bed
As I have said — 15 days in and I am super excited at the end of each day to mark an ‘X’ for the day on my calendar. Making the daisy chain of X’s is very rewarding. Completing each day actually gets me excited for the next day to do it all over again.
I’ve never been so productive. I have also never been so fucking full of life! The energy I carry around with me on a daily basis is crazy.
Most importantly I am bettering myself each day. Bringing me closer to those goals of mine one small step at a time.
🌯 Wrap Up 🎁
I have gone about my 2023 with a lifestyle first attitude. I have created a system that ensures I get everything I need in a given day. I want to work hard but I also want to enjoy life. These people that just work and work and work are kind of boring. Life is to be enjoyed and one can put in a lot of work and still enjoy life. You just have to optimise it correctly.
The very first time I heard about this idea of optimising your life was in a podcast with guest, Rob Dyrdek. I will create a whole article surrounding my learnings from him — he is incredibly ambitious, successful, full of life and has an incredible family which he spends a lot of time with.
This article may seem long but when it comes to life and creating the space you live in — it is quite important to spend the time thinking about it. There is so much more I would love to say but you’ll just have to wait for future articles.
If you have made it this far — I really appreciate you and would love a comment! If you have enjoyed what you have read please consider following.
Till next time 🤙🏼