Weekly Banter: Back to the 6 am routine

First week of May, 2023

This week I finally returned to my 6 am routine; wake up at 5:45 am, put on my socks, pants, and shoes, and hit the gym.

⏳Some context

Earlier this year, I read Atomic Habits by James Clear—I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to get their shit together. The book is about how small habits can significantly impact over time, and it motivated me to transform my life through a new habit.

At the time, I was out of shape with a “dad bod.” I’ve always been skinny, so I was shocked when I first noticed my belly. I mean, sure, weight gain seemed like a thing for dads; I’ve seen a photo of my dad before I was born. Still, I wanted to be fit and healthy.

According to the book, to successfully build a habit, I should attempt my action around the time and place there’s a high chance of success; it would work well if I exercised at the clubhouse gym, which is only a minute away from my unit, early in the morning when my kids are asleep so that I won’t be needed.

🦾The honeymoon phase

And that’s precisely what I did. I started getting up before 6 am and went straight to the gym.

I was out every morning from December to mid-March. Even on a sick day, I’d do at least a 10-minute exercise on the elliptical to mark it off my calendar.

Eventually, the hype phased out around March, and I started waking up at 6:15 am, then 6:30 am, and until Joanna woke me up. Still, I didn’t want to give up exercising, so I took a break from waking up early but kept going to the gym after my kids went to bed.

💩The unexpected motivation.

The evening exercise was alright. After all, I exercised daily and felt great about keeping up with my new habit after the honeymoon phase.

On a side note, our clubhouse gym is tiny. It has two running machines, one elliptical, one old-ass bench, and a bunch of dumbbells; there’s no room for two people to do weight training at the gym. Fortunately, I was alone at the gym for a while and could do my cardio and weight training.

One night I went and saw a teenage girl doing weight training on the bench, so I did my exercise on the elliptical and went home, thinking she won’t be showing up the next day.

I don’t know if she also read Atomic Habits, but she came to exercise almost daily in April. The funny thing is that she would already be on the bench every time I tried to go either early or late to be alone.

Good for her for being consistent, but damn it!

By the end of April, I was ready to return to my morning routine.

🦍Back at it

On Monday, I woke up at 5:45 am for my morning workout, and it felt great, but when I got back around 6:30 am, Joanna, my three-year-old, was already up and made a mess in the bathroom. I washed her and cleaned up the bathroom, thinking she won’t be doing this the next day.

I don’t know if Joanna also read Atomic Habits, but throughout the week, she’s been up early and destroying the bathroom before I returned.

Good for her for being consistent, but damn it!

So, yeah, Atomic Habits, I highly recommend it.

How was your week?

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Around December last year, I said goodbye to all social media except LinkedIn —Man needs to find a job at some point.

Amongst all the apps I deleted on my phone, Instagram was the one that I had to decide to quit since I rarely checked Facebook or Twitter and never bothered to be on TikTok.

🤷🏻‍♂️Why?

I have a long list of reasons for quitting social media, but if there was one reason that encompasses the others, it would be that I just didn’t want to keep up.

Instagram was a fun platform to be on in my 20s, but being in my mid-30s, I no longer wanted to share or boast about my life. I also was content and didn’t feel the craving for the “likes.”

Although I was ready to walk away in my head, I couldn’t stop scrolling and scrolling—that’s the power of a bad habit. I thought about looking at it occasionally, but it was all or nothing to me.

So I decided to walk away and delete all the social apps on my phone.

🤳🏻What did I find after I quit social media?

I’m happy to tell you I got my life back; I found time, energy, and focus.

With all the time not looking at my phone, I rested better, read more books, studied advanced Python topics, and started writing again.

It also allowed me to have enough energy throughout the day.

When all the toxins of social media were flushed out, I regained focus, so I encouraged myself to start writing again.

Occasionally I take videos and upload them on my YouTube channel as well.

🤩What’s next?

Honestly, now that I’m more focused on myself, I have a few things I would like to advance and achieve this year.

Writing✍️

I want to write more! So far, I’m enjoying my newsletter adventure and searching for ways to write more during the week. I would love to see myself progress as a writer.

Next Career Move👨🏻‍💻

Currently, I work as a software engineer, and I’ve been debating whether I should transition my career to a DevOps engineer; I find cloud infrastructure fascinating and would like to work on system architecture, but I also don’t want to give up software engineering yet. I’ve been spending about an hour a day learning DevOps skills, and I hope to learn enough to get job offers. We’ll see about that.

👋🏻So.

I lost some social connections, but I found better things!

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Thank you for reading!