In the beginning of my pursuits to financial freedom, I did what was natural for me to expect at that time. I put all the time and energy I had into working and trying to figure out ways to make my dreams become a reality. What I found out over an extended period of time is that hard work focused on just work itself would not get me to where I wanted to go. As my focus remained on work, I began to neglect my physical health. I didn’t eat the highest quality of food, I wasn’t on a sleep schedule, and I didn’t have a balanced exercise routine. One thing led to another until eventually I ended up being diagnosed with sleep apnea. My quality of sleep declined dramatically and so did my energy levels, focus, and overall productivity. It was during this time that I learned in order to have success and be the best I could be, I needed to focus on my health first and foremost.
How it all changed
Letting my health get out of hand led to many different unpleasant side effects. The lack of sleep and/or sleep schedule led to intense brain fog during the day that clouded my judgment and led to a lack of focus and efficiency. I brainwashed myself that I needed to wake up at 5 AM to be successful, so I tried my best to do that every day. This would often come at the cost of hours of sleep my body needed, and my daily energy levels and overall productivity reflected this reality. Dissatisfied with my situation, I decided to gain some knowledge in the field of sleep, the thing I struggled most with, on my own to see if I could decipher the code for myself. This journey led me to pick up the book Why We Sleep: Unlocking The Power Of Sleep And Dreams, by Matthew Walker, PhD. In this book, I learned several things. The quality of my sleep was being thrown off by my lack of a sleep schedule. I also learned that one of the best ways to optimize my sleep was to make sure I allow myself to follow my body’s own circadian rhythm. I am naturally a later riser and I have found that an 11:30 PM bedtime and 7:30 AM rise time allows me to complete my sleep cycle and achieve peak quality. Armed with this new mastery of sleep, I began to gain more energy. I wanted to continue down this road, so I decided to challenge myself physically like I never had before.
Challenging myself
Now with my sleep issue at least partially resolved at that time, my energy levels were higher than previously. Instinctively, I wanted to do more to reach greater levels of sleep quality, energy levels, and overall health. I challenged myself to do this in the most extreme way I could think of. Running a marathon! I entered into a 16 week program of intense training like I’d never experienced before and marveled as my body began to change. My energy and focusing abilities increased dramatically as my body began to slim down, and I was taking into account more of what kinds of foods I was putting into my body as well. During this time, I became more productive than ever before!. I was spending the first 2-4 hours of my day training and would get started on my workday when most people were eating lunch (between 11 AM and 12 PM). This didn’t matter much. Those 16 weeks were the most productive months of my life to date work wise that I had ever experienced. During my training, I bought more houses, made more money, and became more productive than at any other point I could remember. This was all because I had changed my approach to success. Instead of focusing strictly on the work itself, I took a top down approach. I focused on myself and my own health and schedule first and the rest followed. This was such an important lesson for me to learn.
The continued optimization of healthy living
Because of what I’ve learned, I continue to shape my life around my health first and foremost. I am very strict with what I’m eating, avoiding all sorts of awful foods that plague the Standard American Diet. Although I am no longer in marathon training, I maintain a similar exercise regimen albeit less intense cardiovascular-centric. My sleep schedule is maintained almost every day regardless of what day of the week it is. I no longer consume any alcohol as well. Just like everything else we talk about on our blog, good health comes from momentum. We build that momentum by accomplishing challenging things, and above all, staying consistent. Maintaining my regimens and even improving them periodically has led to the continued optimization of my work life and the results that have followed. Taking an approach to your routine that focuses on your health above all will trickle down and positively affect the rest of your life in the best way possible.