Ep 268: The 'Miserable' Routine

I'm going to tell you the secret of how to have a miserable day. Welcome to the Self Belief Chief podcast. You're here with David Holman. If you haven't done so already, make sure to subscribe to the podcast for the latest episodes. Research, information, conversations. We're uploading content all of the time, so make sure to subscribe. Otherwise, let's begin. So we're going to talk about how to have a miserable day. This is a strange conversation to have, isn't it? How to have a miserable day. Well, here's how to do it. You wake up whenever you want to. Doesn't really matter the time. You just wake up whenever the next step is you pick up your phone. Pick up your phone and immediately go on social media. Immediately observe what everyone else is doing. And you know, that phone gives us 100 positive reinforcements a minute. So it's training our brain as soon as we wake up that you don't have to try. Your brain doesn't have to learn to be resilient or filter information or, you know, reason or be able to actually manage your thoughts and emotions. No, let your phone just give you information. Let your phone just give you positive reinforcements and make your brain lazier and lazier and less equipped to deal with the struggles of life. So if you want to live a miserable day, wake up whenever you want. Pick up your phone straight away, Spend a good half an hour, hour on social media, on your phone, just consuming how great everyone else's filtered life looks. Consume that. Yeah, and then get up and don't stretch. Don't stretch. Whatever you do, don't stretch. All the aches and pains you feel in your body, all that tightness, all that discomfort. Oh, yeah, live with that. Just, just use those things. Use that pain and discomfort, you know, that tightness and notice how it feels tight in your back and your neck and it may be giving you a bit of a headache. Do that and then have something really acidic for breakfast, right? Nothing healthy. Something really acidic so that actually it causes more fatigue in the body, it makes you more tired, makes you more sleepy. So just eat whatever you want. Something really acidic so that you feel tired, you feel fatigued. That's a good start, isn't it, to that morning routine, right? And don't exercise. Yeah, don't exercise. Don't exercise at all. And allow your brain to do whatever it wants to do. If it wants to think about miserable thoughts, let it think about miserable thoughts. If you want it to think about all the things you're stressed about. Think about those things. Don't meditate and try and, you know, channel your mind and have a set of things that you can always go back to that make you feel good. You know, instead of having some images and memories or things that you're proud of or grateful for or that you appreciate and just always being able to go back to those. When you feel a little bit stressed in the morning. No, forget all that. Just do whatever, do whatever you feel like doing and then get up and you know, be slightly late to work, you know, if you've got work, be slightly late to work. If you don't have work, just don't really do anything, right? Oh, I missed a step. Of course I missed a step here. Have a, have a hot shower. Don't have a, you know, in amongst a hot shower, a cold shower which would flush out all the lactic acid, right? And reduce and remove some inflammation from the body. You know, instead of having a, you know, a hot shower, then a bit of a cold shower and then a hot one to, you know, get fresh oxygen, fresh red blood cells moving around the body. No, just have the hot shower because it, it feels nice, doesn't it? You feel cold when you get out and actually you feel that lactic acid still in the body. So you haven't stretched, you feel tight, you haven't exercised to improve your conditioning and mental health. The lactic acid is stuck in the body. You know, keep doing all of those things and then obviously you're off to work and you know, you're slightly late to work perhaps. And start with, you know, get your to do list out straight away of 100 items that you've got that you know, you'll never finish and never complete. Measure your self esteem by, if you complete that to do list or if you're at home, all those lists of things that you have to do. Just measure yourself by the self esteem, you know, measure your self esteem by a to do list which you never complete. Imagine how that feels. Day after day, never completing your to do list, right? And then, you know, wait, just wait. Don't be proactive and you know, know take charge of your day. Just wait and react to life the same life that we often think is unfair and unjust, which it can be. And leave it up to life. Leave it up to life to take control for you and you know, see what happens and live in that state, live in that state of discomfort and stress and then, you know, don't think about asking how other people are doing. Don't check in with them, don't see how they are and get out of your own head and help them instead. No, dwell on your own thoughts. Dwell on them as long as you possibly can. And when you think it's time to let them go, just dwell on them even more and live in it and multiply it by 10 and make it feel even worse and make the vision you have in your mind even darker and sadder and more miserable. Don't attempt to think about changing the colors or the proximity of the image in your mind by moving it further away, it feels less threatening. Don't think about how you could actually find a learning experience or growing experience from setbacks and disappointments. No, just complain about the problems. And when you talk to other people, only talk about problems because it's the easiest thing to connect over, isn't it? It's just to complain and talk about problems and allow the other person to do exactly the same and do that and do that over and over again, right? Don't you know, it's fine to talk about feeling down, right? But God forbid you talk about trying to find out solutions, how you can learn from it, how you can grow from it, you know, and actually, if someone else has a problem, don't listen to what they're saying. You know, if you really want to have a miserable day, don't listen to what they're saying. No, stay in your own mind. Don't listen. Don't give them eye contact, don't pay attention. Just stay in your own world. Stay in your own bubble. That's a good place to be in. And then, you know, don't eat well during the day. Oh, and most importantly, don't have any water, right? Stay dehydrated if you want to have a miserable day. Stay dehydrated is a real secret there. You could stay dehydrated and you know, gets later in the day and, you know, don't think about contacting friends and family or giving them a call. You know, just don't wait for them to text you. Don't have a real conversation where you could actually call someone. God forbid we use the phone for the thing it was actually designed to do. No, we'll just go back on it and we'll go back on social media when we get home and we'll rattle through everyone else's perfect filtered life to make us feel even worse. That's how you can feel really miserable. And then it gets dark outside and you don't keep yourself warm, you start to feel a bit cold and you just keep scrolling through and scrolling through and you keep telling yourself, why is my life not better? Why is my life not better? Why has everyone else got what I want? You know, keep going through those steps and those processes, those patterns that you know, make you feel worse, just indulge in them even further, keep going with them, keep going with them and then have a meal way too late, right? So, and that's not good for you. So that it's going to keep you up all night and stay on your phone right up to the minute before you go to bed. Because that blue light from the phone, which means you won't be in a deep sleep for another three hours. If you're going to bed at 11, you're not really falling asleep till 2am into a deep sleep, a restorative sleep. So you're actually having three less hours sleep than you think you're going to have. And don't actually do anything to stretch or relax or meditate to calm you down so that it's easier to sleep and dwell on all the things you could have done that day and should have done that day and really struggle and go through that process all over again. And that's the secret to living a miserable day. Or tomorrow could be something else. Maybe tomorrow. You don't pick up your phone straight away. You meditate on a few things, a few memories that you're proud of, that you're grateful for, people that you love in your life, things you do have, you know, successes, you've had, achievements, you have characteristics you like about yourself after you've done that, maybe have a good stretch, right? You really stretch out your body, loosen up to get rid of all those cramps and pains. Maybe amongst your shower you actually have a cold shower to flush out that lactic acid. Maybe before that you've actually, you know, done some exercise, maybe you've even just gone for a 10 minute walk. If nothing else. You go to work in good time, you feel fresh, you feel like you've done something, you've achieved something already. In the morning, you feel good, you step on the front foot, you be proactive, you haven't even looked at your phone in terms of social media or anything else. You check in, you see how other people are doing, you see how they are. You actually reach out to people, you listen, you look them in the eye, you pay attention, you get home, you're happy with what you've done that day, you actually paid attention to other people and the situations they're going through. Maybe you call someone who'd love to hear from you. Maybe even tell them you love them. Maybe you stretch before you go to bed. Maybe just don't go on your phone for the couple of hours before. Maybe do some reading instead. Maybe you learn. Maybe you develop something. Maybe you just listen to something instead. And maybe you go to bed with a smile on your face. And maybe tomorrow is the first day that you learn the secret to an extraordinary day.