“Balance is a lie sold to you by people who want to feel better about themselves that they are average.” — Iman Gadzhi
If you have never heard about the still ever-so-popular protocol for claiming control back over your life, here is a quick summary of the design, in my own words.
Monk Mode is a protocol for balancing life, pleasure and work to create the best version of you, so you can achieve the goals you always wanted to crush.
This protocol or framework was most notably popularized by a successful businessman and entrepreneur, Iman Gadzhi. He states in his video for the basis of Monk Mode that this has been around for a while before him, he just transformed it into a scalable framework. The framework is based on these three “non-negotiables”:
- 10 minutes of daily meditation
- 30 minutes of daily exercise
- No alcohol/drugs/any other addictive substance.
On top of these three non-negotiables, since Monk Mode is a framework, you can add your own goals depending on your individual needs. My needs for my current self in time are as follows:
- Publish one story every three days
- Devote time to learning about God
- Read an obituary. (More on that later.)
- No social media/digital entertainment.
- Get up at 5 am
I think it would also be a good idea to explain why I took on the challenge of Monk Mode. As stated above, the goal of Monk Mode is to create the best version of you, so you can achieve your goals in the quickest way possible. Well, I have just recently been looking back and forward in my life and have concluded that life will not change if I don’t. So this is the sole reason why Monk Mode is the protocol of choice for me because I need to better myself before I can take on the goals I want to achieve.
So with this plan fully developed and my mind prepped and ready for the upcoming month, (though I am only reporting on the initial 3 days and my opinions on it), I was ready to take it on.
Day One
Not the optimal way to start an article, but to entertain you as a reader I will be sharing my best dad jokes each day. Day one:
“How do lawyers say goodbye? We’ll be suing ya!”
Ba-doom crash…
OKAY ANYWAYS, So the point of this article was to share my opinions on Monk Mode, and not my “story about how it changed me forever.” I think this would be a bit hard to do with only three days worth of writing. Maybe I will make a full 30-day experience story.
But anyways, my day started the same as it always did, but a solid hour earlier because my additional goal was to get up at 5 am. After I got up and got ready to take on the day, I started the first non-negotiable. This was 10 minutes of meditation.
I do not know about you, but meditation has always seemed like a silly thing people do, and at the time, even now after writing this story, I still do not understand it. But I did it anyway. I turned off the lights, moved to a chair, sat down, set a timer for 10 minutes, and closed my eyes. That was it. I do not know if there is supposed to be something fancy or activities you do during meditation, but man I sure felt dumb just existing like a lawn gnome sitting in a dark basement.
Moving on from my well-planned mediation experience, I then went to work on a story for Medium. This was my other story, about the Mentality of Now. After working on it for a bit, I decided to take a break, and go do my 30 minutes of exercise.
Now, this part is the part I am confident about: exercising a minimum of 30 minutes a day. I love to exercise and have been fairly consistent for the last year, so this part was no big deal. Since I am also under the legal age of drinking, the last and final non-negotiable was completed. Day one was a success.
Day Two
I got up at 5 am, and then immediately read an obituary. Earlier I said that this was one of my custom additions to the framework. Obituaries are most of the time sad and a real debby-downer, but this is the reason I chose to read these.
I got this idea from the book “Show Your Work!” by Austin Kleon. In this book, he gives a great example of how to become more self-aware of your situations and surrounding, which is by reading obituaries. The reason behind this is they often are inspiring and in a sense “scare” you. This is because they show that life is not indefinite, and it will cease. Recognizing this forces you to get up and chase the various dreams you have set. So thank you Austin Kleon for this inspiration.
Moving on from that I completed more writing and then moved on to the exercise, which I just completed a short 30-minute walk because I needed recovery from the previous lifting session.
Meditation felt just as silly as the day before and provided me no real great gain from the feel of it. But in his analysis of Monk Mode, Iman Gadzhi also states that meditation will most likely not take effect until at least a week. He states that it will make you more mentally clear in high-risk anxiety situations and also calm your brain. I still have yet to reap these benefits.
In the meantime, randomly off-topic once again but still as vitally important, here is day two’s “funny”? dad joke:
“Mountains aren’t just funny. They’re hill areas.”
Okay sorry for that, but I felt I needed to share it. ANYWAYS, moving on to day three!
Day Three
As stated before, I am only reporting on the first three days of Monk Mode, although I am going to be utilizing it for at least 30 days. Instead of making this a full minute-by-minute experience, this is more of a review.
So for today, I completed all of the same goals I had the previous days, and I will be reviewing what I had learned in these short three days, in three main points:
#1: Monk Mode boosts creativity. When you do not have the constant distractions of your cell phone it forces you to focus on the things that matter the most. These can be as simple as completing your goals for the day, or something more complex as working on your life challenges. Monk Mode boosts creativity, and I am not just saying that.
#2: Monk Mode calms you. Although I have not reaped the benefits of the meditation in full, even in just three days I have noticed slight differences in my daily life. I have been calmer in intense situations. I have been slower to talk and quicker to think about what I am saying. Monk Mode calms you down with the use of its meditation.
#3: Monk Mode is a life-long challenge. By just giving you three non-negotiables instead of a hard-regimented list like other protocols, it prevents burnout. This prevention of burnout will aid you in creating a sharper and more productive version of yourself, in the long run. Monk Mode is something you can start now and continue to do for the rest of your life.
I bet you thought I forgot the daily dad joke. Here is the final day three’s joke:
“Why couldn’t the bicycle stand up by itself? It was two tired.”
Ha. Ha. Ha.
Duy Thanh Nguyen on Unsplash My Brain After Seeing the Dad Joke
All in all, for the last three days I have not noticed extreme changes like I see a lot of people post about. But I have noticed small, but incrementally more powerful changes. I will continue to be doing this for the next 30 days, and I may write another article with a full, in-depth review of it all.
Thank you for reading. Take control back over your life with Monk Mode.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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