“I have 4 months to grow and level up!”
From time to time, we have a few months in life when we have to adapt to a different daily routine than the everyday one. Maybe even to a completely new environment. If you are my reader, you may want to come out of such a period as the best version of yourself.
An example of such a period could be a summer vacation for students, or a longer “lockdown” due to an illness or accident. Or when you must sort out your residency status on the other side of the planet — like I had to.
I have already shared some tips in a previous post about how to stay productive during a 10-day quarantine, locked into your flat. But what about a longer time frame? How do you get through these months strongly while your everyday life has changed?
Four Months in a Completely Different World
When I used to live and work from South America — while I was sorting out my residency status — I had to log in to work at 3am to be online at 9am in the Central European Time zone.
From the European winter, I suddenly jumped into the 90% humid, 38 Celsius degree Paraguayan summer. I had to deal with a different currency (guarani), language (Spanish), time zone and climate.
I had no other option, but I had to adapt to the new environment for the next 4 months.
How did I stay productive, and how did I prepare for this journey mentally?
When you are at the doorstep of a big change in your life, first ask yourself: are you strong enough to adapt to the new circumstances and deal with obstacles — if there will be any?
Do you have what it takes to do what is necessary to stay in balance and accomplish your goal?
You have to understand that you have a mission. Your mission is now to stay strong during this period and accomplish your goal to level up.
Reframe the Necessary Into an Opportunity
I started my life in Paraguay by giving it a frame.
I could have thought about this trip as something necessary to get my residency done. While I was doing that, I would simply have to pass the time there somehow.
Instead, I decided to reframe the “necessary” into an opportunity to grow.
How can I take advantage of being up so early in the morning – due to needing to work in European time? During the day, I have hours when I must stay inside the apartment because of the heat outside. How can I use this time productively? How can I stay motivated at work?
First, I sat down with my journal and created a realistic daily routine for the next four months. When you plan your daily routine, it is important to find the golden middle way — not too easy and not impossible.
Here is a copy of the daily routine I executed (almost) every day in Paraguay.
02:45 Get up
03:00 Log in to work and start working
05:00 Wim Hof breathing and morning yoga on the rooftop with sunrise
05:45 Coffee and grateful journaling
06:00 Working
08:00 Breakfast
08:30 Working
10:30 Coffee break and practice Spanish on Duolingo
11:00 Working
12:00 Finish working and lunch break
13:00 Learning a new skill on Udemy
14:30 Break
14:45 Continue learning
15:30 Swimming pool time with a self-development book. Take a nap if needed.
18:00 Grocery shopping or cleaning
19:30 Have a shower
20:00 Free time to catch up with friends or relax
22:30 Go to bed.
Repeat.
Note: My wife lived next to me a life in “normal” hours, so she usually woke up around 7 and we had our coffee or breakfast together. I tried not to live in a different time zone, so I adapted and rather had power naps of 15-20 minutes when needed (and when my workload allowed it). With the use of power naps, I could also afford to go to bed together at about the same time.
Of course, there were days when the discipline was missing and I did not learn on Udemy. Sometimes the order was different because I had to adapt to my workload as well. At times, I simply lost my motivation temporarily, but the next day I carried on again.
I really enjoyed this unique four months in life and this time away from Europe. I must say, I came back as a levelled-up man!
I came back to Europe proud. I had accomplished my goal, grown personally and technically, and learnt a lot about life and about myself while I got my Paraguayan ID.
Without such a daily routine, the days would have slipped away without much productivity. Once you have a daily routine, stick to it and take action every day.
Visualise your goal and how satisfied you will feel after this period once you have followed your daily routine. Also visualise how you would feel if these months simply went by without achieving anything else beyond your primary goal — my ID in my case.
This really helps to keep the motivation going.
If Life Forces You to Slow Down
If you are forced to stay inside your flat for the summer period due to an accident or illness, instead of worrying that the summer will pass without you being on the beach, get your journal and take action!
Create a new label for this time you are forced to spend locked in. Call it a growing time instead of a recovery time.
Say to yourself: “I have X months to grow and level up. I will make it!”
Think about the long-forgotten projects you planned to do from your room but simply had no time to start. What skills can you learn? How can you come out of this period as a levelled-up person while recovering?
Create a new daily routine. You might be locked in your room, but you have a very powerful piece of “equipment” in your head.
Learn a new language, learn a new profession or a new skill. Read books you never had time to lift down from the shelf.
Come out of this period as the best version of yourself you can be: fully recovered, mentally strong and more educated.
Students: Don’t Waste Your Vacation
If you are a student, be wise about how you spend your vacation.
Okay, have plenty of time for fun, but is it necessary to spend all your time hanging out with friends, being lazy or simply being bored? During the summer, you have no responsibility to attend classes, but that does not mean you must let your mind become lazy.
Imagine investing 30 minutes every day in learning a new language or a new skill. Over a 100-day summer vacation, that adds up to almost 50 hours of focused learning.
With this disciplined daily action, you would already be doing something that many people do not do. That extra effort might help you stand out at your first job interview. Maybe that extra skill will bring new opportunities and abundance into your life.
So, plan your days for the vacation!
Decide when you want to get up, what to do in the morning and afternoon, when to eat and when to exercise. Focus on your wellbeing and try to find a balance between time spent with friends, being bored in your room and the time spent studying.
You can have a part-time job as well if you want to earn some extra cash.
This vacation is an opportunity for you to fully focus on yourself, do and learn the things you want, not what you are told to do!
Get ready and start the new semester as a new You.
There will be days when you feel unmotivated. It is OK! Decide to rest and get back up again tomorrow or the day after tomorrow.
After a few weeks, you will tune your daily routine anyway. You may leave out some activities or add some.
Do What the Average Person Doesn’t Do
Do you want to live an extraordinary life?
Then stay disciplined and do what the average person does not do!
Extraordinary life is for extraordinary people, and you can be one of them.
Success is not going to knock on your door. You have to go after it.
Follow your daily routine, even when you feel tired.
What Are You Going to Do With Your Next 30 Days?
Maybe you don’t have four months in front of you. Maybe you only have 30 days. Or a summer. Or a period when life has temporarily forced you to slow down.
Whatever your situation, you can decide what this period will mean.
Will you simply wait for it to end, or will you use it to become a stronger version of yourself?
I’m curious: what is one thing you could learn, build or change during the next few months if you treated this time as an opportunity rather than an interruption?
Tell me in the comments. I would genuinely like to know what other people are doing to level up when life gives them unexpected time or forces them into a different routine.
And if this post made you think about your own unused time, share it with someone who could use the reminder.
Be a Hero of Your Life!
