09 February 2014

Gong #1

So I finished my first (possibly last, more on that later) Gong yesterday.

It's a 100 day dedicated practice where you pick one thing for each category: diet, exercise, sleep, mindset, and do it for 100 days. You need to make sure what you choose is doable. You can factor in recovery days for exercise.

If you miss a day, you have to start your 100 days over from the beginning.

I can get obsessive, so I did not miss a day.

Here's what I did:
Diet: eat protein at breakfast every day. I kind of slacked on this one because I didn't specify how much protein and I discovered most things I eat have at least a little protein in them.

Exercise: nothing new, kept doing what I was doing since it works for me. (This is a legit option.) That translates to yoga with rare exception, at least 1 mobility exercise, and some other stretches every day and body weight workouts every 3rd day or twice a week.

Sleep: go to bed by 1 AM. There were two days I was exactly at 1 AM, and honestly I would've been better off going to bed late. The rush of meeting that self-imposed deadline ruined my ability to fall asleep and made for bad nights. Curiously, even though I've been doing this for 100 nights now, I can't say it's become a real habit. I'm more aware of when I need to call it quits to meet that deadline, but I'm not particularly more inclined to do so.

Mindset: Here I practiced a 4 count breath: breathe in for 4 counts, hold 2, breathe out for 4 counts, hold 2. Repeat. I think of doing this more readily when I feel stressed out which is helpful. It has a calming effect. This is good stuff which I will continue and try to do more of during my day.


If you were going to try this with 4 entirely new habits, I think this would be really challenging.

In future, I'd rather a less strict approach because I got too literal to my own detriment a few times with this gong. I'm not the type of person who misses a day or two or three and completely falls off the wagon if I really want to build a new habit.

Ultimately a gong is a contract between you and yourself in which you do what will propel you into a better life. That part I'll hang onto.


Two years ago on TTaT: Life of Art SitRep #105 Enough

4 comments:

  1. So pretty much my annual goals but with the kicker if needing to continue it for 100 days straight? Sick. You're a better person than I.

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    1. And having to start back at day 1 if you miss a day. For perspective, it took me a loooong time to develop a daily workout practice. I started gradually, stopped/started many a time, and eventually that became a habit and I've built on that over time.

      Took me a long time to get to this stage and persistence. The gong did make me more conscious about doing things which was useful as opposed to my usual looser approach to trying new things.

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  2. As a fellow obsessive, this is totally appealing to me.

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    1. I actually went to bed at 1:10 last night and it was very satisfying somehow. ;)

      I did have mini hot dogs with sauce (chili) & mustard for breakfast though, so protein. Worked out before that and have done some 4 count breaths during the day.

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