A. Background
On Saturday 01 November 2025, I decided to get some thoughts down on a paper journal that I had neglected for the majority of the year (triggered by a work situation and a takeaway about journaling from a group coaching call from this online personal training “mentoring” community I tried out temporarily), and, completely by accident, I ended up running a well-structured self renewal practice (ultimately inspired by the “Daily Private Victory” per the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, see my post about my latest iteration for more details). The journaling was preceded by going for a walk (to help regulate my circadian rhythm and warm up for rehab exercises that my physio had given me – which I did immediately after coming back home) and was not something that was planned whilst I went for the walk. It then led to some muscle memory kicking in from activities I had carried out between October 2021 and June 2023, and I found myself accidentally running the full self renewal routine / practice. I then continued the practice for the subsequent days and moved my wake time earlier in the first few days so it was something I could carry out before heading into the office / starting work, ultimately leading to 35 total days of running a daily self renewal practice / routine.
In the next section I present the data from the 35 days showing the time I spent on the practice each day and the activities that formed the practice. The idea was to aim for an hour each day (and do a shorter variant of it when I was extra busy with work and needed more time in the office). What ended up happening on some days is that I went over due to either finding the practices helpful or enjoying them.
By the end of the 35 days I found myself thinking more clearly and feeling more optimistic. I was able to better tolerate some of the difficult / ineffective / dim-witted / absent minded people I had to deal with at the time – who had a disproportionate influence on my working life – due to the absence of their more talented / capable peers and the lack of courageous people who could keep them in check. I was also able to detach from some of the cliquishness that marked the environment I was in (offset a little bit by the more incredible, down-to-earth and reasonable people I managed to spend a little bit of time with – although nowhere near enough time – despite these circumstances). On top of this, I was able to maintain my problem solving ability at this stressful time, which helped with some client situations. I also had a better “vibe” in some social situations despite the context I was operating in.
I was looking forward to continuing the practice over the Christmas / New Year break and seeing a boost in my inner state that could be carried forward during busy season (and ideally beyond, especially with the eventual compounding of the practice), but I unfortunately caught a bad case of the flu which meant that it was a long time before I could restart the practice and sustain it to a good degree (the combination of the stress of the time caused by certain individuals, getting 4 hours of sleep for a few days due to being so busy with different projects and spread a bit thin, having a series of Christmas socials where you’re speaking to a lot of people, and having an office floor where people are fighting the flu and a table where people are coughing on / around you – is a recipe for disaster – and no boost in inner state could’ve saved me from that combination of factors!).
Interestingly, the boost in inner state led to me being a bit more assertive with the guy who owned the online personal training “mentoring” community, on a call he asked for after I’d cancelled my subscription early to try and convince me or bully me to keep giving him money – with the high-pressure sales tactic (and some insults because of him losing some easy revenue) being aggressively shut down by me (which included me demonstrating to him that some of the things he thinks he does that are valuable I could do in my sleep and better because of the schooling / training / experience / initiative I possess) – a shift compared to the initial call when I was feeling particularly diminished after an incredibly painful wisdom tooth surgery and didn’t challenge his statements that were borderline insulting / offensive. (It’s worth noting that whilst I enjoyed the group coaching calls and found them useful, everything else they provided in the package – which formed the vast majority / c.90% of their proposition – meant they were severely overcharging relative to the limited value they were offering. I tried it out because they advertised a “body-mind-spirit” model, but they weren’t sophisticated enough to pull it off. I’d summarise it as a mediocre / shifty estate agent thinking he is Tony Robbins and rinsing people’s hard-earned money for rubbish service at a very low marginal / incremental cost to him – something I subsequently found out is common with British scammers that move to Dubai and operate online / virtual businesses from there.)
Whilst I did log the activities I did in my journal, with their start and end times, I didn’t think it was something I’d be extracting myself or sharing with anyone else (especially on my website!), and I therefore couldn’t recall some of the details of the activities exactly due to not logging enough detail about them. Given this, I’ve either left it unspecified where there was no way for me to piece together what I did, or I’ve made an educated guess (a high probability one) of what it could be given what I was doing / focusing on at the time.
I’ll add a final note to say that, other than wishing I had fleshed out more details of the activities when I logged them (especially given I massively enjoyed and/or saw a lot of utility from the activities), I wish I had carried out the night journaling model I currently have – of writing out wins and learnings from the day and improvements going forward – before I head to bed. This is because, despite the stress of that time, I handled some things exceptionally well and had some great days because of temporarily working with or hanging out with great people (even if they were few and far between). It would’ve been a wonderful thing to be able to relive my combating of the circumstances of the time, remember how I dealt with the highs and lows that came with it, and review the logic of the decisions I made. It would also have been wonderful to see the story unfolding of accidentally starting the self renewal routine, persisting with it despite the tough circumstances and then building up momentum and seeing the benefits come through in my behaviours and interactions.
B. Raw data
Typical sequence
Activities and approximate budgeted times (that were flexed as needed):
- Journaling – 10 mins
- Planning – 10 mins
- Reading – 20 mins
- Movement – 10 mins
- Meditation – 10 mins
Daily data
Day 1 – Sat 01 Nov 2025 – 3h 19m
• Movement 1 – walking outside for natural light exposure
• Movement 2 – rehab exercises
• Journaling – getting thoughts off mind relating to a worry
• Reading – re-reading sections of *Antifragile by Nassim Taleb* and making notes
• Meditation – 30 mins using Calm app via timed meditation option
Day 2 – Sun 02 Nov 2025 – 2h 13m
• Journaling – getting thoughts off mind
• Reading – re-reading sections of *Antifragile by Nassim Taleb* and making notes
• Movement – rehab exercises and plank
• Meditation – 30 mins using Calm app via timed meditation option
Day 3 – Mon 03 Nov 2025 – 32m
• Journaling – getting thoughts off mind and writing useful principles / mantras
• Movement – rehab stretches
• Reading – *The Coming Wave by Mustafa Suleyman*
• Meditation – unspecified – likely 2 or 5 mins using Calm app via timed meditation option
Day 4 – Tue 04 Nov 2025 – 55m
• Journaling – getting thoughts off mind
• Planning – unspecified – likely deciding on top 3 priorities for work calendar
• Reading – unspecified – likely *The Coming Wave by Mustafa Suleyman*
• Movement – rehab exercises
• Meditation – 10 mins using Calm app via timed meditation option
Day 5 – Wed 05 Nov 2025 – 1h 05m
• Journaling – getting thoughts off mind
• Planning – unspecified – likely deciding on top 3 priorities for work calendar
• Reading – unspecified – likely *The Coming Wave by Mustafa Suleyman*
• Movement – rehab exercises
• Meditation – 10 mins using Calm app via timed meditation option
Day 6 – Thu 06 Nov 2025 – 1h 14m
• Journaling – getting thoughts off mind
• Planning – unspecified – likely deciding on top 3 priorities for work calendar
• Reading – *The Coming Wave by Mustafa Suleyman*
• Movement – rehab exercises
• Meditation – 10 mins using Calm app via timed meditation option
Day 7 – Fri 07 Nov 2025 – 1h 13m
• Journaling – getting thoughts off mind
• Planning – unspecified – likely deciding on top 3 priorities for work calendar
• Reading – unspecified – likely *The Coming Wave by Mustafa Suleyman*
• Movement – rehab exercises
• Meditation – 10 mins using Calm app via timed meditation option
Day 8 – Sat 08 Nov 2025 – 3h 49m
• Journaling – getting thoughts off mind
• Planning – unspecified
• Reading 1 – articles from *The Economist*
• Movement – rehab exercises
• Reading 2 – unspecified – possibly more *The Economist* articles or *The Coming Wave by Mustafa Suleyman*
• Meditation – 30 mins using Calm app via timed meditation option
Day 9 – Sun 09 Nov 2025 – 3h 55m
• Journaling – getting thoughts off mind
• Planning 1 – unspecified – likely deciding on top 3 priorities for work calendar
• Reading 1 – *The Coming Wave by Mustafa Suleyman*
• Movement – low-impact tabata micro-workout and rehab exercises
• Reading 2 – articles from *The Economist*
• Planning 2 – editing vision document
• Meditation – 20 mins using Calm app via timed meditation option
Day 10 – Mon 10 Nov 2025 – 1h 12m
• Journaling – getting thoughts off mind
• Planning – deciding key priorities and blocking time in calendar
• Reading – *The Coming Wave by Mustafa Suleyman* and *Financial Times* article
• Movement – rehab exercises
• Meditation – 10 mins using Calm app via timed meditation option
Day 11 – Tue 11 Nov 2025 – 1h 31m
• Journaling – getting thoughts off mind
• Planning – unspecified – likely deciding on top 3 priorities for work calendar
• Reading – unspecified – likely *The Coming Wave by Mustafa Suleyman*
• Movement – rehab exercises
• Meditation – 10 mins using Calm app via timed meditation option
Day 12 – Wed 12 Nov 2025 – 1h 02m
• Journaling – getting thoughts off mind
• Planning – unspecified – likely deciding on top 3 priorities for work calendar
• Reading – unspecified – likely *The Coming Wave by Mustafa Suleyman*
• Movement – rehab exercises
• Meditation – 10 mins using Calm app via timed meditation option
Day 13 – Thu 13 Nov 2025 – 1h 16m
• Journaling – getting thoughts off mind
• Planning – unspecified – likely deciding on top 3 priorities for work calendar
• Reading – unspecified – likely *The Coming Wave by Mustafa Suleyman*
• Movement – rehab exercises
• Meditation – 10 mins using Calm app via timed meditation option
Day 14 – Fri 14 Nov 2025 – 1h 10m
• Journaling – getting thoughts off mind
• Planning – unspecified – likely deciding on top 3 priorities for work calendar
• Reading – unspecified – likely *The Coming Wave by Mustafa Suleyman*
• Movement – rehab exercises
• Meditation – 10 mins using Calm app via timed meditation option
Day 15 – Sat 15 Nov 2025 – 3h 09m
• Journaling – getting thoughts off mind
• Planning – unspecified
• Reading – *The Coming Wave by Mustafa Suleyman*
• Movement – stretches
• Meditation – 30 mins using Calm app via timed meditation option
Day 16 – Sun 16 Nov 2025 – 3h 31m
• Journaling – getting thoughts off mind and writing recent wins
• Planning – preparing schedule for the next 12 months for a personal project
• Reading – unspecified – likely *The Coming Wave by Mustafa Suleyman*
• Movement – rehab exercises
• Meditation – 30 mins using Calm app via timed meditation option
Day 17 – Mon 17 Nov 2025 – 1h 20m
• Journaling – getting thoughts off mind
• Planning – unspecified – likely deciding on top 3 priorities for work calendar
• Reading – *The Coming Wave by Mustafa Suleyman* and *Financial Times* article
• Movement – rehab exercises
• Meditation – 10 mins using Calm app via timed meditation option
Day 18 – Tue 18 Nov 2025 – 1h 08m
• Journaling – getting thoughts off mind
• Planning – unspecified – likely deciding on top 3 priorities for work calendar
• Reading – *The Coming Wave by Mustafa Suleyman* and *Financial Times* article
• Movement – rehab exercises
• Meditation – 10 mins using Calm app via timed meditation option
Day 19 – Wed 19 Nov 2025 – 1h 09m
• Journaling – getting thoughts off mind
• Planning – unspecified – likely deciding on top 3 priorities for work calendar
• Reading – *The Coming Wave by Mustafa Suleyman*
• Movement – rehab stretches
• Meditation – 10 mins using Calm app via timed meditation option
Day 20 – Thu 20 Nov 2025 – 1h 07m
• Journaling – getting thoughts off mind
• Planning – unspecified – likely deciding on top 3 priorities for work calendar
• Reading – unspecified – likely *The Coming Wave by Mustafa Suleyman*
• Movement – rehab exercises
• Meditation – 10 mins using Calm app via timed meditation option
Day 21 – Fri 21 Nov 2025 – 1h 01m
• Journaling – getting thoughts off mind
• Planning – unspecified – likely deciding on top 3 priorities for work calendar
• Reading – unspecified – likely *The Coming Wave by Mustafa Suleyman*
• Movement – rehab exercises
• Meditation – 10 mins using Calm app via timed meditation option
Day 22 – Sat 22 Nov 2025 – 4h 03m
• Journaling – getting thoughts off mind
• Reading – unspecified – likely *The Coming Wave by Mustafa Suleyman*
• Planning – writing out next steps for every live project
• Movement – rehab stretches
• Meditation – 30 mins using Calm app via timed meditation option
Day 23 – Sun 23 Nov 2025 – 3h 16m
• Journaling – getting thoughts off mind
• Planning – writing out work actions, preparing for coaching session and planning for Christmas break
• Reading – *The Coming Wave by Mustafa Suleyman* and noting down sparked thoughts
• Movement – rehab exercises
• Meditation – 20 mins using Calm app via timed meditation option
Day 24 – Mon 24 Nov 2025 – 1h 11m
• Journaling 1 – getting thoughts off mind
• Planning – unspecified – likely deciding on top 3 priorities for work calendar
• Reading – *The Coming Wave by Mustafa Suleyman* and *The Economist* article
• Movement – rehab exercises
• Journaling 2 – writing out “north star” of personal vision
• Meditation – 10 mins using Calm app via timed meditation option
Day 25 – Tue 25 Nov 2025 – 1h 01m
• Journaling – getting thoughts off mind
• Planning – unspecified – likely deciding on top 3 priorities for work calendar
• Reading – *The Coming Wave by Mustafa Suleyman*
• Movement – rehab exercises
• Meditation – 10 mins using Calm app via timed meditation option
Day 26 – Wed 26 Nov 2025 – 1h 06m
• Journaling – getting thoughts off mind
• Planning – unspecified – likely deciding on top 3 priorities for work calendar
• Reading – unspecified – likely *The Coming Wave by Mustafa Suleyman*
• Movement – rehab exercises
• Meditation – 10 mins using Calm app via timed meditation option
Day 27 – Thu 27 Nov 2025 – 1h 11m
• Journaling – getting thoughts off mind
• Planning – unspecified – likely deciding on top 3 priorities for work calendar
• Reading – unspecified – likely *The Coming Wave by Mustafa Suleyman*
• Movement – rehab exercises
• Meditation – 10 mins using Calm app via timed meditation option
Day 28 – Fri 28 Nov 2025 – 1h 06m
• Journaling – getting thoughts off mind
• Planning – unspecified – likely deciding on top 3 priorities for work calendar
• Reading – unspecified – likely *The Coming Wave by Mustafa Suleyman*
• Movement – rehab exercises
• Meditation – 10 mins using Calm app via timed meditation option
Day 29 – Sat 29 Nov 2025 – 1h 23m
• Journaling – getting thoughts off mind and writing wins from the week
• Planning – unspecified – likely deciding on top 3 priorities for work calendar
• Reading – unspecified – likely *The Coming Wave by Mustafa Suleyman*
• Movement – rehab exercises
• Meditation – 10 mins using Calm app via timed meditation option
Day 30 – Sun 30 Nov 2025 – 1h 25m
• Journaling – getting thoughts off mind
• Planning – unspecified
• Reading – unspecified – likely *The Coming Wave by Mustafa Suleyman*
• Movement – rehab stretches
• Meditation – 10 mins using Calm app via timed meditation option
Day 31 – Mon 01 Dec 2025 – 55m
• Journaling 1 – getting thoughts off mind
• Planning – unspecified – likely deciding on top 3 priorities for work calendar
• Reading – unspecified – likely *The Coming Wave by Mustafa Suleyman*
• Movement – unspecified
• Meditation – 10 mins using Calm app via timed meditation option
• Journaling 2 – writing out a positive vision
Day 32 – Tue 02 Dec 2025 – 23m
• Journaling – getting thoughts off mind
• Reading – Naval Ravikant podcast transcript “Blame Yourself for Everything, and Preserve Your Agency”
• Movement – rehab stretches
• Meditation – 5 mins using Calm app via timed meditation option
Day 33 – Wed 03 Dec 2025 – 1h 10m
• Journaling – getting thoughts off mind
• Planning – unspecified – likely deciding on top 3 priorities for work calendar
• Reading – unspecified – likely *The Coming Wave by Mustafa Suleyman*
• Movement – rehab exercises
• Meditation – 10 mins using Calm app via timed meditation option
Day 34 – Thu 04 Dec 2025 – 1h 04m
• Journaling – getting thoughts off mind
• Planning – unspecified – likely deciding on top 3 priorities for work calendar
• Reading – *The Coming Wave by Mustafa Suleyman* and *The Economist* article
• Movement – rehab exercises
• Meditation – 10 mins using Calm app via timed meditation option
Day 35 – Fri 05 Dec 2025 – 1h 00m
• Journaling – getting thoughts off mind
• Planning – unspecified – likely deciding on top 3 priorities for work calendar
• Reading – *The Coming Wave by Mustafa Suleyman* and *The Economist* article
• Movement – rehab exercises
• Meditation – 10 mins using Calm app via timed meditation option
