 So, I'm very, very guilty of creating videos on daily habits that can change your life. I get it. I'm sorry. But I rarely end up talking about consistent habits and rituals I do to make me feel better or feel just calmer and more at peace. In this video, I thought I would share five consistent habits I did in 2020 that really made me feel internally the calmest I'd been in a very long time. What up fam? It's Alex Hine, author of Milk the Pigeon. I field guide for anyone lost in their 20s. It's on Amazon and Audible if you want to hear me whispering in your ear at night, not to make that creepy or anything. Now, I've also included a free download below this video. The free download is for a free journaling worksheet to help get your life together and plan out how to have the most incredible life in this coming year. So, you can check it out right below. Now, the first ritual I practiced was surrender, specifically pretending as if everything was destined for me. So that time where I was in the last year of my doctorate, which is a clinical doctorate when I'm seeing patients and I have to have patient contacts, and yet coronavirus forced our school clinic to close down and the clinics outside of schools to close down out of fear, and yet I had 50 to 100 patient contacts I had to get. So I pretended that this challenge was sent for me. Now even though it was very difficult to graduate and it was very depressing to graduate, the silver lining of that was that, well, if this was sent to me, what was the lesson? And I found that those three months of my last term of school and that following summer allowed two really positive experiences to happen. The first experience was that I ended up studying all this material I'd been wanting to study for four years during my doctorate, but I was way too busy and so I had no time to study them and ended up going down all these really, really cool and really interesting rabbit holes that really helped me just reinvigorate that interest in my field. The second thing was that I ended up going home for three months to take my medical boards, which meant I was home with family and I got to really enjoy the New England, both the summer and going into the fall, my absolute favorite place and my favorite time of year. The second thing I ended up doing that helped me feel a lot calmer was vibes. I started paying attention to the feeling I got when I interacted with someone, but specifically after I had left. I was reading one of these hippie New Agey books about vibrations, blah, blah, blah, and the author suggested a very good exercise. She suggested that a guru told her to pay attention to the feeling you get when you're with somebody and especially the feeling you get when you leave. Don't judge it, don't rationalize it, don't intellectualize it, just pay attention to it. And I started noticing, oh, that really peppy girl at the front counter of the coffee shop. I really like the feeling I get when I talk to her. Or this one acquaintance in business, I don't know why, but I always feel agitated when I interact with him. Don't know why, not judging it, but that's really interesting. That one person on the street, they say they're fine. But every time I bump into her, she always feels really depressed, really exhausted. So I started following up on these hunches and I asked people what was up and I found that 100% of the time there was something going on that matched that emotion I felt. The third thing I started doing to feel more peaceful, more calm was what I call zigzag. I started doing the opposite of what my personality normally wants me to do. So I was having this call with a friend and I was telling him how this year I'm treating it as a sabbatical. I want to do nothing, I want to rest, I want to not set any alarms, I want to work only five hours a day. This is a goals group, a mastermind. So he's like, man, stop being so unambitious, get back on it, blah, blah, blah. And then he said, I guess in retrospect, your lazy sabbatical year is more ambitious than the average person's regular year. And I was like, all right, fine, I get it. But the point of this was really simple. If you are normally someone who's pushing and hustling and disciplined and up early and is doing your homework or your work early and you're getting things done just for 30 days, try doing the opposite. You know, for 30 days after 8pm eating, I didn't go to a class, I didn't do a workshop, I didn't study, I didn't work, I didn't read. I watched Netflix for three hours for a month. And man, I felt so relaxed. I slept so well every single night. I had no problem sleeping and I felt really good after I got over the initial phase of feeling guilty for being inactive. Now, if you're someone who usually watches Netflix three hours a night, maybe try doing the opposite. Wake up earlier and meditate or do a little bit of yoga or go to the gym. If you usually are just chilling at work, try to be the best, most ambitious employee for 30 days, over deliver, stay late, do what it takes. If you usually struggle and in the evenings you like taking it easy, try dedicating one hour a night to reaching one of your most important goals or working on one of your most important or exciting projects. And just watch how these things affect your life on both sides. The fourth thing I started doing to really feel better and more at peace was calm, which meant that I started making decisions from my body and not my mind. Now, I shared this example here before that really had an impact on me, which is where about four or five years ago I went on the date with this girl. And on this date, this is one of those examples where you meet someone through a friend and you see a picture, but then you meet them in person and they are way hotter and way better in person. That like never happens on the internet, you know, in the internet hinge era. That just doesn't happen. I met this girl, stunner, tall, beautiful, modally, friendly, smart, educated, like all the things I would have wanted on paper. And yet we had a good date. I didn't feel that excited. I went home so bummed that I did not feel excited. I didn't feel like I really wanted to see her again. I didn't feel alive. I didn't feel that I didn't feel drawn to her. And this was that reminder that the mind tells you one thing. Why would you ever not want to go on a date with that again? But the body, the heart tells you another, unfortunately. And so I started practicing this principle. Well, what would happen if I decided all my decisions from my gut and my body, not my mind? Well, I started changing my breakfast because my body wanted something different than my mind wanted, which was an athletic or a fitness goal. I started avoiding friends that I'd hung out with for a long time because I felt pressured or judged or tired or annoyed. And I started hanging out with people who are a little bit different. I started making all these different decisions on what to eat, where to go, how to arrange my schedule, and even what time to get up. And I found it pretty profound. Alone in the quiet, you can only really listen to what your body wants. The body's your gut. The body, your gut wants one thing, but the mind has convinced you that you should want another thing. The fifth was rest, trying not to force anything. I read this quote from some generic guru on Instagram. And here's what it said. It said, don't try to force anything. Let life be a deep let go. God opens millions of flowers every day without forcing their buds. So this guru dude on the internet aside, I just tried to see what would happen if I didn't force anything. You know, I lived basically like an animal for 30 days. Wasn't hungry. I don't care, so I didn't eat. You know, I wasn't like, oh, I'm going to be hungry in three hours. Or, well, am I going to reach my fitness and athletic goals and my weight goals? If I wasn't hungry, I didn't eat and enforce it. If I had a little bit of insomnia rather than getting in my head and getting anxious about it, I just put on a movie. Watched a movie, put on my sleep timer until I just passed out. I woke up feeling fine, no anxious, no anxiety at all. If there was something in my business I wanted to work on, I worked on it. And if I didn't like it, even though it was my biggest revenue generator, I just stopped doing it for 30 days. And I found that there's this crazy feeling of calm you get if you don't try to force anything. Just like in this resting mode, this river's flowing. I'm going to jump into it, drink a beer. This river's not flowing. I'm not going to go down it, even though I've been going down it every day for the last five years. This friend river's flowing. I'm going to hang out with them. This friend was a longtime friend. Haven't been feeling it lately. Not going to ask to hang out anymore. Try feeling all the little paths of life, your diet, your friendships, your career, fitness, everything. Little rivers. Which ones are flowing? Play in those. Get the inflatable duck. Ride that down that river. Not the other ones. So these five practices made a really big difference in my life last year, where the number one goal was really just to feel good and just to feel calm. Now, all these concepts we've talked about here are these kind of inner psychological strategies for being more at peace and improving your life. And that's why I've decided to partner with Noom for this video. Noom is a really unique approach to your wellness and your fitness goals. Now, as someone who's written an entire book on the psychology of habit change, specifically for weight loss, I love it. If you're wondering about what to eat, Noom actually fuses nutrition with the psychology of habit change and behavioral change, including the fact that it comes with a food and exercise tracker and a personal goal specialist. Now, I personally think that the main reason people fail at getting fit or reaching their goals is primarily psychological. Like, there's no quick fix for changing your relationship with food, with exercise, or ultimately with yourself. So, again, we all have to understand our own emotional triggers and the things that make us react unconsciously if we really want to succeed and see consistent results long term. Now, there's a free 30-second quiz using the link below that you guys can try out. Go ahead, check out Noom on social media, and don't forget to check out the special link below for Modern Health Month readers. So, that's all I've got for you today, guys. Check out Noom, the special link down below this video, and I will catch you in the next video.