30 Day Challenge Update: Week 1

As promised, I have a 30 day challenge update for the first week.
Below is the table of the habits and dates up till June 6th (as I’m still completing today’s work).

So what you are seeing above is an excel sheet I keep open all day every day to track my progress. The results are below:
Day 1 (Jun 1) = 6/7 habits completed
Day 2 = 6/7 habits completed
Day 3 = 4/7 completed (no bueno)
Days 4 = 7/7 habits completed per day
Day 5 = 7/7 habits completed per day
Day 6 = 7/7 habits completed per day

My sentiments on the first week?

I feel the first two days were an adjustment of integrating such a large group of new habits into my day. The 3rd day started off bad and I have no excuses for not doing them. I take full responsibility for this low performance day.
So what happens after I make a mistake or have a bad day? I rally! 
I’ve learned a far more effective response to failure is to use the frustration, pain, disappointment, etc. and leverage that emotion and feeling into performing better.
Instead of beating myself up and shrinking my self-image through negative self-talk, I’ve learned it’s far better to use the pain of what I’m feeling as motivation to work harder and do better the next time.
NOTE – It took me personally a long time to come to this place of rallying after mistakes instead beating myself up or engaging in negative self-talk. I learned this not when things were easy, but when they were most challenging and finding a new way to relate to these situations.
For you, perhaps the next time you feel down about your trading, challenged or frustrated with your results, try rallying your forces and see how you feel + perform. My guess is the results will surprise you.

What Did I Learn From Week 1?

1) doing the physical exercise feels great and I can feel my muscles getting stronger each time. My fatigue comes later in the series than before and my body is almost craving the feeling of doing these exercises.
2) It’s best to do the physical exercises first thing in the morning as it energizes me for the day. That + the fact I’m less interested in exercising after a long day where I feel drained. So perhaps a useful tip there for you.
3) I’ve missed 2 days of out 6 on the trading application work. Part of this is I didn’t plan out my work ahead of time, set clear goals of what I wanted to accomplish and create a plan of action for them. I did this on Jun 4th and it’s focused my sub-conscious and conscious mind to prioritize this work more effectively since.
4) I do better with the content building work before the afternoon (morning/mid-day) as my creative energy is still strong then. Evenings I seem to have less creativity so best to knock this one off early.
5) Working on form is always easier than working on the ethereal. What do I mean by this?
As I’m doing the pushups, situps, and squats, because I’m working on my muscles and body (form), it’s easy for me to see the results quick and feel them in my body fast. Contrast this to working on my trading application or my content building and I won’t likely see the rewards till later.
I think this is a major reason why trading is hard because it’s not based on the body or form where we can see steady results building right in front of our eyes. It takes more work and sometimes you lift the weights and do the hard work in trading, but don’t get the result.
And that experience can/will tug at your mind because trading doesn’t work the same way you normally experience results and progress in most of your life. If I had to guess, you’ve experienced this to some degree in your trading process.
This is why you need mental toughness for trading. This is why you need a successful mindset.
That is all for now. I hope you enjoyed this update and look forward to your comments on how your 30 day challenge is going.