I always hated having a routine.

I hated routines so much that for 20 years of my life I didn't have one.

And I see a lot of people who also hate having routines.

But everyone has one, whether they know it or not.

If you think you don't have a routine, yours is either not having one or one that is so deeply programmed into your mind by your parents, teachers, and society that you don't even know it.

The reason why I hated routines is that they felt restrictive.

A morning routine. A nighttime routine. A pre-work routine. A post-work routine.

It felt like you must have a routine for everything.

And the worst part of it is most routines are a waste of time.

The 4-hour morning routine never made sense to me.

Why waste precious time on things that aren't productive?

But you don't need to have traditional 6-hour long morning routines like Ashton Hall, who wakes up at 3:51 a.m. just to dump his face in an ice bowl every 15 minutes and stay in the air for 4 minutes before landing in the pool.

You just need a short one.

You need micro routines.

Routines that take 60 minutes or less.

Routines that make sure that you're making progress and still not feel restrictive or take up your entire day.

Routines that improve your finances, body, and mind.

If you're anything like me, you're going to school and/or have a job.

I don't have a lot of time. I have very limited energy, so I can't spend a lot of time working on building what I want. Working on something that doesn't excite you drains you. Feeling drained isn't nice.

When I was in college, I played D1 football (soccer if you're from the U.S.) after my lectures.

But after 4 engineering lectures that demand all your mental energy, you're exhausted. All I wanted to do was sit in my room, watch YouTube, and sleep.

I'd try learning something new in between classes, after I finish my lectures, or when I'm eating. I was trying to be productive. But my brain was too fried.

I learned a lot during those times, but I was suffering from Leaky Bucket Syndrome. I was never applying what I was learning. So I never got to internalize the lessons and knowledge from my experience.

Eventually I got so sick of me never making progress and always quitting that I decided to flip my priorities.

School and work didn't become my #1 priority.

Myself and my goals became the most important thing.

Going to the gym, running, writing, and working on projects that I create for myself became non-negotiables.

You see, I never hated work or university. I never hated working for someone else. I just hated the fact that I wasn't working on something that I was invested in. Something I can't see myself working on for years to come. I wanted to work on something that demands my full attention and effort. I wanted to feel valuable. Worth something in society. Someone whom people looked up to as a role model. But when all you do is follow orders, be obedient, and get a monthly paycheck that is just enough for you to get you by while you see people who spend what you make in a month in 1 hour, work less than you, and have more fun, it hurts.

I don't want to start living when I'm 50. I want to have fun now and when I'm 50.

Your Habits, Your Future

A quote that I've been reminding myself a lot with lately:

"If you're not working towards building your ideal future in the first hour of your day, you're building someone else's."

If you can't carve out 60 minutes of your day to think for yourself. To work on a project that will put you one step closer to your ideal life, where do you think you'll end up?

Not where you want to be, that's for sure.

The mind normalizes repetitive tasks, and your life is probably repetitive (mine is very repetitive, that's for sure).

The more you do something, the more habitual it becomes, and the less effort you need to put in to maintain that system.

This can go two ways.

It can work for you or against you.

When your life becomes habitual and repetitive, months go by like days. Years pass without you noticing. And if you don't have the right habits in place, before you know it, 10 years of your life have passed and you didn't do anything.

You wake up feeling disgusted, ashamed, and disappointed with yourself. You realize that even when you're living in your own body, you weren't the one in control of it — the people who programmed your mind are the ones in control.

Your actions build habits, and your habits create your routine. Your routine decides what kind of future you have.

So if your actions are on autopilot, and you didn't set the destination, that's a one-way ticket to disaster.

But that's how most people choose to live. They live on autopilot. Their routine doesn't lead to anything that screams meaningful or intentional living.

They do the bare minimum at their job. Their terrible diet and their lifestyle habits aren't seen as a problem because their performance toward a meaningful goal doesn't change (they don't have one). They don't have a goal that demands them to be at their best. And when they do find a goal that demands their best, they hide from it. They're too scared to face the truth that they aren't as good as they thought they were. They'd rather stay in the "I could've if I wanted to" delusion.

Most people tell you to live to make the most out of your twenties by doing the things that ruin your life, partying, drugs, staying up late, gossiping. It's all meaningless.

And when they see you working on yourself by learning a skill, going to the gym, eating healthy, or not wanting to stay up late at night, they make fun of you by saying "Oh, what are you too good for us now?" or "It's just a 2-week phase, you'll quit and come back".

My advice: cut them out of your life.

They're not your friends. A true friend won't allow the people they know to descend into degeneracy.

My friend, focus on building good micro habits. Micro habits that evolve into a routine that slowly undo the mental programming that has been etched into your psyche and install new ones that put your growth on autopilot. You don't need to worry if you're doing the right things, because you know that your foundations (your habits and routine) are solid.

Habits create routines. Routines give you structure. Structure gives you a framework to follow and a path to achieve your goals. Without a structure, you descend into degeneracy.

Most people don't care about their routines because they never question the one they were assigned. Since they don't care about their routines, they don't put any effort. Then their entire life goes to shit. Most people are okay with it because that's how everyone around them is living their lives.

But hey…

You're not alone, right? So that's comforting. Seeing other people fail is the coping mechanism for a lot of people — I used to be one of them — I used to think if everyone is failing and slowly descending into degeneracy, then that's normal and it's fine for me too.

But this just forces you to keep running from one problem to another and can't catch a break. This creates stress.

Stress narrows your mind. You can't think straight. You're too tunnel-visioned. You can't see the big picture anymore. Living in the past or future. It's painful. So most people choose to numb their pain with quick pleasures.

That's the problem here.

It's not just about money or work. It's about our mind, body, finances, and relationships.

Low-energy lifestyles come from a low-action lifestyle. This impacts work, work impacts your health, your health impacts your relationships. Since you now have so many problems running around in your mind, you can't think straight, you can't spot the opportunities that will lead to a better life.

The solution is simple:

You need a time where you can be intentional to focus on that one thing that will lead to the biggest change in your life. That will put you one step closer to the life you want.

2 Hours is All You Need To Change Your Life

"I don't have time."

"I'm too busy."

"I'm not a morning person."

Everyone says they don't have time. But you will never have time to do anything. You make time. You make sacrifices to get what you want. You choose to experience pain now so you can enjoy tomorrow. It's a matter of having your priorities sorted.

But if you go one layer deeper and truly question things?

You're not busy.

Because when you go and write everything you do in your day, you'll realize that you have more time than you ever need — you're just distracted.

You learn for 10 minutes, then you jump to watching a tutorial, you don't finish it, then you start writing your weekly newsletter (you barely make any progress on it), then you try to do a bit of copywriting (because you need to improve the conversions on your offer). But a friend just called you to go grab a coffee, so you stopped writing. After coffee, you hit the gym. But now you need to go eat your post-workout meal. After all of that, your day has ended.

What you're doing feels busy. It feels like you're making a lot of progress. But all you did was useless. It was unfocused work.

2 hours of deep work beats 8 hours of distracted work.

2 hours a day or 730 hours a year.

You can't tell me with 730 hours you can't:

• Build the body you want.

• Find the partner you want.

• Build a business in a year (ish).

• Learn a high-value skill and be in the top 1% of people in that skill.

• Reprogram your mind into building good habits and routines that put you a step closer to the life you want.

The problem is you're trying to do everything. Start focusing on solving one problem.

You need to start the snowball effect that will spill over into all areas of your life.

For most, that's money. Because when you have your finances sorted, you can buy back your time. You no longer need to waste 2 hours of your day commuting to work. You no longer need to go into useless meetings where nothing gets done. You no longer need to waste your time doing tasks that don't mean anything to you.

When you buy your time back, you also buy more energy. You can direct your energy towards your goals.

Wake up 1 hour earlier in the morning and use it to build your future. The morning is when your energy is highest. It doesn't matter if you're not a morning person.

I've never been a morning person (still not), but I still wake up early just so I can write and build.

The morning is when the world doesn't demand your attention. Your responsibilities still haven't piled up. That's when you have your clearest thoughts. It's easier for you to get into flow state as soon as you wake up because your mind isn't filled with all the social media garbage.

Start the day on the right foot by building your dream, not someone else's.

Because if you don't work on your life first thing in the morning, you won't have the mental energy to do it in the evening.

How many times have you told yourself: "When I'm back home, I'll learn the skill. I'll start the business, I'll go to the gym," and never did it?

Even if you did do work in the evening, it's not the same as if you were to do it in the morning. You can't tell me you are more productive and creative after spending 10 hours at your soul-sucking job and commuting than if you were to work first thing in the morning.

I just don't believe it.

Nothing feels better than knowing that you just finished your most important tasks before even starting your day. And if you're freelancing, you'll feel guilty when you do this, not because you're doing something wrong, but because everyone else is still stuck in their office working themselves to death, but here you are, finished your work and have the freedom to do whatever you want. You feel guilty because you feel like you should be doing something.

But life isn't just about work. You need to enjoy time. You are free to waste your time. Just do it tactically.

3 Micro Habits To Change Your Life

1) A habit that builds your wealth (writing)

Work spills over into every other area of your life.

Humans love work. We hate doing unfulfilling work.

Look at the people who retire. They can't just sit and do nothing. They always need to do something. They create work out of nothing.

If you spend a third of your life on work that isn't meaningful, your life won't be meaningful. You'll feel miserable. Not good.

The goal is to become a high-agency individual. Someone who actively goes and creates their own path. Not waiting for someone's approval to do something. You don't wait to see what will happen. You make it happen.

This should be the first thing you dedicate your first hour of your morning to. It's the hardest. It's the longest. It's the most difficult. You will always feel like you're starting from scratch and that you're always doing something wrong. But it's the best way to take back control over your life.

It's not about building a successful business or not.

It's about learning things that can't be taught in school. If schools can teach you, then it can teach others. If it can teach others, then it can teach AI to do it. Then you'll be replaced.

My favorite way of becoming a high-agency person is to write.

Writing forces you to think. Writing forces you to learn. Writing is how you can attract opportunities without being stuck in an office for 12 hours a day. Writing is how you can start a business without having to invest your life savings or take risks that will destroy your life. Writing is the meta-skill that will stay as the foundation of all other high-value skills.

When you know how to write, you become irreplaceable.

Not to mention, the future of work is starting a one-person business. Employees are a one-person business, they just have one really bad, low-paying client.

More jobs will be replaced with AI, your only option is to either get replaced or choose to build something that makes you irreplaceable.

The reason why AI will never replace writers is because AI is just a tool. It needs someone to tell it what to do. Not everyone can tell a machine what to do. You need to be precise and clear with your instructions. You just need to know how to write well, and you can run a business in your pajamas.

AI, tools, and automations have leveled the playing field. You no longer need a team of 10 people to get the job done. You just need to set up automations by yourself and enjoy life.

Work is turning from corporate to individual.

2) A habit that builds your body (hit the gym)

Most people focus only on the money-making habit.

Nothing wrong with making more money. Because money spills over all other aspects of your life.

But your health shouldn't be prioritized any less.

Health isn't reserved for wealthy people. You don't need to change much of your life to become healthy. When you're healthy, your energy levels are higher, which feeds into your work, and work feeds back into your life. It's an upward spiral. The better you feel, the better you work, which makes you feel better.

As I said, you don't need to change much of your life to be healthy. Take the stairs instead of the elevator. If you live in the middle of the city, walk to your places instead of ordering an Uber. Swap fast food for a healthier option — healthy food tastes good. Your body is just so used to poison (yes, fast food is poison) that anything that's good for you is seen as bad.

You don't have to go to the gym or run. But if you want to increase the rate of changing your life, you can start going to the gym and running.

Why the gym?

Because it has overlapping experiences with life:

• You will feel lost, out of place, and overwhelmed when you first time you step into the gym

• You will feel like everyone is watching you and that you're making a fool out of yourself until you realize nobody cares.

• You will start to ego lift until one day you will put too much weight on the bar and have it almost crush your chest.

• You will go through the phase of "beginner's hell" of not seeing any progress, but soon enter "intermediate's heaven" and start to see all the progress you made. There's no greater feeling than seeing your effort reflected in your life.

• When you "make it" (get in shape), that's when mastery, consistency, and your long-term vision come in. Because it's easy for you to start skipping the gym once you get the body you've always wanted. I've seen far too many people stop going to the gym after they get in shape. They think the work is over. They think they can just take their foot off the gas and go back to their old habits. But a few months go by, then they're back where they started. So now they hit the gym again. And the cycle repeats itself. Getting in shape, going out of shape. They don't realize that getting in shape is the easy part. The hard part is staying in shape. The same thing goes for your life. Getting to the top is the easy part, but staying there is hard.

You can absorb these lessons into your psyche by reading them, but you won't actually learn them, internalize them, and understand them until you experience them. Learning comes from insight, not reading and studying. Insights come from experience.

3) A habit that builds your mind (meditate)

I thought meditation was reserved for monks and spiritual gurus.

But you don't have to think of it that way.

Meditation isn't you sitting on top of a mountain in isolation cross legged for months to reach "enlightenment".

Meditation is about clearing your perception. It's about connecting with reality as it is, not with what you think it is.

The problem is people are stuck in survival mode.

Resentful of the past and stressed about the future. Their mind operates in a tiny box that's filled with negativity. Rent. Mortgage. The car. The tasks you have at work. The deadlines you need to meet. The quarter goals you need to achieve. How little time you have when you come back from work and can't enjoy yourself. They can't think clearly, so they can't make good decisions that can change their lives.

It's hard to improve your financial situation, relationships, and health if your mind is occupied with problems and you can't spot opportunities.

Meditation is just like health. It's all about simple behavior changes.

You don't need to sit and meditate (it obviously helps). But for me, running is my form of meditation.

Why running?

• Runner's high is addictive

• It is the best form of therapy there is.

• It's the only time you can disconnect from technology.

• You get to focus on your breathing and be in the moment.

• You get to challenge your body differently compared to the gym.

• You don't need any fancy equipment or a gym membership to start running and see its benefits.

• It's the only time I have to myself. I don't have to think about work, university, launches, what people like, hate, and gossip about. I have time completely for myself to see what life is really about. It is the only time I have to reflect on my life. Those 30-120 minutes are where I do most of my thinking, and because you think and reflect so much, you gain clarity on your life.

I can't tell you how many times, when I was on my run, I would hear the birds chirp and go "They sound beautiful," even though these birds are everywhere.

I never stopped to think about what's happening around me. You get to see families smile, play, and laugh. You see others running, improving their health.

You realize that the world isn't as dark as you once thought.

Life is good.

It's just the environment that you were in that made you think that life was dark and miserable.

Before I started running I used to meditate when I was walking between my lectures or on my way to university. Every week I would drive 2 hours from home to university (and back). Those 4 hours of thinking a week are where I addressed some of my deepest thoughts and had my biggest realizations.

But since we already used our 2 hours in the gym and writing, connect with reality any time you get.

Going to work, walking the dog, in the shower, anytime you are not engaged in work, or thinking through a problem with intention, refocus your mind on the present. Don't get trapped in a limited box of negative thoughts.

Connect with your senses. Direct your attention to it.

Whenever you listen to something, hear it.

The song you're listening to. The birds chirping in the morning. The conversation you're having with your partner

Whenever you touch something, feel it.

Feel the wind hit you. Feel the water as it runs through your hands. Feel your cat as you pet them.

The coffee you drink, smell it, taste it. Dissect the different flavors and notes.

Reconnect your mind with reality.

When you live in the past, you become depressed. When you live in the future, you become stressed. But when you live in the present, that's when you're happiest and most calm.

Be mindful, don’t have your mind full.

Thank you for reading. Enjoy the rest of your day.

- Hussain