The Growth Project: Day 5

4 min readSep 8, 2020

Today was Day 5 of the Growth Project, and this is how it turned out:

1. Mindfulness

I meditated for 20 minutes after I woke up. I also took 10 minute brain breaks in between each of these categories.

2. Health/ Exploration

For brain health, I took my daily supplements, which consists of fish oil, Matter, Turmeric, and vitamin D.

I woke up this morning and immediately went outside to do some burpees, stretch, and run a little bit, just to wake up my brain.

3. Computer Science/ Software Engineering

Today I studied data structures and big O notation for analyzing the efficiency of your program.

4. Writing

I wrote this post! I also recorded my dreams which were pretty eventful, one of them, I walked into this Jewelry store with some kind of drink in my hand, and I tried a piece of jewelry on with the drink still in my hand, an employee yelled at me “no drinks allowed”, so I bolted out of the door with the jewelry on and stole it.

My second dream was one in an underground city at night and there was protests going on and the cops were super hostile, I had to play games to maneuver their line-of-sight and not get shot, and I eventually made my way through these creepy catacombs to this little attic where a bunch of friends were sleeping and I just laid down and fell asleep.

The third dream was one where I was sneaking around in this factory with security robots patrolling, and me and my best friend had to use stealth to get around them and advance to the next room. Eventually we got to the last room where we had to create a little battery to open the last door.

5. Reading

I’m currently diving into ‘The Obstacle Is The Way” and he offers some advice to keep in mind when perceiving some kind of obstacle: Be objective, control your emotions/ keep an even keel, choose to see the good in a situation, steady your nerves, ignore what disturbs/limits others, put things in perspective, revert to the present moment, and focus on what you can control. I used Jim Kwik’s location method to memorize these so I can meditate on them when I need to.

You can be thrown in jail, deprived of your possessions, label you, but, they’ll never control your thoughts, beliefs, or reactions.

“There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” — Shakespeare

There is always a countermove, always an escape or a way through, so there is no reason to get worked up. No one said it would be easy and, of course, the stakes are high, but the path is there for those who are ready to take it.

When America raced to send the first astronauts into space, they trained them in one skill more than any other, the art of not panicking.

6. Music

Today I practiced strumming patterns and basic chords. I also practiced Riptide by Vance Joy for a little bit.

7. Juggling

I juggled for about 15 minutes today!

8. Cooking/ Diet

I skipped breakfast today due to a small stomach ache, but I did make my brain smoothie and drank some coffee.

For lunch I had a spinach wrap with chicken, spinach, and cheese. For dinner I’ll make some salmon with more spinach.

9. Typing

Today I worked on punctuation using the home row for about 15 minutes. It’s very difficult to overwrite a skill that you’ve hammered into your muscle memory for your entire life.

10. Social Skills

I watched a video on confidence and here’s my takeaway:

Have relaxed body language. When you project calm body language, it not only tells the people around you that you are calm and comfortable, but it tells your subconscious that you are calm and comfortable, and that is great for internal and external confidence.
Be non-reactive. If you can practice non-reactivity, you can pause, collect yourself, and think in moments of stress and not succumb to the anxiety that you experience in intense social situations.
Believe that you will be okay no matter what. This one is really big because beliefs effect your subconscious heavily, if you can really embed this belief, it doesn’t really matter what happens in social situations, because you are gonna be okay.