Change Your Life In 6 Months (My Unique Routine)

The Mastery Letter #12

This was me at 21..

Skinny, broke, depressed and anxious, playing World of Warcraft 8+ hours a day.

This is me now.

This is my brother a year ago.

Depressed, no drive, and was playing an MMORPG called Black Desert 8 hours a day for damn near a decade.

Here he is now. Only 6 months after quitting gaming.

We both grew up gaming.

Super Mario on SNES.

Mario 64.

Sonic adventures on the dreamcast.

Socom and GTA on the PS2.

Halo on XBOX.

Starcraft on the PC.

Diablo 2 on the PC.

We fucking loved gaming. Especially online.

It was our childhood.

Then World of warcraft came out while we were in highschool.

Before then, we were only kids.

Ah… the beauty of being young with no responsibility or burden of performance.

We could afford to game all day.

Now we were adults.

We were adult video game addicts now.

Society will allow you to be a loser when you’re young.

But if you’re still a loser by the time you’re 21, or even worse, 30+, society will ban you to the shadow realms and you will become invisible to women and opportunities.

You will be a disappointment to yourself and everyone around you.

Wasted potential.

You are effectively a man-child who never manned up and take on the world’s challenges.

You avoided taking on your burden of performance.

I quit gaming to take on the world in my early 20s to chase my potential.

It took me many years of failures, challenges, experiences, mentors, and important lessons to get where I am now.

My brother continued playing video games until he was 33, last year.

I packaged up all my learnings into a simple 6-month routine after helping my brother escape the void caused by video game addiction.

I hope you can use it to save yourself, or someone you know.

The Gamer to Greek God Program (6 Months)

We will be attacking the 5 main issues that most unhealthy people have.

1. Shitty sleep

2. Low sunlight

3. Low movement

4. Shitty diet

5. Low muscle mass

6. Lack of purpose

Research shows it takes 21-30 days to get habits to stick. This was my experience as well.

We will take it slow, 3 habits per month, for 6 months.

Most programs will just tell you “Stop doing X and cut Y habits” cold turkey.

Those never worked for me and my brother.

This program focuses on 1 psychological trick…

leveraging existing behaviors in order to learn new behaviors.

My brother and I are lazy as fuck, which is why this works.

By the end, you will have effortlessly replaced 18 daily habits and feel and look like a Greek God.

Month 1:

This is the starting month where we will build some foundational, simple habits around getting better sleep. You really can’t do shit without good sleep.

• Habit #1: Adjust sleep schedule

  • Go to bed 15 minutes earlier and wake up 15 minutes earlier twice per week. Ex. set alarm for 15m earlier on Monday and Friday. By the end of the month you will be waking up 2 hours earlier. See if you can get to 9-930pm by month 6.

• Habit #2: Charge phone into the bathroom instead of your room so you have to get up to turn it off.

• Habit #3: Stop mouth breathing at night.

  • Purchase surgical tape off amazon and put a small strip vertically across your mouth when sleeping. Mouth breathing destroys the shape of your face, your performance and sleep.

• Habit #4: After waking, do not use your phone. It will be harder because it’s in the other room :)

  • Chug as much of a 32 ounce water bottle as you can. Take a hot bath immediately. It makes it easier to deal with waking up earlier. No phone. Just deep breaths and focus on the breath for 10m.

Purchase:

• 32-ounce water bottle from amazon

• Surgical tape on amazon

Month 2:

Month 2 will focus on getting sunlight, standing up while gaming/tv

• Habit #1: Buy a standing desk

  • stand during gaming 50% of the games you play. It sucks at first, but you adjust. First half of your gaming session stand, then sit the rest. Stand while doing all other activities on your PC. If you work remote like me and my brother do, stand during meetings.

• Habit #2: Go get some sunlight on a walk

  • 10 min walk outside right after your hot bath/meditation in the morning.

Purchase:

• Standing desk. $200 ish

Month 3:

Now we are going to focus on adding in some movement and reduce gaming/tv.

• Habit #1: Bodyweight exercises while gaming

  • Day 1: In between video games/shows do 1 push up. 1 pullup, and 1 bodyweight split squat. (put 1 leg on the couch and squat with the other)

  • Day 2, do 2 of each.

  • Day 3, 3 of each etc. continue until you can do 5-10 of each between every game.

  • If you can’t do a pull up, stand on a stool and hold yourself there and slowly lower. This is called a controlled negative. Do this until you can do a pull up.

• Habit #2: Reduce gaming/tv

  • game for 30 min less per week. By Month 4 you will be down 2 hours per day. Which is 14 hours less per week. Small wins.

• Habit #3: Mini treadmill

  • Walk on mini treadmill while watching tv/netflix/youtube.

  • Bonus: Learn a new skill on youtube while walking

Purchase:

• Mini Treadmill $200

• Doorway pull up Bar $40

Month 4:

We have some serious momentum now. It’s been 90 days of new habits that are giving you more energy and you are feeling fantastic.

You will fall off a couple of these here and there but keep jumping back on. No problem. We are going to add in some more movement and adjust your diet a bit this month.

• Habit #1: Track your steps

  • with an app and aim for walking 10,000 steps per day. This is 500 calories. You should get a bit in the morning, a walk in the afternoons, and then finish up the last 5-7k while gaming/watching tv.

• Habit #2: Cut out any calories that come from liquids

  • If you drink 5 cokes a day, drink 1 Sparkling water and 4 cokes. Next day drink 3 cokes and 2 sparkling waters. etc. If you drink energy drinks, swap to coffee asap.

• Habit #3: Slowly up your protein intake and reduce your sugar intake.

  • Protein will keep you full longer and helps build muscle. We will start with protein bars and bananas as they are nutritious, low calorie, quick and easy on the go. Cut out processed sugar like cookies, candy and ice cream entirely. No leeway here.

Download:

• Steps app (Free)

Purchase:

• Sparking water: Any type. $5

• Protein Bars. Any protein bar at the store or online. My favorite are Aloha protein bars. Tastes amazing. $15-25 for a pack of 12

• Bananas. Replace with apple or another fruit you like if you are allergic. $5

Month 5:

Now that you’ve been walking more than before, and have learned basic calisthenics movements of pushing, pulling and squatting. It’s time to introduce the mother of all habits.

Lifting weights.

• Habit #1: Lift weights 3x/week, never 2 days in a row.

  • Day 1: Find the closest gym you. The easier it is to get there, easier it is to workout.

  • Day 2: Drive to the gym. Sit in the parking lot. Look at it. Think about the idea of driving there 3 times a week. Drive back home.

  • Day 3: Drive to the gym. Walk in. Get a membership. Take a quick look around. Leave.

  • Day 4: Drive to the gym. It’s time to lift.

• The program:

  • I like to work out around 11am. Workout whenever you can. Just get it done.

  • Do these twice a week. You can increase to 3 after a few months if you want. E.g. Monday - A: Push, Thursday - B: Legs/pull. For 3 day it would be Mon - A, Wed - B, Friday - A and reverse it the following week.

  • Warmups - 1 set that feels very easy, 1 more set that feels easyish.

  • Find a weight that you can do 8 times and it feels hard. Do not go to failure. Leave 1-2 reps in the tank.

  • We will do what’s called Reverse Pyramid Training on the first 2 exercises. You will do the hardest set first while fresh and then drop the weight 10% and do your 2nd set for 1-2 more reps.

  • Start very light and work your way up. Every workout add 1 rep or 5lbs to the bar.

  • Workout A: Push

    • DB Incline Bench (30 degrees) - 3x8 (First set 8 reps, 2nd set 10 reps)

    • DB Seated Shoulder Press- 3x8 (RPT like above)

    • Dumbbell Lateral Raises - 2x10 (same weight)

    • Dumbbell Bent Over Flies - 2x10 (same weight)

  • Workout B: Legs/Pull

    • Dumbbell Bulgarian Split Squats - 3x8 (First set 8 reps, 2nd set 10 reps)

    • Pull ups - 3xAMRAP (As many bodyweight reps as you can do. Add weight with a belt once you can do 10 reps)

    • Seated Leg Curls - 2x10 (same weight)

    • Dumbbell curls - 2x10 (same weight)

• Habit #2: Track your progress

  • Open your iphone notes app before every session and write down your weight and reps so you can increase it every session. This is critical. You improve what you track, that includes health, lifting, finances, etc.

Purchase:

• Gym membership: $30-60/m

Month 6:

We are reaching the end of the program.

In this final month, we want to add in some final key habits.

• Habit #1: Fasting

  • Eat your banana and protein bar 4 hours after waking up. The less time you spend eating the more your cells repair themselves and your body burns fat.

  • Drinking sparkling water and coffee to curb hunger in the 4 hour period.

• Habit #2: Stop Drinking/smoking/vaping

  • If you drink on the weekends, get new friends that aren’t alcoholics

  • If you drink alone, drink 1 less drink a night for a week.

  • If you have pothead friends, get new ones.

  • If you smoke alone, do it a little less every week.

• Habit #3: Learn a high leverage skill

  • Going to bed earlier will open up 2-3 hours of extra time in the morning before work. Use this time to new a new skill that you can use to solve complex problems in the world.

  • Examples:

    • Cloud security

    • Commercial real estate

    • Online writing

    • Video editing

    • Copywriting

    • Sales

    • Digital marketing

    • Graphics design

  • Make this your purpose. Find a mentor in the skill online. Mimic them for a few months and if you don’t like it, try out another.

  • Buffet different skills until you find one you can see yourself doing long term.

  • Trying one skill often leads to new mentors and other skills.

  • Learn and practice this skill over time and chase mastery.

  • You will go through many iterations and opportunities will illuminate as you go.

  • You will peel back the layers of your purpose until you eventually find it.

Continue for the rest of your life

We are now:

• Waking up and going to bed 2-3 hours earlier

• Hydrating more in the morning

• Meditating 10m and avoiding social media in the morning

• Walking 10k steps / day

• Getting sunlight

• Standing while gaming

• Walking on mini treadmill while watching tv/learning

• Lifting 3x a week

• Eating healthier

• Gaming fewer hours

• Not drinking

• Not vaping/smoking weed

• Practicing a new skill to peel back the layers and find our purpose.

Remember:

• Nothing is worth adding to your daily routine unless you can do it for decades.

• It’s better to be consistently good than occasionally great.

All of these habits I plan on doing for life.

Take it one day at a time and you’ll wake up a new person in 6 months.

You will fail. But never give up. Keep drilling in the habits. Keep practicing until its effortless.

Good luck fellow gamers.

-Brandon

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