Read Think & Write

#1 Lifting Weights
Lifting heavy weights changed my life. I was always into sports and played a team sport semi-professional for more than 10 years. I liked long distance running and I did that for a couple of years after I retired. Then I got a back injury. I didn’t go to a doctor and continued to run. It was a bad idea. After six months I finally saw a doctor, stopped running and started yoga. It helped but only a little and my back pain was still there. After more than six months of stretching and doing yoga exercises day in and day out, I decided to start with strength training in the gym. I did some strength training back in my days as a semi-pro but I never really liked it. Especially the machines in the gym didn’t resonate with me. But I knew that I needed a stronger back to recover from my back pain. I read a lot of strength training and discovered a blue book called “Starting Strength” written by Marc Rippetoe. This book and the training method immediately made sense to me. No fancy machines just honest barbell training. Four simple exercises that helped me to overcome my back pain and simply become stronger. If you haven’t done it, I highly recommend to you to start the basic barbell movements of squatting, lifting and pressing. You won’t regret it.

#2 Writing in the morning
I always wanted to write but I wasn’t good at school in grammar and expressing myself verbally. My grades showed me very clearly that I had no talent to write. Although I loved to read and made a few attempts to write a diary, I never really gave it a try. That changed when I first read about the ritual of “Morning Pages”. I guess a lot of people on Medium are writing in the morning. The teacher and author Julia Cameron describes this ritual of Morning Pages in her book “The Artist Way”. This book is worth reading in its entirety. It inspired me to start this habit almost two years ago. I have to confess that I miss some days, especially on the weekends, when we sleep a little bit longer and I want to be with my kids, but I always come back to my journal to write a page or two in the morning. It really helped me to become a calmer person and focus on the important things in my life like family, reading, thinking, writing and living a healthy life.

#3 Drawing
As I already told you, I couldn’t write in school but drawing was even worse. I was good in math and sports but not in arts. I labeled myself as non-creative and never really tried to draw or paint anything seriously. However, I admired a classmate who could draw perfectly with his pencil. It was so realistic. The good thing when you become older is that you realize that there are so many untalented people in the world and you are just one of them. So, I thought I should give it a try and do whatever I like. I am still far from being an artist but drawing is a worthwhile activity for me and on top of that it seems to enhance thinking in general and creative problem solving in particular.

For a better understanding I highly recommend reading Betty Edwards’s book, “Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain”.

#4 Sitting in silence for 10 minutes
Yes, I meditate but I call it sitting in silence for ten minutes because that is exactly what I am doing and in contrast to the word meditation it is self-explaining. It was uncomfortable in the beginning to sit in silence with no TV or radio and do not follow any of your thoughts. But eventually, I got better and focusing on my breath helped me a lot on the way.

There are few good apps like Headspace and Calm. They helped me to get started with this practice. Meanwhile, I prefer to sit alone in a quiet room with no electronic device around me.

#5 Walking
I never really liked to walk until I got my first kid. I always wanted to run and walking didn’t make sense for me. I trained or I preferred to rest on the couch with a book or a good movie. Today I value a good walk with my wife, a good friend or alone. I love to be out there and to fall into a walking rhythm were nothing else matters then putting one foot before the other. Walking without my mobile phone is my preferred option. I just take a small notebook and a pen in case I have a good idea which I would like to follow up later.

There are many good books about walking and hiking. One of my favorite books is “A Walk in the Woods” by Bill Bryson.