The 7-day challenge that changed my life

There are a million little ways to improve your life. Yes, you could do all of the corny ice baths and you could do the Vimhof breathing techniques and yes, you could do the journaling, but in reality, there are several simple practices you can do consistently that will dramatically change the direction and trajectory of your life. This video here, I want to get into one of the practices that I did for 7 days that made a dramatic difference in the way that my sort of quote unquote dream life showed up. What's up, guys? It's Alex Hine over at Modern Health Monk. So, let's jump in here. So, a year ago, I was at this reunion and a gathering of some of my old friends that I'd known since childhood. In this particular scenario, I was wondering a lot about what was going on in his life the last 5 or 10 years since I'd seen him. And as we got to talking, you know, he was basically saying, "Oh, yeah, you know, I'm struggling with my job and he's complaining about his job." And he's saying, "Well, you know, I'm also just trying to get fit." And he was talking about trying to get fit the last time I saw him. And as time went on in this conversation, it was clear that pretty much everything was the exact same way that he had left it. I went home not necessarily judging my friend, but I was more so reflecting on why that was the case. In 5 to 10 years, you could write a best-selling book, become a successful YouTuber, you could reinvent your entire life, and I was just reflecting how pretty much nothing had changed, and how that is all too common for so many of us. Why is it that as time passes, people don't change? People can change, but in general, people do not change. And I came up with two things that I've noticed that have made the difference in my own life. The first thing is that people don't ever reflect on why life is the same. Actually, I don't think people reflect at all. People don't reflect on where they are in life and what they want to build. People don't reflect on why they are the way they are and the kind of person they want to be. And we tend also not to reflect on our patterns. And two, the lack of self-improvement. I ended up making this exercise an official exercise in my little playbook. and I just call it patterns and reflections. Now, I want to walk you through this exercise here with a notebook so you can see because I think it's one of the absolute best ways to continually be improving yourself. So, let's jump into the exercise. So when we talk about this patterns and reflections exercise, the big thing here is that we break down our list and we start with patterns because patterns are like those repetitive things that you do that literally keep you stuck and in the exact same year of your life every single year. So let's just go through dating. The common ones I see are, you know, dating unavailable people. Second one is sometimes people just wait hoping that someone will just like walk in your life, right? Like literally playing the waiting game, taking no initiative whatsoever or dating the wrong people. So these are common patterns. If these are the loops, my aunt called these loops, which I quite like because if you think about it, it's just you going in the same circle over and over and over. Like it's amazing that a woman who's accustomed to dating the wrong guy can be in a room full of 500 of the right men and she'll pick the one wrong man in the whole room. That is a pattern many of us men and women have. What is the reason here? Let's say dating the wrong person is because can't be alone. If you're being real with yourself, you actually feel very lonely when you're single. Sometimes it's validation seeking. Some people always have to basically be sleeping with someone cuz it makes them feel good about themselves and they don't feel good about themselves on their own. Look at the patterns and write down the reflection. In health, let's just say one is just don't do anything. One is just stress eating because you have a stressful job. One is you're too tired after work so you don't work out. These are the patterns that have kept the last year the exact same. These are the loops, the arubos, you know, the snake eating itself kind of thing. This is just the spiral going in the same direction. So, what are the reflections? Why am I stress eating? All right, let's say like this tracks with my job. Don't like it. Stressful job. So, that's going to have to be a thing that is a bigger project to change. Let's say the tired and the stress eating also comes from your job. The worst thing for your health has been your job. That's pretty diagnostic about what it needs fixing. And then let's say in finance, you know, let's say your big thing is you really want to have money to travel and you just uh don't make enough. But let's say for the last couple years you've wanted to be taking that trip or vacation and you just haven't done it because you say you don't make enough. And the reflection is well guess what? You could take another job. FYI, I've always had two jobs minimum through my entire 20s and now in my 30s I have two businesses. You could literally take another job. Like literally work at Starbucks. I mean you could straight up work at Starbucks 10 hours a month and that would be enough money for your trip to Thailand every year. The reflections can be whatever you want, but the patterns are really the most valuable because the patterns will basically show you why your life is the same and it's always the same. This is the external manifestation of this, the internal manifestation. This is the root. This is the branch. If you fix both, your life will for sure change. By the way, I've actually created a brand new series of journaling exercises. They're just called the five best journaling exercises that I've used in the last year to design my dream life. So, you guys can check it out. The link right below this video. It is actually a brand new series of exercises I've been using throughout all of 2024 and now 2025 to help get focused, figure out what I want, and really have my most successful and fulfilling year ever. So, check those out. So, now I want to leave you with a 7-day challenge here. The 7-day challenge is this patterns and reflections exercise, and I want you to break it down into three main categories because if you ask me, life is really made up of basically health, wealth, and love. So, if you have those three buckets all in order, you're probably going to feel pretty good in life. and you're going to feel pretty holistically successful. Do the patterns and reflections exercise for dating. If you are continually in a relationship but it's not the one you want, what's the pattern? What's behind the pattern? And then what do I have to do on the other side of that pattern? If I realize, oh, I'm just dating people who are unavailable and they don't really feel that excited to be in a relationship with me. What does that mean about me? What's the reflection? Oh, I realize I can't actually be alone. I don't have any friends. I don't have hobbies that keep me busy. So, I would rather just always be with a person than be on my own. Then wealth. Let's say you're tired of that 50k boring day job you hate. Well, what's the pattern been? The pattern has been you're tolerating staying at that 50k day job and you don't have the skills yet to get a job, let's say, that pays 100 grand and it's what you like. So, maybe the reflection there is that you decide to take the time to number one figure out what kind of jobs I would like to have. What is the role like? What's the title? Maybe it's project manager instead of, you know, Netflix entry-level employee. And then the reflection is, okay, well then I need to learn these skills and maybe I spend one hour per night learning the skills that would get me that next job. So patterns and reflections is a really useful journaling exercise that I do. And again, I put together a new list of five of my favorite journaling exercises that I've used to make the last year my best year ever. So I'd highly recommend downloading that the link below this video. And it's one of those things where we will go into five different ways you can think about journaling and reflecting in your day-to-day life. So check it out. It's brand new. And then before you guys go, I have a awesome video on journaling to design your dream life and to design really your most ideal and fulfilling and meaningful life right up here. So check that out before you go, guys. And then leave me a comment below. Which of these exercises has helped you the most? Or which quadrant of your life do you think you need to work on the most?