Day 404 Record Keeping
Day 373 Fixed Meditation
Day 319 Bodyweight Exercise (2 pushups)
Day 246 Writing (288 words)
Day 419 Eating
Day 54 Dynamic Meditation = 68 (20 min)
Day 1 Marketing = 12 (20 minutes of reading)
Great sleep, great wakeup.

New Marketing Habit
I know, I was supposed to start a simple habit like flossing. But my hand has been rather forced. At 400 + days into this project I really need to set up a new blog for this and my travel site. This will require mastery of a skill/habit I’ve really been putting aside for years - social media/internet marketing.

I’ve been really an advocate of traditional media, but there have just been too many incidences where new media has come up and I’ve just been caught flat footed. Also, more book publishers have been looking into a social media presences before thinking about publishing a book. But more importantly, I want what to have my thoughts in front of more people - the people who are really interested in it.

In the past I shirked away from New Media because I thought of it as being too sound bitey - listicles and snippets. But my thought is to bring out quality content and market the hell out of it. I need a seat at the table, and I need to start seeing different as being unique, rather than being perpetually exiled.

The point of all of this is that it’s forced my hand - learning and actively executing marketing strategies will be my next habit. I really have no idea what I’m doing, so I’ll be learning - a lot of my beginning instances of the habit will involve reading. Here’s my mental contrasting and protocol right now:

Mental Contrasting: What are the positive things that could happen if I master this habit? Ideally I’ll be able to get my thoughts, my research, and my stories (for my travel blog) out in front of a sizeable group of people. I’ll be a part of a community of people who research and write about this material. I’ll ideally be able to attract interest in these subjects - be it people who want  me to test out products to publishers. I can establish myself as an expert at my subjects. And I’ll be able to circumvent many of the problems I see in the industry - incompetent editors, advertorials rather than truthful stories, honesty instead of selling a product. I’ll also hopefully get people trying and contributing to my techniques on this blog.

What things could get in my way? Getting lost in research rather than executing concrete tasks. Feeling like I have to know everything before getting started. Spending too much time on social media marketing instead of understanding it’s little bits over time that result in the greatest reward. Not having enough energy after editing and re-editing, for example, pieces for the blog or crossposting. I’ll want to re-edit things over and over compulsively out of nervousness. Getting angry at having to do this - I feel anger from a sense of not being acknowledged is a big problem with this and it’s a big reason why I haven’t done it until now. Feeling too shy to share my ideas, like I’m not good enough. Not having the correct mental frame - “the worst thing they can say is ‘no’”. Not being confident or brazen enough. Feeling frustrated and feeling like the world should be a certain way where good ideas should rise to the top, when in fact marketing is a huge part of the process.

Implementation Intention: As soon as I am done with my writing habit, I will spend 20 minutes researching social media (TinyHabit) or 20 minutes engaging in actionable tasks regarding online marketing. This can be done in conjunction with my dynamic meditation habit.

Dynamic Med Notes (20 min):
x2 arising caught
x4 fidgeting
x2 grounding of nervousness - caught - used chakra clenching
x2 Rising nervousness, cured with chakra clenching, resulted in laughter
x3 future negative projection - caught
x3 grounding of fear countered with relaxation
x5 laughter
calm serenity while reading something that stresses me out
Notes: Although arisings occurred a lot in this session, I caught it at a precursor state more. And I was able to counter arisings efficiently, which almost immediately resulted in a sense of laughter in having the choice and freedom of being happy - the exact state that I’ve been trying to recapture.