During the late 2000s, virtually when I started this blog, there was a trend among young male entrepreneurs tabbed Monk Mode.
Everyone had a variegated idea of what that term meant, but often it referred to taking a definite period of time a week to three months or increasingly to focus with unusual intensity on unrepealable important and fruitful pursuits, while sober from unrepealable distracting or self-defeating activities.
Somewhat like a monk, you would voluntarily prefer a standard of heightened discipline, pursuit a few non-negotiable rules, in order to bring unrepealable important things to the fore of your life. A person might do this in order to launch a website, finish a manuscript, or return to the level of fitness they enjoyed in college.
The last time I heard this phrase was virtually 2009, and at the time it seemed indistinguishable from working nonflexible until I finish this current project, which is what I was unchangingly trying to do anyway.
The Ancient Art of Exponential Progress
Recently I heard the term Monk Mode again, and it had a ring to it that it didnt before. In intervening years Id been on five silent retreats, semi-monastic environments in which you sequester yourself from social and electronic diversions, and live by unrepealable rules of self-mastery tabbed precepts, in order to create the weightier possible conditions for up-and-coming your meditation practice in a relatively short time.
It really works. In seven or ten days you can permanently level up your wistful skills, perhaps as much as you would in several years of increasingly unstudied daily practice, considering of this short and intense accent on one thing.
This kind of regimen has to be short though. As potent as a silent retreat is, a week or increasingly yonder from the world is nonflexible to arrange, and keeping up that standard for months or years isnt practical. Too many things have to be sacrificed for too long.
The principle overdue the retreat format is very powerful though: double lanugo on unrepealable important activities, withhold from behaviors that undermine these efforts, and limit this intensified regimen to a short unbearable period that you can unquestionably well-constructed it, rather than quit in a huff or skid yonder from it gradually.
Monk Mode, as I woolgather of it, is a way of leveraging this principle to a less intense degree. You still focus on a unrepealable kind of self-development work for a short period (perhaps writing, meditating, practicing piano, or lifting barbells), you still commit to a list of no-nos during that time (perhaps no alcohol, no social media, or no sugar), but whispered from that you live life normally.
Essentially youre committing to a new lifestyle standard in unrepealable respects, but for a short unbearable time that you can sustain the effort to the end.
You might enter Monk Mode for a number of reasons:
- To finish a particular project
- To get past a plateau, or out of a rut
- To go deeper into an worriedness than you have before
- To get when into something youve been neglecting
- To end a period of complacency
For example, say you want to get when to your pre-pandemic level of fitness. The conventional way to go well-nigh this is the resolution approach. You slam your fist on the table, perhaps literally, and declare, Enough is enough! Starting today Im going to work out then and stop eating crap! Essentially, you’re making a lifelong transferral to live with greater willpower and sacrifice, with nothing overdue it but the emotional surge you are feeling in this moment. You once know how this tends to go.
What if, instead, you could enter a 14-day Monk Mode, in which you visit the gym three times a week, withhold from foods with widow sugar, and stretch dutifully every morning and evening. This transferral is finite and doable, and will undoubtedly put you on a much largest trajectory by the end of it. Then you icon out a sensible next step, from the new and increasingly confident place your stint in Monk Mode has brought you to.
If fourteen days is too much, make it seven. If sober from all widow sugar is too much, just do it for the breakfast meal. Dial the standard and elapsing to settings you know you can complete.
Four Essential Ingredients
Theoretically, you can do anything with your Monk Mode period. Maybe you want to deep wipe the house, well-constructed an online cooking undertow you bought last year, or read a big permafrost of Joan Didions work. Maybe you want to modernize your seat printing without a lengthy plateau, get yonder from TikTok and Reddit, or write a song for the first time in a decade.
(There are definitely parallels here to the Depth Year, if youre familiar with the concept, only with a closer and increasingly performable horizon.)
Whatever the goal, I believe a good Monk Mode plan should unchangingly involve:
- A transferral to do unrepealable amounts of unrepealable kinds of work
- A transferral to withhold from unrepealable distractions or vices
- Definite rules for both of these things
- A definite start and stop date
Whatever your particular commitments are, they should finger challenging but veritably doable for the elapsing youve chosen. Ambitious but not audacious.
They moreover need to be precise. Not Start working out again, but rather, Do the Stronglifts program three times a week for two weeks.
Thats my way of thinking well-nigh it, anyway. If you read online finance of Monk Mode, they’re all different. Many of them recommend long durations (one to three months) and involve isolating yourself socially somewhat, la Thoreau. I can see how that might help you enter a nose-to-grindstone mentality, but it would moreover make this a lot less wieldy for most people. (As I said, Monk Mode fans have historically been mostly young, entrepreneur-scene dudes.)
It does make sense to select solitary activities, however. Monk Mode is a transferral to facing your own hesitation andcomplacency, often in the form of taking up physical tools in a defended workspace just you and the barbell, the canvas, or the works of George Orwell.
My 10-day Monk Mode Experiment
Im going to do a short Monk Mode as my next Raptitude experiment.
My main goals are to reinvigorate my meditation practice as I prepare for a proper silent retreat in September, and to remind my soul what its like to lift barbells and leave swig and refined carbs out of my diet.
As opposed to my usual health-focused campaigns, Im not doing this with any sort of from this day forward type resolution, just a very doable 10-day stint of higher standards in these areas.
Each day, for the ten days, Im going to:
- Meditate 50 minutes in the morning and have at least one other sitting of at least 10 minutes
- Avoid all grains, widow sugar, cheese, and potatoes
- Abstain from swig and other substances
Im moreover going to:
- Fast completely on two of the days
- Do strength training six of eight the non-fasting days and run on the other two
Those are the parameters of my Monk Mode this time. I expect this regimen to bring me, without ten days, to a place where I finger physically and mentally pretty good. It should moreover unravel the momentum of unrepealable late summer laissez-faire consumption habits.
This experiment moreover happens to be a good opportunity to confront flipside long-held aversion, which is posting myself in video format. Instead of only doing the usual written updates on the experiment log, Ill moreover post video updates on Raptitudes new Instagram profile. You can follow me there if you want to track my progress or are otherwise curious.
If youd like to do your own Monk Mode project, finger self-ruling to share your plans in the comments here or on the experiment log page.
When you diamond your own regimen, just remember to make it modest and short unbearable that you know youll well-constructed it. You can go for the gold next time this time just make a finish line you can reach.
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Photos by Liz Sanchez-Vegas and Quinten de Graaf
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