Lock in and don't give a fuck

This phrase has changed my way of thinking and my life

and i would like to advice you the same

Lock in and don't give a fuck

that is the only thing that will take you more towards your goals

and less towards your copes

by cope i mean the addictions that you indulge yourself into

don’t make me name them

To lock in and start to not give a fuck

the first step itself is to

1. Ditch your addictions :- The modern day advices has been the worst among the past decades , like really , masturbation has been modernized as a common thing to do , advices like “1 hour of video game is actually good for you “ , “one cheat meal is fine” , “ smoking weed actually helps you to focus “ and zillions of this bullshit advice and this whole coolisification of partying and doing drugs , getting high , thanks to the hip-hop culture . But to lock in you really have to let go of this addictions ,

   right now in your mind you surely are thinking about a specific addiction that you feel that isn’t bad or you can leave that immediately if you want to, that’s the addiction you really need to focus right now cause those are the ones that are stagnating your progress at the moment and honestly for me it was video games and masturbation for a long time until the last year when i decided to ditch them all and lock in .

   Now you would be wondering how can you do it and how i personally did it , well I followed a concept of “compound overtime” meaning that rather than focusing on completely getting rid of my addictions i focused to get it down overtime , for example someone who is smoking weed 5 times a day , tries his best and smokes 4 times a day instead of his usual 5 times a day , tbh that’s progress bro and the next goal would be to take that number to 3 then to 2 and so on . That’s the process that worked for me , for others and will work for you as well , just when the urge hit’s you try to resist it with your best effort and overtime increase the compound of your resistance and soon enough that urge will be gone .

2. Set goals :- Goals give you a direction and a plan to execute your desires and the things you want from yourself but the norms of goal setting have been seen vague and unproductive especially after James clear’s Atomic habits , urging to create systems instead of goals . First of all Goalsetting itself is a highly planned system if done correctly but the real problem is with how goalsetting is done itself , either one picks goals that are too generic with no concrete measuring metrics like “Get rich” , “Get girls” , “Retire my parents” etc or just pick goals that are meant to be achieved in a long time span but they expect it to be done by a day or something for example leaving an addiction that you were addicted to for years . For the first scenario , yeah getting rich should be goal but it doesn’t answer how and when you’re going to accomplish your goals , that goal needs to be breaked down into smaller specific and achievable goals first which will overtime compound and help you to accomplish the big goal , for example here getting rich . For the second scenario , c’mon bro you’re not going to get to 20 pushups after months of no movement or get over a year long addiction just one random day , that’s just childish behaviour , similarly you need to break down your goals into more simple and achievable goals.
   Now, i use a specific practice for goalsetting and i want you to follow the same . First grab yourself a piece of paper or notebook with pen or open your notes app and write 7-9 goals that you want to accomplish within the the next 6 months like right now and be little delusional with a mindset that even if i don’t get it with my best effort and consistency i will be happy that in the process i made progress .

   Now , if you’re done tick the most important 2-3 goals to you in the list and literally right now cross-out all the other goals in the list , those are nothing but obstacles that are narrowing down your chances to accomplish the actual 2-3 goals in your list . Now over these 6 months consistently like a religion you should be focused on getting this goals done without thinking about anything else .

   Another practice that you should be doing is creating daily to-do list either in notion or paper and list them in priority order of 1 to 4 where 1 is the task that needs to be get done immediately while 4 being a task that can wait or can be completed after the most priority task been done. Or you can scrap all this and use an app called todolist which exactly has this feature and is more effective and organised than notion or normal paper . If you want a tutorial just , Lemme know.

3. Set good habits :- After leaving those addiction and bad habits you need something to build back your focus and something to sustain that fire inside you to lock in and stop giving a fuck . These habits are Meditation, Journaling , Reading and any form of physical workout it can be weight training , calisthenics , athletics , sports or martial art. Talking about each of these habits and there benefits will let alone take up this whole email . I have covered meditation , journaling and martial arts in brief in my earlier posts , i will link them down below for further depth .

   In brief meditation is a mindful practice where you sit down , eyes closed down , blank your mind and focus on your breathing and peaceful sound of the nature. Now remember this words i am gonna say to you , Real meditation isn’t being be able to be fully in the unwavered mode , it’s common for anyone to get distracted middle of the session , the real meditation starts when one pulls back from those thoughts and again and again puts him back to focus throughout the session . It’s been an advice i never hear people talk about and beginners either learn meditation the wrong way like myself or either get off it quick for being too hard. Meditation is indeed a habit that requires grit to master , but from this whole email if you just take this habit and close this email forever , I can guarantee one thing that this habit will definitely change your life take you closer to your goals .

   Now coming to journaling , there are mainly 3 types of journaling 1. Gratitude journaling 2. Daily/weekly journaling 3. Deep journaling . In gratitude journaling basically you write about 5 things you’re grateful for , it can be anything , your phone , bed , mom etc , this habit increases your humility and enhance your overall mental well being . The second type of journaling is like noting down everything that happened over a day or over a week as daily or weekly review, this was practiced by stoic philosophers like Marcus Aurelius , Seneca and many others . The final type of journaling as the name suggest is deep journaling where you take a topic and literally write your thoughts on it for hours until you’re satisfied with your conclusion . Doing all of these types of journaling in different volumes is what you should be doing , for example every day after after waking up within just 5 minutes you can do gratitude journaling then you can do weekly journaling where you can write about what went right or wrong this week , learnings , room for improvements and progress . While you can use deep journaling to go full deep with your conflicting thoughts or either just do it when you feel a urge of doing a bad habit by journaling on why you feel the urge and why you shouldn’t do it .

   Now to Reading , it’s just a habit that can build you in anything , it’s just that in what things you wish to grown on , it can be self improvement , productivity , business or a specific skill . A common misconception about reading that you will hear a lot is that “just reading and not taking actions or not applying what you learned makes reading useless.“ . I can assure one thing that it’s a complete myth infact , just by reading or just consuming a form of content you rewire your brain towards the idea or ideology the book or content talks about , but yeah you should definitely try the things you’re being told about in the books . I will link down my book recommendation for every niche so you don’t have to waste time finding one .

   Finally working out , honestly nothing much to say here just follow the upper lower split for weight training/Calisthenics 3-4 days a week and on rest days or before workout throw some form of cardio like running , a sport like football or basketball or any form of martial arts . Your working out routine should be based on your current state , goal and time commitment . Note be consistent , prioritise rest and nutrition , have fun and don’t feel guilty for not taking actions in the past , past is the past , present is what you got and future is what you get for working and living in the present .

4. Cutoff unwanted noise and people and start saying no more than yes :- Until now we talked about how you can lock in but now you’re going to learn how to start not giving a fuck . The first step is simply to cutoff unwanted people and noise . What I mean by that is that there are certain peoples and things in your life that doesn’t brings you any value to your life and most cases these are the things that drag you down . While we have covered how to get rid of your addictions and bad habits , now we have to get rid of that noise and people who are gonna call you out when you lock in . And to do this you’re gonna start saying no’s more than yeses . For example when your game friends call you on discord or you’re being invited for another of those parties , politely just say no and do this a few times and you will notice that those are the ones who will move on from you than you were to . I know cutting off friends and accepting loneliness isn’t just something you can do it right there , but remember bro , the friendship you have with those guys isn’t what we call brotherhood bro , your friendship only exist on one or two activities and when you dropout of it they are gone as well . If anything you can take from this is that start saying more no’s then yeses.

5. (Bonus) Invest yourself into atleast one high paying skill :- If your goal is to one day be financially free or get rich , you need a high paying skill to get you there . Why I included this as a bonus is because many of you reading this maybe are more focused on a high paying academic career but many of us like myself know that the education system aren’t taking any of us anywhere in life , and so we need to master a craft on our own and solve the problems of the ones with money so that we get paid for making them more money. Diving to my personal journey , I focused on one or rather two major high paying skills called copywriting and creative writing (both are almost identical) and now earn $300-$400/month( I am from India , and it’s good money here) from it , doing a paid email marketing internship and create content for you all through this newsletter , and my YouTube channel while being a full-time Ecom major and constantly working on myself . That income didn’t come overnight but a whole year of hard work and grit with infinite failures and even now I am working for the 1k/month bench mark for my next 6 month goals .

   Now you don’t have to be copywriter like me , I chose it because I like writing and the impact it bring to ones life , instead i am giving you a protocol to find your own path

   So Firstly fetch yourself a big paper and then on the extreme 4 corners write the 4 questions

   What you love to do ?

   what you’re good at ?

   What the world needs from you ?

   What you can be paid for ?

   Now answer this questions without any hesitation , this can be anything just be honest with yourself as every human in this world has some solid answers to this 4 questions .

   now on the centre write the things that are connected to each other (like for example you love to sing and you’re quite good it , you can be paid good for it and the world needs more and more artists)

   Boom you got your Ikigai (Japanese of purpose) and your high paying skill .

   like literally right now you can do this exercise and deep journal to this , and to learn this go to YouTube , research on it , get books and resource , constantly practice and let the world know that you do this through social media . Pro tip , be more unique and specific that’s what will make you standout .

That’s it for this email , apply all of this right now into your life and

 lock in and start not giving a fuck

with regards ,

Subhajit