The Personal Reset

In the monthly Hardcover Report email + blog post this past month, I talked about the concept of a personal reset. It’s a topic I’ve touched on a bunch in the past, but this past reset has felt unusually productive for me. I wanted to share a few things about what I’ve been doing that have been working (and also using this a bit of personal journaling so I’m more consciencously aware of what’s working 😅).

A personal reset, as I’ve dubbed it, is a time when you decide to make a notable change in your routine when you realize your current path isn’t taking you where you want it to. Resets come in all sizes – from upending your life and living in the woods, to making a few small tweaks that let you see the world from a new point of view.

My personal reset in June (which is still ongoing) is more of a medium one. Let’s start with a brain dump of what’s changed since then and why.

In June, my wife and I took a 2-week road trip with our dog from Salt Lake City, UT to Milwaukee, WN to visit some friends and explore a few states we’d never been to. One of my personal goals before I turn 50 is to visit all 50 states – and this trip brought my up to 48 (Alaskan cruise ’27 and Hawaiian Vacation ~’28-’31 are next).

After weeks of staying in new beds each night, stopping at gas stations and rest areas for Bucky to sniff around, and constantly being on the go, coming home felt like the vacation. It was the perfect time to shake up my schedule.

Each week on Sunday, I try to spend some time reflecting in some way on what I want, what’s working for me in life, relationships, health, etc. Some weeks that means journaling, sometimes it’s setting a bunch of Todoist tasks for the week. Some weeks I skip it and end up feeling more stressed the following week. When I do this step, I feel more grounded.

In this case, I was unhappy with the direction I was going in a few areas. I’d put on ~20 pounds from where I was 2 years ago (175 lbs vs 155 lbs) when I was working with an online personal trainer. I’ve been having uncomfortable back pain. I’ve had some sore spots in my mouth I’ve been going in and out of dentist appointments for. I’d somehow been spending an increasing amount of time on social media. I’d also started having a wind down cocktail of beer more nights than not.

Things weren’t bad, but they weren’t heading in the direction I wanted to go in. So I used the post-roadtrip routine disruption to my advantage and decided to shake things up! I wrote up a very short list of changes I wanted to make.

Here’s what I ended up doing:

• Social Media & Mental Health
  • Completely stop any short form video content consumption. It’s just too addicting. I stopped TikTok in
  • Took a 1-month break completely from Reddit, doing a digital detox.
  • Play more video games
  • Don’t work on Hardcover on weekends
  • Buy any books or other things needed to spend more time supporting these habits
• Diet
  • Started tracking what I ate in the LoseIt, setting a goal weight and aiming to eat within the caloric restrictions (even getting close to that target is better than being way over).
  • Stop drinking alcohol except socially and on special occasions (ex: World Cup Final).
• Physical Health
  • Started working with a physical therapist for my back pain with daily stretches and exercises.
  • Formalized my workout schedule to Peloton (MWF) and weight training at the gym (TR) with weekends
  • Start Invisalign and find solutions for my one sore tooth (spoiler: it was cavity under an old filling which required a crown).
• Home Improvements
  • Focus on making incremental improvements to our home, tackling projects that have lingered around and need attention. Practically this means doing ~30 minutes of work maximum on weekdays, and a little more on weekends
  • Create a back porch that we want to hang out on (when it’s not unbearably hot at least).

As of early August, I’m 7-weeks into this Personal Reset. I’ve missed workouts and food tracking, and spent some time on Reddit after my month break, but overall the changes are positively impacting my mindset.

The three most impactful changes were by far changing my social media habits, reducing alcohol and exercising more. One day I considered having a cocktail and winding down with some Reddit, and I instead did a Peloton workout. 😂 I absolutely felt better after that hour than I would have otherwise.

One realization I’ve had this round of changes (and have encountered before), was to not just remove habits, but to replace them. Often if I’m feeling antsy to do something, I’ll grab Bucky’s leash and go for a walk with him. He likes it more, and I feel better after.

The end result of all of this is that I’m feeling healthier, more productive, and (slightly) less stressed out. After 3-weeks of Invisalign I’m starting to get the hang of taking them out. 45-minute Peloton workouts are becoming easier.

There are areas I’m still working on. I have another crown I still need to get done, I’ve fallen back into watching short form video once or twice, and some days I just absolutely don’t feel like doing any tasks around the house. I’ve been correcting course when I can and being OK with the idea of not being perfect in this routine.