Habits (Beard Project Day 1)

So today is the start of a journey. I’ve been into self development for about 3 years now. An emotionally traumatic breakup with a 2 year school girlfriend left 17 year old Jack heartbroken. In the months that followed I started working out, sorted out my image, learnt how to dress, gained confidence, improved academically and the list goes on.

Sometimes change is easy, when you have heartbreak or a driving force. A big change in routine or location. I now realise I was rewriting my daily habits to fill the time I had spent mindlessly sending emojis. We are talking about 30 hours a week here, (Yes, it was one of those relationships). This series of habit changes have made me the happy, confident human I am today.

Many of us however are quite stable in life, each day looks pretty identical. No habit change is worth us spontaneously creating a life crisis over, but because we are so comfortable it is almost impossible to leverage ourselves to make positive change in our life. Impossible to grow. We can rationalise for hours about how something will help us and how we should do it… but we just don’t.

If you can empathise with this, don’t worry. I think I have come up with a solution for half the human population. The beard.

The Beard Contract

Today I’m effectively writing myself a contract. A beard contract. Every 20 days I’m going to introduce a new habit to this contract or adjust an existing one. If I fail any of these habits, the beard gets shaven clean and once again I look like I’m 15. I’d always rather go to the gym and do a few squats than lose the hairy masterpiece.

The First Habit

The first habit should be an easy one I think. Something to get the ball rolling. However sensible that is though I’m going to do the opposite and confront my worst vice. Alongside writing a post here daily (which is a new habit), I am also going to confront my long-lasting coffee addiction about which I will write tomorrow. A few funny anecdotes of when I drank 23 cups in 5 hours may also appear.

Now I love coffee and don’t want to lose it entirely, I just don’t want to be reliant on it in the morning. So the rule is no coffee before midday and no coffee after 4pm. This is a habit I have tried to change before but have always failed at, it is if you will the beard’s first test.

At the moment all I have is a light stubble. Join me on the journey and one day our beards will blow in the wind. Already the most satisfying image in the world, it’ll be even better knowing those beard was earned and our lives are better for them.

Thank you for reading

Jack