I’ve seen a lot of “day in the life” videos during my two decades on the internet.
You know the ones.
Some millionaire with muscles like He-Man wakes up at 5 a.m., does cardio in the dark, takes an ice-cold shower, meditates, journals, eats a perfectly measured breakfast, works in 90-minute deep-work blocks, hits the gym, reads Marcus Aurelius, and goes device-free by 8 p.m.
As if the secret to freedom is following the most rigid routine on planet Earth.
Ha!
Unfortunately, people watch this crap and start thinking the routine is what made the guy successful.
Maybe if I wake up at 5 a.m…
Maybe if I start taking cold showers…
Maybe if I meditate every morning…
Then I’ll finally make it.
I know because I used to be one of them.
I Fell for the Perfect-Routine Trap
About 12 years ago, I bought a discipline training course and followed the thing almost perfectly for 100 days.
I woke up when I was supposed to. Followed the habits. Checked the boxes. Did the uncomfortable shit because I’d been convinced that doing uncomfortable shit was somehow the road to success.
And after 100 days?
Was I rich?
Nope.
Had I transformed into some unstoppable superhuman?
Nope.
I got some benefits from the structure and proved to myself that I could stick with something difficult. But I also became weirdly obsessed with waking up at 5 a.m.
The guy who sold me the course was successful and woke up early, so somewhere along the way I started believing:
If I want what he has, I need to live like he lives.
And that was ridiculous.
At the time, I was already supporting myself online working around 15–20 hours per week. I was single, had almost no obligations, and split a roughly $300-a-month apartment with two roommates.
I was already living a version of the freedom I supposedly wanted.
Yet I was making myself feel like a failure because I wasn’t waking up at the ass-crack of dawn.
I wasn’t building my life anymore.
I was copying his.
I Was Copying an Image
Years later, I found out that the same guy I’d practically idolized had gone through serious personal problems and was facing a criminal case involving hundreds of thousands of dollars in unpaid taxes.
That taught me something.
I never knew his life. I knew what he showed me.
I saw the routine, discipline, and image of success. Then I filled in the blanks and assumed one had caused the other.
People still do this constantly.
They see the mansion, Lamborghini, six-pack abs, 5 a.m. alarm, and ice bath and think:
There it is. That’s the formula.
Maybe some of those habits helped.
Maybe they didn’t.
But waking up at 5 a.m. didn’t magically deposit millions of dollars into his bank account.
And taking cold showers sure as hell didn’t build his business.
Useful Doesn’t Mean Necessary
I’m not saying routines are useless.
I’m not saying waking up early, meditating, journaling, reading, exercising, or taking cold showers can’t be beneficial.
They can.
But:
Useful doesn’t mean necessary. And difficult doesn’t mean productive.
If waking up at 5 a.m. gives you three uninterrupted hours to work before your kids wake up, fantastic. Set the alarm.
If meditation makes you calmer and more focused, meditate.
If taking an ice bath makes you feel like Superman, freeze your balls off.
Just don’t convince yourself that refusing to freeze your balls off is why your business isn’t making money.
That’s where self-improvement becomes self-imprisonment.
You stop asking:
“Does this help me get where I’m trying to go?”
And start asking:
“Am I being disciplined enough?”
Those aren’t the same question.
The Routine Isn’t the Result
Here’s something else worth remembering:
A lot of people selling the “perfect routine” didn’t become rich because of the routine.
They became rich selling you the routine.
Wake up at 5 a.m. Take this supplement. Perform these 12 habits. Follow this morning protocol.
That stuff is easy to package and sell.
This isn’t:
Figure out what you actually want and consistently do the boring shit required to get there.
But I think that’s much closer to the truth.
Uncle Blayde’s “Imperfect” Perfect Routine
Once I stopped worrying about how successful people were supposedly living, I started building my days around something much simpler:
The life I actually wanted.
My typical day looks something like this:
I wake up whenever my body tells me to, usually around 10 a.m., and lie in bed half-asleep until around 11. Then I get up, make some Nescafé, fix my bed hair in case anyone knocks, and sit down to work on my business.
I usually finish around 2 p.m. and head to the gym, tianguis, bank, tanning salon, barber, or wherever else I need to go. I eat one big meal around 6 p.m., spend some time on the couch recovering from mal del puerco, then journal, clean up the house, and usually go to bed around 2 a.m.
That’s basically it.
No 5 a.m. alarm. No ice bath. No pretending I’m training for the Navy SEALs when I’m actually sitting behind a computer running a business.
And despite waking up “late,” I make more progress on my business than I did when I was obsessing over somebody else’s perfect routine.
My Routine Serves My Life
There is one important catch:
The work still gets done.
If I woke up at 10 a.m., drank coffee, watched YouTube for seven hours, played video games until midnight, and then told myself I was “listening to my body,” I’d be full of shit.
Freedom doesn’t mean avoiding responsibility.
To me, it means removing unnecessary obligations so I have more control over my time.
That’s what I’ve always wanted.
So why would I deliberately create a life filled with arbitrary rules that have nothing to do with getting me there?
How could I build a life based on freedom while forcing myself to wake up at the ass-crack of dawn and perform hours of rituals I don’t need?
It makes no sense.
My routine should serve my life. My life shouldn’t serve my routine.
Build Your Routine Backward
So forget about the “perfect” routine for a minute and ask yourself what you’re actually trying to accomplish.
Then work backward.
What helps you get there?
Do more of it.
What gets in the way?
Do less of it.
Everything else is optional.
If your life requires waking up at 5 a.m., wake up at 5.
If waking up at 10 works better, wake up at 10.
If cold showers improve your life, freeze your balls off.
If they don’t, enjoy the hot water.
The point isn’t to avoid discipline. It’s to stop confusing discipline with ritual.
You don’t get extra points for making your life unnecessarily difficult.
Your routine is a tool.
Use it to build the life you actually want.
Don’t build your life around serving the tool.
Your man,
Uncle Blayde