Happy Wednesday, Wise Owl Nation!

When life gets stale, life gets boring. No one has to live a bored life. With that said, no matter who you are, what you've accomplished, or where you are going, you are eventually going to hit a plateau of some kind.

You will know it's happened when you stop feeling the benefits of your workouts, your routines don't fill you with excitement or focus anymore, and life just becomes the same day over and over again.

This happens to everyone, no matter what stage of life you're in. It's called the hedonic treadmill, which is the human tendency to return to a stable level of contentedness with life regardless of what positive or negative things happen to us.

Basically, we get used to things. Gourmet food becomes just regular food if you eat it every day. A breakup gets less painful over time as we experience life and accumulate memories without that person.

The hedonic treadmill can be both useful and a pain in the ass, and this week we are going to talk about how to shake things up to keep your self-improvement journey fresh.

Let's get into it.

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Wisdom Tip of The Week: Shake Things Up

Later on in the newsletter you'll see our quote of the week. Spoiler warning - our quote of the week is:

"The opposite of love isn't hate; it's indifference." - Steven Pressfield

This is an eternal truth that applies to all areas of life. Water that stops moving becomes stagnant and toxic to drink. Has any part of your life become stagnant?

Humans are inherently creatures of change. We all need it to varying degrees, and this is especially true when trying to develop good habits or improve yourself.

Add or subtract things from your routine: One of my favorite things to do to throw myself off and shake things up is to add some new task to my morning routine.

For example - I recently started drinking a protein shake in the morning instead of purely intermittent fasting. I drink this shake in the middle of my morning routine, and I'm finding that the entire routine feels new again.

Move furniture around: I have to give my fiancé Megan props for this one. When we first started dating I never moved furniture around. I didn't see the point of it at all. Within a few short months of dating her, she had rearranged every single room in my house.

I despised the idea at first, but because we had not dated long I gave in to see how things went. The change was dramatic. It felt like I had a brand-new house in some ways. Megan shook things up and changed the environment I lived in, which changed all my routines within that environment.

It was great, and now she still has us shake things up in our house every few months.

How to Shake Things Up To Get Healthier:

All routines eventually must change, or they stop adding as much value. This is never truer than when strengthening your body.

The human body is designed to become efficient over time. No matter what exercises you do, what food you eat, or what vitamins you take, your body will adapt to it fairly quickly.

Regarding vitamins/supplements - when taking vitamins or supplements it is always recommended to not take them every day, and once every few months take an entire week off from taking them. Why? Because your body gets used to it and the supplements become less effective. You build up a tolerance.

Regarding Exercise - The more often you do an exercise, the better your body gets at doing it, and the fewer calories you will burn. This is common sense, but it's important to bring up.

When an exercise you do starts to get too easy, shake things up.

• Jog for a small portion of your walk.
• Add or subtract reps from your weight lifting
• Change the exercise completely

Shock your system every once in a while with a change of pace, and you will be much better off.

What To Shake Up To Continue Building Wealth:

When it comes to building wealth, the consistent approach always leads to the best results over time. This is especially true with investing.

However, as I mention almost every week, there are four ways to build wealth, and even though investing is not the section you should shake things up, the other sections can profit from change.

Shake up how you reduce your expenses: Think about this for a second. What you spend money on directly impacts what you experience in life.

If you don't spend money on Netflix, you don't get to watch Netflix. If you spend money to go experience an Escape Room, then you make memories and challenge yourself.

By the very nature of changing how you spend your money, you change various aspects of your life, injecting new and fresh experiences.

I'm a big fan of conscious spending - basically spend lavishly in areas you love, and ruthlessly cut spending in areas you don't.

For me this means I order food multiple times a week, and almost never buy new clothes. In a typical month I spend around $500 on food, and over 90% of that food is ordered via DoorDash or take out.

This is because I love the time I save not cooking, as well as the opportunity to eat many kinds of foods each week. I love it. The novelty and change spices up my week.

What can you shake up in how you spend your money the rest of this month?

Shake up how you make money: This one is pretty straightforward, but how many of you have a job you don't love anymore? Shake things up!

I can't tell you how much better switching jobs can be if you've let it go too long. You can normally get a pretty large boost in pay when moving to a new job, as you will usually be offered the going market value of the position.

You can also shake things up by adding new income streams. This is not easy, but if you succeed your financial situation can dramatically improve.

How you spend your time matters: The point here is that most of us spend most of our time either working to earn money, or spending money on people, places, or things.

So if you can shake things up before they get stale, you will have a much better time earning and spending money.

Quote of the week:

More Resources

I will be adding to this section over time as we find resources that will help you all.

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