Marcus Aurelius is the world's most

famous stoic philosopher and the

philosophy of stoicism promises some

pretty incredible things first of all it

promises that if you follow it you're

going to be able to make the correct

decisions every single time and also

you're gonna live a tranquil life is a

word they use a lot and a life that's

just full of balance where everything

just fits in its right place now these

things are quite extreme and everyone

wants to live a life like that

so to put it to the test I decided to do

Marcus Aurelius it's evening routine

every single day for 28 days and see

what happened it's important to note

that everything I'm doing here the six

concepts I'm going to talk about it's

taken from Marcus Aurelius meditations

which is the private Journal that he

used to have and if you look for the

breast translation of that you can find

it by clicking the link in the

description also if you enjoy this video

at any point in time then make sure you

just give it a like by clicking the like

rating it really helps out the YouTube

algorithm and finally we're going to be

talking about the six things that I did

every single evening for the past 28

days and finally we're going to talk

about the benefits after we took whether

six things and how they actually changed

my life so the first thing I did every

single evening was what the Stoics

called contemplation of this age and in

marks releases meditations he would

often ask himself the question what

would Zeno do and it doesn't matter who

you're looking up to for Marx realists

zina was the person he looked up to but

for you it can be anyone and the point

of doing this is that the person that

you're looking up to has some character

traits that you want to have which means

that when it comes down to making a

decision as your day goes by you can

simply ask yourself the question what

would the person I'm looking up to do in

this decision and you disassociate

yourself from the decision you're not

letting your emotions dictate but

instead you're deciding what's best for

you and acting upon that relentlessly

now I've actually taken this one step

further and I think an even better

exercise is to simply compare yourself

to your ideal character traits because I

think instead of comparing yourself to

someone else or where someone else's

today you should be comparing yourself

to where you were yesterday so my life

philosophy is very very simple and I'll

quickly explain it to you right here

first of all you define exactly what you

want in life then you define who you

need to become in order to achieve that

dream life easily then you define where

you are now the kind of person

you are now and then simply every single

day you try to get from where you are

now closer towards the kind of person

you want to be so I've lifted out a long

list of character traits of the kind of

person that I want to be and for my

contemplation of this age whatever a

decision would come up or in the evening

I would simply dream about this kind of

person and that helped me make the

correct decisions throughout my day the

second thing is called a view from above

put very simply is where you view

yourself from a third person point of

view similar to as if you're playing a

video game now there's a couple ways

that you can do this first of all you

zoom out and you see yourself in third

person and you keep zooming out until

you see I don't know the streets around

you you keep zooming out until you see

the city around you and you keep zooming

out keeps where keep zooming out until

you can see the whole world and the

point of doing this is meant to put

everything in perspective when you can

look around and you can notice the

people that have in the first kisses

will notice the people that are starving

in a different country everything all of

your problems that you constantly think

about a put in perspective because when

you recognize that everyone else has

problems just as big as you then your

perspective on things completely change

you're not going to want to complain

you're wanting to make the most out of

your life and so on and so on

but there's also a second way of doing

it and that is similar to the first

exercise we talked about and that is

actually going on around about your day

view yourself as if you're playing a

video game and that you are simply a

character what this does is again you're

dis is so chasing yourself from your

emotions and this sounds bad but you can

actually see a lot of benefits from it

because when there's times that you want

to procrastinate there's times you want

to be lazy by simply viewing yourself as

if you were a character it gives you so

much more control over the actions that

you take instead of being at the whims

of the environment around you or the

emotions that you're feeling instead

take control of yourself by viewing

yourself from a third-person and make

the correct decisions that way I do this

again and again and again throughout my

life and especially in the past 28 days

and I've noticed a huge benefit which

again we'll talk about at the end of

this video the third thing is simply

physical exercise Marcus Aurelius

noticed the importance of physical

exercise not just because you look

better in fact he even looked down upon

that because he was saying that if you

exercise to look better that's just you

being vain but also because the more you

work on your body the better you

to work on your mind the body and mind

are very closely linked marks released

notice that so for this this experiment

I was working out every single day

closer towards the evening a number for

is meditation and this is going to be an

interesting point and probably not one

that you've ever heard of before I'm not

gonna be talking about the Buddhist

meditation but there's actually another

benefit of meditation that I started to

notice as I was doing this 28-day

exercise and when you start meditating

there'll be times where you'll feel an

itch and at the start you go and you

itch it straight away

but with time and hours of meditation

you recognize that that itch you don't

have to itch it and you can control your

body and although it might be tempting

to go and scratch that itch the more you

meditate the more you learn that it's

actually beneficial to not scratch that

itch and with time the itch just

disappears in and of itself why is this

important because with time and

meditation you can learn to control your

body to not scratch that itch but that

is exactly the same thing that you can

do when you're in out in the real world

for example you're in a meeting and

everyone around you is just getting

snappy and someone says a comment to you

and it makes you angry that itch you

feel to snap back is very similar to the

physical each you feel when you're

meditating but just like meditation can

practice your ability to not scratch

that itch in the real world

practicing meditation can stop you from

acting on that itch to shouts out and

have an argument with the other person

the example cats gets applied to all of

these different things but I notice that

meditating and this is something that

Marcus Aurelius noted meditating lets

you control your actions to a far

greater degree than anything else that

I've ever found and controlling your

actions is just so important activity

number five that I did for the past 28

days is simply reviewing the day now

there's something I've actually been

doing for a lot longer than 28 days but

I've been emphasizing it and making sure

that I spent a lot of time doing it

because it's something that marks

radiused mentioned and he said he was

very very important now why would you

review your day or before why what do

you mean when you say review the day

it's simply sitting in the evening and

thinking back on the day what happened

what do you remember what went well what

didn't go well it's just

simply thinking about the day as it went

by as chronologically as you can why

would you do this well there's three

benefits first of all by remembering

your date you're able to congratulate

yourself for the things that you did

well and why don't you let congratulate

yourself well because when you

congratulate yourself your body's more

likely to do that thing again

just like when you train a dog he does

something good you give it a treat it's

more likely to do it again if you sit

down and you take the time to

congratulate yourself for the things

that you did well you're more likely to

do it again second benefit is you're

able to identify the problems that you

did where you went wrong and if you

pinpoint and select and highlight the

things that you did wrong you know

exactly what you need to fix the next

day whereas if you don't review a day

you end up forgetting about it your

brain makes rationalizations for why

that thing happened and you just ignore

it the third benefit is you're able to

see how far forward from your goals you

are getting are you on track to reach

your goals are you not on track to you

need to do something different reviewing

your day will let you do that as well

and review my day for the past 28 days

and when I mean reviewing I mean taking

a solid five minute period to sit back

and think right what happened what

happened what happened that has been a

great benefit to me and I'm able to

improve my life again and again and

again every single day make those 1%

improvements that we all no matter so

much

and finally journaling journaling will

change your life if you can simply get

the habit of journaling your life will

be absolutely changed now the last video

I made was about journaling and that

video is going to show you first of all

how to journal but then second how to

actually keep the habit of journaling if

you want to watch that then it's up in

one of these these corners go ahead and

click that link and this it's an

incredible video now finally let's get

on to how these six exercises has

impacted my life first of all I feel

happier there is no other way to

describe it then happiness or

fulfillment basically from what I've

been doing I just feel happier in

general and I think this is from two

different reasons first of all these six

things that I've been doing have made me

a more effective person the journaling

and the reviewing my day it helps me

solve the problems that I'm having in my

life I get more done and as you know

growing getting more done

is deep-rooted within us to give us

fulfillment also the meditation has been

scientifically proven to increase

happiness so that's the first benefit

second benefit less stress things just

feel like they're taken care of I don't

have so many nagging worries of all I

need to do this thing oh I should have

done that thing better no it's

disappeared

instead I'm content with my time I'm

content with what I did for the day

because also no time gets wasted well

very little gets time wasted I feel like

a machine getting stuff done at a rate I

have never achieved before these 28 days

has completely pivoted my life because

I've been so much more disciplined with

myself so much more focused on the

things I need to do I outlined six

things I need to do on a day-to-day

basis and it's impacted me and it's

impacted my productivity a ridiculous

amount third of all I have more energy I

feel that my momentum is taking me to

crazy places I feel that my future is

gonna be brighter than it's ever been

before I've moved so much I've got so

much done I've taken so much action and

so much has happened the results I've

been gaining have been insane and it's

giving me this momentum that's just

carrying me forward like a huge tidal

wave like I think that's the only way I

can describe it I feel it and almost

I've built the habit so much that

there's this tidal wave that just

pushing me towards where I want to be

and it's so exciting that is excitement

that excitement is what's giving me all

of this energy it's like a reoccurring

cycle when you start to make

improvements in your life more other

beneficial things happen to you which

encouraged you to make more improvements

which means more beneficial things

happen to you and so on and so on and so

on until you get this crazy exponential

curve and I feel like I'm right at the

beginning of that curve and finally I

don't know if you've been able to tell

but my confidence feels through the roof

when things get done I feel confident

it's simple if you lack confidence

there's a couple of options

number one you can try trick your brain

into thinking you're good at doing

things

second of all you can just get stuff

done and when you get stuff done you

prove to your brain you give it physical

evidence you can reach your goals and

when you reach your goals you get more

which makes you set bigger goals and

that confidence helps you to reach those

goals and again it's the exponential

curve and I feel like I'm right at the

beginning if you want to join me on this

crazy journey and you want to improve

your life day by day by day then go

ahead and click that subscribe button if

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you give it a like it helps with the

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appreciate it finally let me know down

in the comments section which one of

these exercises were your favorite and

also if you are gonna start doing Marcus

Alyssa's evening routine thank you so

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much for watching