So... it's 12 days now on USLM v3 (a bit over a month on USLM overall), so guess it's time for another short update. What I've noticed so far:
- As mentioned in my last post, my social anxiety is reduced - I have less trouble talking to people or looking people in the eye, generally more confident in social situations
- I'm way more productive at work. Over the last week I've finally managed to get rid of all the stuff that I had waiting on my long to-do list, but never managed to. So at least job-wise USLM has also helped with procrastination
- Also work-related: I've found that when presenting ideas or leading business calls, I am a lot more confident than before, and my speech is more fluent, less hesitant.
- I've never been exactly great at keeping my apartment clean - this has become a lot better. For the first time in my life guest won't have to announce themselves a week in advance, so I have enough time to clean this mess here.
- I've started working out again (though only a little), and I don't have any difficulty staying on a very clean & healthy diet. Though the last point is not that unusual for me, I have an easier time staying away from the late evening extra bites of food that I usually had before. One of my goals is to loose a certain amount of weight, so both of these points help with that goal.
- Every now and then I feel like having more energy.
- I do practice piano a little more regularly, but not nearly as much as I should. Becoming a good pianist is another one of my goals, so more regular practice of course is needed. I'm not sure if USLM will help with that when I continue listening, or if this would actually be more of a case of UMOP instead (got that one too, heavily resisted the initial new version, but didn't try the v2 yet. I'm planning to stay on USLM for at least a month more).
- Learning composition is on my list of goals, yet not much happened here in terms of feeling more motivated to work at that. Thinking of just starting to sit at my piano or in front of my DAW and starting with that seems to trigger some weird mental resistance still. Maybe also rather a case for UMOP - who knows...
- I can't say that I've seen anything that I could attribute to the Luck Maximizer as of yet
Some of the points above are more consistent than others. On the anxiety I actually had two days last week when I felt a pretty bad case of anxiety - maybe not too far from a little panic attack - when riding the subway to work. It was very crowded in there, and I very much dislike being so closed in with many strangers. I guess that triggered it. Was way worse than it was since a long time. Possibly USLM had brought up a fear related to this in the day(s) before? On the days after this got a lot better again.
So overall I like this sub so far - finally one again that I seem to not just resist. I'm not entirely sure, but besides the new FRM this might also be related to me listening to it in better ways now - I'm running 2 or 3 of the 5 loops in the evening via headphones. And the remaining loops then immediately afterwards on speaker in my bedroom. Those speakers were previously on my wall, not producing much of a stereo field - I've now taking them down and placed them on ear height to the left and right of my head. This might have helped with the execution as well.
So in theory the sub usage for most of 2019 is planned out already.