I hope everyone had a great Valentine’s day this week! We have an exam week this week to mark the end of our Gastrointestinal, Endocrine, and Preventative Medicine block, so I’m going to keep this one short(ish).

Challenge Update: Last week I challenged myself to complete my reading goal at least 4 days out of the week. I started off strong on Sunday, but Monday and Tuesday proved to be challenging. I found myself scrambling to finish things for school every night all the way up to bedtime. I adjusted some things (and started the new challenge a little early) and read before bed every night for the rest of the week. I even finished a book that I’ve been chipping away at for months.

If anyone is interested in orthopedic surgery, I can’t recommend Hot Lights Cold Steel* enough! Dr. Michael Collins details his path through residency and it made me even more excited for the future ahead.

New Challenge: Marin sent me a TikTok at some point that was a clip of a podcast that Rob Dyrdek was on. I was a big fan of Rob when I was younger on his shows on MTV and even now I get a chuckle out of his show, Ridiculousness. In this clip, he detailed his system for tracking his time and how it leads to an insane productivity level.

This system had me thinking. I have made some challenges for myself and created some really great habits recently, but am still seeking to improve different aspects of my life. This week’s challenge is to track every minute of every day to be able to analyze how I spend my time and determine where I might be prioritizing the wrong things and how I can make changes to be more efficient. It’s pretty easy because I am still making an agenda every day (from a previous challenge) and I adjust it throughout the day to reflect what I actually did. I will have an update next week with the results!

Favorites of the week:

2. Quote: I don’t think this one needs much explanation.

“It's never too late to be what you might have been.” ―George Eliot.

3. 🤓 Thing I Learned: There were a few instances this week where previous thoughts that I’ve shared in this newsletter and mantras that I’ve lived by have been challenged. Last week, I shared that you shouldn’t be afraid of failure, but you should learn from it when it happens. This isn’t to say that you shouldn’t care if you fail. You should absolutely avoid failure if possible, but no one is perfect, you will fail at some point in your life, and it is better to learn from it than to dwell on it.

The second came to me while watching the new series on Netflix, “Full Swing”. Justin Thomas, a professional golfer, stated, “If you aren’t nervous, you don’t care”. I’ve always been a very even-keeled person and it takes quite a bit to get me worked up. This made me think about how lately I have been “going through the motions” a lot and if I learned anything in AP Psych 9 years ago, it was that the Yerkes-Dodson law states that some stress is needed for optimal performance. Too little stress and you will underperform, too much stress and you will exhaust/overwhelm yourself. It’s not a formal challenge for myself, but I definitely want to keep this in mind moving forward: there is such a thing as being too relaxed.

4. 📚 What Marin is Reading: Wicked Heir* by Mila Kane - She absolutely loved this mafia-inspired love story, but was incredibly disappointed when she got to the end and realized it wasn’t over and she now has to wait for the sequel to arrive. Don’t make the same mistake that she did and get both before you start!

Weekly Stats:

🏋️ 2023 pounds lifted: 482,360

🎥 YouTube Subscribers: 394

📰 Newsletter Subscribers: 20

Latest YouTube video:

Cold exposure has been around for ages, but it has been gaining in popularity lately with the advances of some research out of Scandinavia regarding the benefits. I decided to give it a go and share my thoughts after 75 days of cold showers.

Check it out!

I hope you had an incredible week! If you enjoy the newsletter, share it with someone else that you think might enjoy it!

This is the first issue that I’ve sent directly from my website, so let me know in the comments or in an email any feedback or criticisms so that I can continue to improve!

Cheers,

Hunter aka FannyPackMedicine

P.S. You can follow me on Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube if you would like to see what I’m up to more frequently than every weekend. I’m excited to check in with you all again next week!

*These are affiliate links: you get the same price but I get a small kickback, so use the links to help support me!