I live my life in 108-day cycles, with about 12 days between each cycle to reset, reflect, and plan. Each cycle spans four months—January to April, May to August, and September to December—creating a natural rhythm of growth and renewal.

Since starting this system in 2017, it’s helped me manage my bipolar disorder in a way nothing else has. Depressive episodes that could sometimes last over a year now rarely exceed three months. I’ve had to shift focus to managing manic episodes because I’m spending so little time depressed.

Below is the current percentages of my mental states, a bar graph of how these percentages have changed over time, and a table that shows which mental state was dominant during each cycle. Everything is pretty clear from the label except for “new normal”. New normal is what I want to become normal. It’s essentially movement towards becoming a “Flowist Master”. :)

The text and image below are current as of Cycle 19 (April, 2025):

N = Normal (30%) | NN = New Normal (4%) | M = Manic Episode (22%) | D = Depressive Episode (26%) | R = Recovery (17%)

Clicking the number takes you to a summary of that cycle. Some cycles have links to planning and reflecting posts.

Year	2016			2017			2018
Cycles						A N	B N	C M	D M
Year	民國108			2020			2021
Cycles	1 D	2 R	3 N	4 N	5 M	6 D	7 D	8 R	9 M
Year	2022			2023			2024
Cycles	10 R	11 M	12 D	13 R	14 D	15 D	16 N	17 N	18 NN
Year	2025			2026			2027
Cycles	19 N	20 NN	21 NN(M)	22	23	24	25	26	27

Cycle A | N | Flow to Your Dream (August 27th, 2017 to December 12th, 2017)

This was the title of the very first blog post in the series. Like I said above, my aim was to share a journal entry and drawing every day and that’s exactly what I did. I was in “startup” mode at the time so I was constantly thinking or reading about startups. That actually influenced the 108-day idea a lot. Especially the idea of making goal planning and execution iterative over a period of time shorter than a year (like I had previously done). On the last day of the 108 days (Day 108), I applied for a startup accelerator (not knowing the difference between an accelerator and an incubator) using the idea I have for a service to help people manage bipolar disorder.

Cycle B | N | My ONE Thing (January 1st, 2018 to April 19th, 2018)

I had recently read the book “The ONE Thing” and I tried to apply it to working on “Being Bipolar” (the name I had given to my company). Things started out great, but they fell apart pretty quickly. The failure was a win because it really reinforced the importance of process (flow). You can read about it in more detail on day 108.

Cycle C | M | 108 Days of Flow (May 1st, 2018 to August 18th, 2018)

With this 108 I ditched goals and focused on the process. I ended up tracking my mood, sleep, and exercise for the 108 days but where I think I messed up was by not having… an anchoring/grounding routine. Things ramped up over the course of this 108 days into a full blown manic episode. I was definitely flowing every day but I was “flow’er” without a cause! A quote I recently read comes to mind…

“If one does not know to which port one is sailing, no wind is favorable.” – Lucius Annaeus Seneca

That said, I eventually decided on a port. Attending a show in Milwaukee where RZA (from Wu-Tang Clan) live DJed the “36th Chamber of Shaolin”. What I ultimately ended up doing was immersing myself in a spiritual alternate universe created by mania fueled miltownkid which bled into the next 108. I look forward to doing a more detailed analysis of this 108 one day.

Cycle D | M | 108 Days of Being Bipolar (September 1st, 2018 to December 18th, 2018)

Still high on my own supply of spirit, I decided to create a new persona, the realBipolarCEO. I was supposed to participate in an idea stage startup incubator/accelerator program called Founder Institute, but it was canceled due to the low number of applicants. What was originally supposed to be “108 days of Being Bipolar (inc)” turned into “108 days of (actually) being bipolar”! There was an internal battle over “the meat suit” (me!) between “Casey Abbott Payne” and “miltownkid ZEE”. realBipolarCEO was acting as a bridge between, and an attempt to merge, those two forces. This internal struggle crescendoed with a stay in a mental hospital.

I was out of the hospital in time to write a detailed reflection using Instagram images (linked to above).

Cycle 1 | D | 108 Days of Being Bipolar (.org) (December 31st, 2018 to April 18th, 2019)

During my reflection on April 19th, 2018 I made a simple, but powerful, observation. Syntax matters! The language I use to describe a goal or action to myself is extremely important. That clearly didn’t sink in for the next 108 because I sloppily wrote “108 Days of Being Bipolar” instead of something more specific like “108 Days of Working on Being Bipolar Inc” so it turned into 108 days of being bipolar (crazy!) That said, I was manic at the time and the spiritual side of me may have left that open to interpretation on purpose.

Anyhow, this time I decided to be extremely specific. 108 days of working on my website focused on being bipolar (beingbipolar.org). That gave me supreme clarity and it worked! I spent time every day researching or writing about bipolar disorder. This eventually led me to do a deep dive into understanding suicide. I never ended up publishing that, or any, article because on January 16th, 2019 (YouTube) I decided to pivot away from the website and towards looking for stable work. I really want to create a business that helps people with bipolar and other mental health issues but I decided that I needed to do it from a place of personal stability. I couldn’t yet afford to dedicate large chunks of energy and time to writing and research that I wouldn’t immediately get paid for.

Something else you’ll notice is that I shifted from using letters to numbers on this cycle. That’s because I saw this cycle as the official launch. The first four were beta, now I saw it as a “release” version (for myself ;) ). It also coincided with the year 108 according to Taiwan’s calendar (or 民國紀年). I created a post with some of my thoughts on time (at that time).

I think I made the mistake, again, of not having an “anchoring routine” after I switched from researching/writing. While I ended up finding work I also ended up spiraling into a state of anxiety and depression. On April 18th (day 108) I happened to ask myself “What day is it?” (I had totally stopped tracking the days). I wasn’t sure if I’d start tracking again on May 1st BUT (spoiler alert)…

Cycle 2 | R | An Anchor Routine (May 1st, 2019 to August 16th, 2019)

…when May 1st came I decided to start running every day and I eventually added journaling, meditating, and recording a video. I’ve also added working on “Flow to Your Dream”. Having the 108 pull me out of anxiety and depression reaffirmed how powerful the ritual was. I decided to double down on it and do it for 108 cycles (36 years).

Monday, June 3rd, 2019

I wrote the recap of each 108 today which is probably why the most recent recap is the most robust. Moving forward I will add a recap sometime between the “rest” period, the period of time between a cycle ending and beginning.

Cycle 3 | N | Sep to Dec, 2019 – The Secret of the Golden Flower (Plan (Google Doc), Wrap-up)

I started this 108 inspired by “The Secret of the Golden Flower”, a manual for meditation. One of the suggestions in this text is to meditate for 1 to 2 hours a day for 100 days straight. I ended up meditating for one hour and eight minutes (1:08) 59 days in a row. What ended up stopping me was experiencing what I can only describe as “void”. I started feeling disconnected to everything. I decided I would revisit the exercise at a later date. Since the text talked about Zen a lot I decided to study Zen more intently as I hadn’t spent much time with Zen in the past.

I also started out wanting to memorize the 3,000 most frequently used characters but dropped that midway as I was starting to experience diminishing returns on “brute force” character acquisition.

Since I drifted so far away from the original plan when November showed up I decided to participate in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) with a friend. That plan died when I got hit with a bad case of the flu. The goal is 50,000 words in the month of November and I hit 20,000. Death Stranding was also released that November and the hardcore gamer in me showed up to dump 100+ hours into the game over the course of two weeks.

This was the first cycle I did with other people. They joined organically.

Cycle 4 | N | Jan to Apr, 2020 (Plan, Reflection)

I decided to stop giving the cycles titles this cycle because this felt “restrictive”. I also went back to making BeingBipolar.org the focus of the cycle (two cycles had passed since working on it) and thought it would be the focus for several cycles into the future. Instead I ended up dropping BeingBipolar for good so that I could focus on Flow to Your Dream and the 108-day challenges. I was going to create a content schedule for BeingBipolar but this got dropped as well.

I wanted to get really focused on my morning routine and I ended up totally crushing it. I did my routine flawlessly every day and I ran to the top of the nearby mountain every single day. Since I dropped focusing on BeingBipolar, that also made me stop focusing on Chinese study because I tied Chinese study to the idea of getting a degree in Chinese.

I created two principles “Do things right away” and “Put things away right away” and I flawlessly executed those. This was the cycle that I did John METACREATOR’s boot camp focused on community building.

Cycle 5 | M | May to Aug, 2020 (Plan, Reflection)

At the start of this cycle I wanted to focus on creating the Flow to Your Dream documents (Story, Dream, and Flow). I also wanted to spend some time deeply reflecting on who I was. I didn’t post my plan until day 24 and on day 25 George Floyd was murdered. The month before that I found out my good friend Pitt had passed away and the year before that my good friend Gary also passed. I learned about complex PTSD the hard way through a hurricane of emotions and events. I experienced levels of anger I didn’t know I had inside of me. This cycle was the beginning of really digging into the depths of my psyche with the goal of deeply understanding myself.

Cycle 6 | D | Sep to Dec, 2020 (Plan, Reflection)

I started depressed and eventually fell into an anhedonic state this cycle. I wasn’t clear about my running routine because I learned that running can turn hypomania into a full blown manic episode for me. Instead of running every day I switched it to running “most days”. Most days turned into no days. Halfway through the cycle I got a job as an OBC (onboard courier). I basically flew to the US with some car parts and got paid. When I returned I had to do a 14-day quarantine. I thought I was going to be super productive but I ended up watching CNN coverage of the election instead. This cycle I realized how important the 108-day cycles are to me because they shorten the amount of time it takes to recover from manic episodes.

Cycle 7 | D | Jan to Apr, 2021 (Plan, Reflection)

I injured myself right at the start of this cycle. I was planning on running every day but that had to stop. Running was my keystone habit so the other habits I had also fell apart. My “old man” injury depressed me and then I was further depressed thinking about the craziness of Cycle 5. I eventually turned into a couch potato that just played video games all day and avoided life.

Cycle 8 | R | May to Aug, 2021 – Dream+Flow: Don’t Be Crazy, Story: I Wasn’t Crazy

Cycle 8 was a recovery cycle so I didn’t spend a lot of time planning before it started. I was basically in depressed mode and was able to convert the energy from the ritual of starting a new cycle into a plan of action. I pretty much made up a bunch of routines right before day one and dove in head first. My experience with “lifeflow” allowed me to flawlessly execute my plan for 39 days straight (check-ins on Instagram). What broke the streak was getting a courier job, flying to the US, and needing to do 14 days of quarantine in Taiwan. I made quarantine super productive and wrote a first draft of a book on Flowism. When I got out of quarantine I was told by a doctor that I could exercise the way I was and needed to let my hip heal. I stopped doing the Instagram check-ins after that. Right after that I got my podcasting equipment and was absorbed in figuring that all out. Then we had to move. It’s worth noting that I fully retired miltownkid ZEE this 108.

Cycle 9 | M | Sep to Dec, 2021 – Dream+Flow: So It Begins, Story: I Got Crazy Spiritual

The goal of this cycle was for it to be the beginning of every cycle moving forward really building off of the last cycle. If you look at previous cycles they jump around in focus. The focus moving forward is the Way of the 108 system along with the philosophy that powers it, Flowism. Things got off to a great start! I was working on the system every day and I was doing all of my habits and routines. Things were going perfectly. Then the 26th of September came… That was the day I flew to the US for a courier job. From that day forward mania and spirituality kicked in. I did a tour of the US in manic/spirit mode (Milwaukee, New York, DC, and LA). Then I stayed in that mode when I got back to Taiwan. In Taiwan I rollercoastered between manic/spirit highs and depressive lows. I was on a high during the 108 break (the time when I do all of my reflection) so I never did the reflection (Story) of Cycle 9 or the planning (Dream) of Cycle 10. Even though things turned into a mess in terms of what I wanted to accomplish during Cycle 9, it still feels like I got the start that I wanted, it just wasn’t the start that I expected. Something really important to point out is that even though I was experiencing mania, there weren’t really any serious moments where I would have needed to go to the hospital. That in and of itself is something worth celebrating.

Cycle 10 | R |Jan to Apr, 2022 – Dream+Flow: Just Casey, Story: Recovering with mtkZ

At the start of this cycle I thought I had things LOCKED DOWN! No more miltownkid (ZEE), I can retire the persona version of “Casey Abbott Payne”, and figure out being me, “Just Casey”. My Dream was simple, I thought, “Refine, Maintain, and Update My Flow”. “Just focus on your Flow and everything else will fall in place,” I told myself. And focus I did! Everything was going according to plan…

…until miltownkid ZEE returned. 😭

He kind of snuck in through the back door when I wasn’t looking. While miltownkid ZEE is definitely a persona I created, it’s a persona that has a LOT of me in it. Denying miltownkid is denying myself. So of course he came back. When I looked to see who came in Casey Abbott Payne was there with a bowl of popcorn pointing at miltownkid. “Do you know this guy?”

“Well, of course I know him. He’s me.”

It was the end of this cycle when I realized that my Flow can’t just be wishful thinking for how I want things to be when I’m “normal”. It needs to be resilient to both hypomania and depression. I’ve had antifragility in mind from the start of these cycles and I learned important lessons that would be applied in the future. Every time I fail I get stronger. (Updated: 20.78, July 17th, 2025)

Cycle 11 | M | May to Aug, 2022 – Story: miltownkid’s Last Ride (Blog eventually)

This was a crazy cycle. I thought I was safe from having a manic episode because I just recovered from one and I’d never had manic episodes so close together. I ended up being very wrong. Just two weeks into the cycle and I already had a major manic episode. This cycle took me on a lot of adventures and misadventures. I got into a fight in a hip hop club, I had encounters with police multiple times, one of which got me arrested and eventually in front of a judge. I danced in clubs, took over a temple, played drums, climbed mountains… it was all too much for me to deeply reflect on even and a half later. It’s too much for me to reflect on now, but for time reasons and not emotional one, but I will “blog eventually”. Right now all I have is a quickly thrown together recap of Cycles 11 to 15. (Updated: 20.81, July 20th, 2025)

Cycle 12 | D | Sep to Dec, 2022 – Story: Just Depression (Blog eventually)

I only have a single entry in my journal from this cycle. It’s right at the end of the cycle. I’m talking about all of the usual stages I go through when recovering from a manic episode. It always goes straight up zoning out (staring at the ceiling), TV and movies, video games, and then reading books. I never made it to the reading books phase this cycle. (Updated: 20.81, July 20th, 2025)

Cycle 13 | R | Jan to Apr, 2023 – Story: Just Restarting (Blog eventually)

I started this cycle with some really weak journaling. Day one was “I journaled.” Strength grows out of weak attempts like that though. I only lasted 8 days, I clearly wasn’t ready, but it was good that I tried.Then, out of nowhere, on Day 84 I started daily journaling again and a strong version of it that also includes an entry in the evening. I kept up this daily journaling right into the start of Cycle 14. (Updated: 20.81, July 20th, 2025)

Cycle 14 | N | May to Aug, 2023 – Story: Just Restarting 2 (Blog eventually)

I took that energy from the last cycle and put it into the start of this cycle. I really like something I wrote on day 1:

What I want now more than anything is consistency day-to-day which rolls over into cycle-to-cycle consistency. All of the cycles before today were learning.

I’m writing from Cycle 20, the most consistent cycle to date, looking back and what I wanted then is happening now. Another comment from Day 6:

I’m confident that I am doing the things to see hypomania coming and I believe that when it is sensed I’ll be able to act accordingly.

This is starting to turn into a blog post! Anyhow, that happened this cycle and, while not perfect, I did act accordingly. Full blown mania was avoided. I’ll share one more quote:

My Dream is simple. 9 cycles of normal.

I had this, and the cycle after it, labeled as depressed, but I’m upgrading them both to “normal”. I think I’ve had too high of a standard for what I’ve been calling “normal”. What I’ve been calling normal is either the way I feel when my energy is higher than normal or a goal of a way of life that I’ve been working towards and these goals aren’t “normal”. The goal for how I want my life to be is not called “New Normal”. I don’t like the way medication makes me feel sometimes and, in many ways, it isn’t normal but it is for me. I’m working towards a new normal where medication plays a smaller, or nonexistent, role in my life, but that’s a new normal goal. (Updated: 20.81, July 20th, 2025)

Cycle 15 | N | Sep to Dec, 2023 – Story: Just “Not Manic” Isn’t Enough (Blog eventually)

I only have a single journal entry on Day 105, but there’s a nice piece of insight in it:

I’m done with “I’m not manic and that’s a win.” It’s time to get out of the life raft, get in the boat, and head to shore.

The back to back episodes from Cycle 9 and Cycle 11 took a lot out of me. All I wanted to do after that was not have any more manic episodes. I was taking a strong drug that was suppressing me and I was also suppressing myself. Even though there was only a single entry from Cycle 15 it caught an important shift in my state of mind that I’m feeling the effects of today. (Updated: 20.81, July 20th, 2025)

Cycle 16 | N | Jan to Apr, 2024 – Dream+Flow: Just Flow, Story (Blog eventually)

This cycle, 15 cycles (5 years) since Cycle 1, was the big turning point. It’s the first cycle where the goal was for focus on refining my Flow and I stuck to it for the entire cycle without things turning into a manic episode. I fell part way through the cycle, but I think that was mostly due to a strong medication I was taking at the time. I did keep a very weak one line journal going until the end. Even though this cycle wasn’t “perfect” it was the perfect start and “Just Flow” has remained my focus ever since this cycle. (Update: 20.82, July 21st, 2025)

Cycle 17 | N | May to Aug, 2024 – Story: Just Trying to Flow (Blog eventually)

I just have two pages of entries this cycle. One entry from Day 1 is talking about how low my energy was coming into the cycle, but also talking about the basic routine I’d like to keep. Then there’s another entry from Day 22 reflecting on Day 1 and I thought it was a good idea and that I should get started. I think I ended up letting go of this cycle because I knew I was going to be traveling over the summer and my routines would all get destroyed. I thought I wasn’t going to be able to build the momentum necessary to keep my routines at even a basic level while traveling. (Update: 20.82, July 21st, 2025)

Cycle 18 | NN | Sep to Dec, 2024 – Dream+Story: Just Flow 2 (Blog eventually)

I came into this cycle wanting to flow and flow I did! I just saw in my journal that this is when I decided I was going to name the cycles after this the same… Just Flow 2, 3, 4, 5… I wasn’t planning on it, but I ended up crushing all of my morning habits this cycle. I also have a LOT of journal entries to review when the time is right because I journaled every single day up until day 95 when I got sick. Even after that I wrote at least 1 sentence a day up to Day 101, then it was sporadic until Day 106 which is where I fell off. The entry from day 106 basically says that slipping one day can lead to multiple days so it’s important to stay the course. (Update: 20.82, July 21st, 2025)

Cycle 19 | N | Jan to Apr, 2025 – Story: Just Trying to Flow 2 (Blog eventually)

This cycle ended up being one of those 1 page journal entry cycles that have become a trend at this point. Looking above I even have a pattern going alternative between flow and trying to flow. This pattern should get shattered in Cycle 21. I came into this cycle sick, depressed, and with some things on my mind that were stressing me out. I think I just let that take over and took a break for a cycle. (Update: 20.82, July 21st, 2025)

Cycle 20 (Current) | X | May to Aug, 2025 – Dream+Story: Just Flow 3 (Blog eventually)

I came into this cycle strong by utilizing the reset period that’s built into the system. I reflected on the previous cycle and eliminated the mental blocks I had. I essentially looked at the Flow [link] I have on my website and wrote that down. I was locked in and focused on My Flow as I had it written out and planned on executing on it. Something I noticed on Day 1 of the journal is mentioning how I need a reliable way to reset in the end that something knocks me off the horse. I’ll leave everything else for the Story as I’m not finished with the cycle yet. (Update: 20.82, July 21st, 2025)

v1 | v2 | v3 (Current)

Notes about this version:

The recaps from Cycle A to (half of) Cycle 2 were written on 2.34 (Monday, June 3rd, 2019).

The recaps from Cycle 3 to Cycle 8 were written on 8.116 (Tuesday, August 24th, 2021). During Cycle 8 I wanted to quickly review past cycles and realized that the short recaps are better than needing to read full posts to get a quick overview so I started doing them again.