Those who measure most often tend to win. If we never step on or look at a scale, how will we know that we are losing weight? If we are hiking in the woods, can we get to our destination if we never look at a map or look up to see where the landmarks are? If we don’t, we get off track. Do we want to live our lives not ever looking at the scoreboard, mapping where we are? Many live their lives by default. We want to live our lives by design.
By engaging in empowering daily habits, you condition yourself to focus on abundance. Start your day with an empowering mindset and you will give yourself a head start on 90% of the population. The way you think about yourself, others, God, and the world make a huge difference.
Start the day with a Task Completed.
It may just be making your bed. This is something anyone can do. A task completed starts the ball rolling for many tasks completed throughout the day. When you finish the day, no matter whether you’ve had a good day or a terrible day, you come home to a made bed and can remember one small win from the beginning of the day.
It is OK to start your day slowly. Many people are not as awake in the morning as others. The key is to get started, however.
Keep Score Daily
On my mirror at home, I have a list of 10 daily activities to score my day. The first activity is to meditate, get in some creative thinking time, and Bible study. If I am feeling groggy, I may start the day listening to a sermon or a devotional rather than reading.
The next activity is to workout, stretch, and get in 20 minutes of cardiovascular activity. Most anyone can fit in 20 minutes to get the heart racing and speed up your metabolism for the day. Finding additional time for heavy strength training, more involved metabolic conditioning, and pushing your body to improve flexibility, agility, balance, coordination or speed work throughout the week definitely helps as well to keep us young and fit.
In the shower every morning I do my daily affirmations. Positive self-talk does wonders for our self-esteem. We live up to the image we have of ourselves and what we say about ourselves. “I Am” is one of the most powerful statements we can make when we remind ourselves of how great we are.
One of my favorite affirmations is “I enjoy life and happily achieve.” At one point I realized that I was hitting my goals and achieving most of what I set out to do, but I was not enjoying the process as much. Focusing on having FUN and enjoying the process is a bigger part of who I am today. Also, in order to train my subconscious and get it working to figure answers during the day, I also ask myself questions related to my affirmations. The question associated with this affirmation is, “How can I better enjoy life and happily achieve God’s will and purpose for me today?”
The morning is also a great time to review your top goals, look at how your monthly, weekly, and daily activities feed into these goals and prioritize activities to plan out your day. I regularly go through the items that I have on my plate for the day and the week and prioritize these, listing the top 6 in order. These will typically tie into the 3 to 5 top goals or “Rocks” I have for the quarter. The “Rocks” are the most important goals that we want to make sure we accomplish first, more than anything else that we accomplish for the quarter.
Of the top 6 daily tasks, it’s also great to determine what is the one activity that will make all the difference. If we look at the day and nothing else goes right, what is the “VITAL ONE,” the one item to accomplish that will make the day worthwhile? Some days not much goes right, but we still accomplish the “VITAL ONE,” and this one thing is something to feel good about for the day.
Usually before I leave the house, I take time to give thanks to God and pray. Usually, I am praying that God works within me to help me be the best father, husband, mentor, coach, and leader that I can be to positively impact others and fulfill His will in my life. When I remember to give thanks to God, I find that my day goes much better than if I am “too busy” for this.
In our office we follow the “Happiness Recipe” to start the day and share with each other 3 things we are grateful for as well as 3 wins for the past 24 hours. I had the opportunity to hear Shawn Achor, Harvard PHD, and author of “The Happiness Advantage” speak at a conference several years ago and what I remember best from his talk was that in his studies he found that the pre-condition for success was happiness, not the other way around. Happiness is a choice we make, not a condition we feel. Much like we choose to love each other rather than feel love, we can choose to be happy when we follow the recipe he prescribes in his book.
Expressing Gratitude: Our #1 Weapon for Success and Happiness.
According to experts who study gratitude and its effect on our ability to survive and thrive, when we say thanks, we program our brain to see positive change.
“When we intentionally and steadily cultivate a practice of gratitude for the people and processes that sustain our life, we expand our perception of our experience back out of a narrow, contracted, survival mode… to a more expansive, more optimistic perspective, where we can again discern options and possibilities,” said Linda Graham, author of Bouncing Back: Rewiring Your Brain for Maximum Resilience and Well-Being. “Resilience is a reliably measurable outcome of cultivating positive emotions such as gratitude.”
There is so much we can be thankful for. We just need to be in the right frame of mind. It’s amazing how much better we feel and how much more productive we are when we develop a positive mindset.
In our office if someone notices I’m not in the greatest mood, it’s usually when I have not made the time to express gratitude.
Shawn Achor’s Happiness Recipe also recommends we Journal Positive Experiences.
I like to take time at the end of the day to do this. When we do this and consider every detail about the experience and how good it made us feel, studies have found that our brains imprint this more deeply in our memories, and it so much more empowering to imprint good memories, the things we appreciate about someone, and the things we love about mountain top experiences. It improves our mood and our outlook for the future. Your brain will double down on the GOOD & the WINS.
The Happiness Recipe also prescribes taking time during the day for additional meditation or a fifteen-minute break to do something FUN, get the blood flowing and the body moving to improve your mood. If you are able to do this and recruit family and friends to enjoy these activities with you, this is even better. Our social connections are one of the best predictors for success, health, and even life expectancy.
Many people like to talk about “paying it forward.” Others have done good deeds for us in the past and we want to in turn do good for others. Finding a way to brighten someone’s day can go a long way to brighten our day as well.
I like to find something I can do for someone else, a friend, a client, a team-member, even a stranger. On our team we like to talk about what Acts of Random Kindness we have done for others, how it brightened their day, and how it brightened our day as well.
In addition, we like to make sure we make these “personalized” acts of random kindness. We can study what others most value and tailor what we can do for them that they will most value. When we tailor these things for others, it will be more meaningful for them, and we can make a bigger impact.
The “Golden Rule” states we should Love our neighbor as ourselves and do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Many refer to the “platinum rule” to do for others what they most value and is in their best interest.
I like to finish my day reading uplifting material and books that can improve my mood, my mindset, or my knowledge. Listening to audibles or watching uplifting videos or movies can accomplish this as well. What we consume just before going to bed sets the stage for what our subconscious focuses on while we are asleep.
I’ll admit that I enjoy movies like the “Godfather,” shows like “Game of Thrones,” “Breaking Bad” and the like, but I firmly believe that consuming these movies or subjecting ourselves to too many political or news stories can put us in a mood that is not conducive to sleeping well at night. There is little we can do about these things before bedtime. While it is good to be informed, oftentimes these things tend to inflame us. Why not end the day with material that uplifts our spirits, improves our minds, and sends us to sleep with good dreams for the night?
If you finish the day and find that you have accomplished many of these daily items, you may find yourself in a much better mood. You may become much happier over time. You may be able to accomplish more than you ever expected, develop more connections and friends, and grow into the type of person you can look in the mirror and greatly admire. In order to act with love towards one another, we must first love ourselves. I encourage you to take action to love yourself and others more in your life by daily following these 10 simple steps.
Below is some good nighttime listening that may also help you R.E.L.A.X.
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