Tag: Goals
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Morning Routine
BY: Alan / 0 COMMENTS / CATEGORIES: Daily Routine
How to Start Your Day
We all have them! If you are among the people who wake up after sleeping (a.k.a. still among the living), you have a ‘Morning Routine’. The big question is: Does the way you start your day prepare you to live the most productive and fulfilling day possible?
Download the FREE “Daily Routines” Guide
The more you choose to ‘float’ through life and take it all as it comes, the more your environment and those around you will dictate for you the quality and focus of your life. It leaves a lot up to hance. Conversely, the more you intentionally set your sites on who you want to be, and what you want to do, the more your life gets molded into one that can be truly satisfying for you. The way you set your course for the day first thing in the morning is perhaps the most important component in that equation.
I don’t know a whole lot about horse racing, but i do know you want your horse to make it out of the gates clean at the start of the race. If there is trouble at the start, it becomes real challenging to catchup with the pack and finish the race strong. Every morning the wide open track of a new day lays before you, and how you spring out from the gates can make all the difference.
Not as Easy as it Sounds
Personally, I have struggled on many fronts to make my life the adventure it should be. Among those, I am NOT a morning person! What seems to make sense to me is sleeping in as long as possible, and in the shortest amount of time I can manage, roll out of bed, shower, dress, slam breakfast, and get to wherever I am supposed to be. The problem is: What seems to make the most sense to the lazy part of me, is in direct opposition to the part of me that wants to live each day to the fullest.
Filled with Opportunity
The fact that life comes pre-installed with a daily wake/sleep schedule gives us all the opportunity to wipe the slate clean every morning and get a fresh start on all that matters most to you. Whether this ‘opportunity’ is for others to squeeze out of you everything they can get, or whether it is your opportunity to advance your goals, is entirely up to you… if you head into the day with a plan. What is worse is when the day has no plan and you wind up feeling at it’s end like it was wasted because you never quite got a grip on the wheel and figured out where to go. Therefore, let’s lay out the steps to take to make each day count:
- Prime the pump
- Start your engine
- Head off in the right direction
“Ladies and Gentlemen, start your engines!”
Coming out of the gates strong is hard when the engine isn’t firing. While some rely on an invigorating shower or 12 oz. of a highly caffeinated beverage to get their eyes open and pointing in the same direction, relying on something outside of yourself for that jump-start keeps you dependent on things you can’t always control. It is important to learn how to tap into your own energy source without relying on anything after the alarm clock.
The Big 3
Cars have an engine to provide the thrust, but they also have cooling systems, electrical systems, suspension, and climate control. If any of those is out of whack you are in for a rough ride. To get your day off to a proper start, we need to focus on your main systems.
The Physical – You need to get your metabolism up and running, stretch the fatigue out of your muscles, and get your heart pumping. You need to have some water in the tank, and put enough oxygen in your system to feel alive.
The Emotional – You will have emotions in the morning, but the good news is that you get to pick which ones you take with you! Once you learn how to be intentional about setting your emotional temperature gauge it becomes as easy as picking out which of your clothes you want to wear for the day.
The Spiritual – Whether you are in touch with this ‘system’ or not, we all need a compass, a belief-set that guides us and gives us a reason to keep going. At some level, when you start driving down the road, you have to have some idea of where you are going to wind up, even if you don’t know exactly how you are going to get there. If some component of your day can be connected with taking your life to where you want it to go, your day will take on meaning and value to you and feel like it was worth living. To do that, you need to have a map, and look at it.
The Road Map
Once the engines are running, you need to figure out where the finish line is and the route you are going to take to get there. Daily planning should be so much more than just laying out your to-do list and cramming it all into a daily calendar. What are the priorities that matter the most to you? How do you fit that in while taking care of your responsibilities to others? What impact do you want to have on those you encounter today? What messages do you want others to get from you? What truths about yourself do you need to hold onto regardless of what messages may come your way from others?
What works for You?
In the video on this page, I lay out a plan and some specifics that I have developed that works for me to get my motor running. When I start the day this way, it takes on a different quality, a different energy, and is far more purposeful than the days when I just roll out of bed and ‘wing it.’ And I don’t just mean the work days either. The weekends are precious opportunities, and starting them without getting myself synced up is like throwing the gift of a free day away. This plan energizes body, mind, and soul and leads to putting together a daily plan that lays out prioritizing the things that matter most to me, ensuring that I move my agendas a little further down the road on a daily basis.
Your plan may or may not end up like mine. You might insist on that caffeine fix, and that’s fine, if that’s what you feel you need. But make an effort to design and refine your morning routine. It sets you in the position you need to be in to feel fully alive and intentional with your life.
The FREE Guide
The following link will allow you to download a Free Guide to designing your Daily Routines. This will provide you with my suggestions, specific time recommendations for the full routine, or shorter options for the days you are more pressed for time, and instructions and space to design the routine that works the best for you.
In addition, it contains additional information for planning out your Evening Routine to properly conclude your day and set you up for a solid night’s rest, and a plan for Mid-Day Habits to keep you on track so you don’t get distracted from the plan you set in the morning.
Download your FREE Daily Routines Guide!
Investing in You!
Remember how someone once told you that sending a little chunk of your paycheck off into an investment account would one day pay big rewards? The impulse to ignore that advice and enjoy your money now is the same voice that whispers to hit the snooze button and let the day figure itself out as it comes to you. Do you know people who never saved for retirement? Do you know people who had an ounce of discipline and are set to retire in comfort? ‘Budgeting’ a few minutes every morning pays some huge dividends later in the day if you ‘invest’ it wisely.
You only get one life to live, and this day is a part of it you can never get back. Live each one Intentionally! Make the fullest use of the gift this day can be for you!
FREE Download: DAILY ROUTINES – Habits to Take Back Control of Your Life!
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The Personal Monthly Retreat
BY: Alan / 0 COMMENTS / CATEGORIES: Uncategorized
Why does life get so complicated and convoluted that we end up feeling stressed and off-course over and over again? Life getting out of balance is no new thing for most of us in the civilized world. But when we give in to it, it leads us down a road of a life that feels more like it is running us than us living the lives we were intended to live.
I continually found myself getting frustrated with having wonderful and lofty goals for what I would accomplish when I ‘got my act together’ which never seemed to happen. When the goals continue to get recycled month after month and year after year, you begin to need to fight off some feelings that resemble depression.
So, several years ago, (can it really be 18 years?) I began a journey that I have repeated and added to nearly every year since: A 40 day journey leading up to my birthday, to take my life into perspective and carefully map out what I wanted the year ahead to look like.
As that process evolved and I began to analyze the pieces that didn’t seem to work as well as perfect the pieces that did, one of the offshoots was the “Personal Monthly Retreat.” I found that merely putting some goals into a document once a year tended to sweep those goals into a dusty corner of my life, not to be discovered until the following year’s ‘spring cleaning.’ Therefore, going off by myself for a couple of hours every month developed into a ritual which today, I rarely miss.
I know very well the benefits that this ritual have held for my life, in actually bringing some of my goals for self-improvement, growth and development, and improving my relationships into reality. The question to put out there is, “What would a monthly retreat do for you?”
- Do you feel the need to re-focus on the things that are most important to you?
- Do you lose track of pursuing your life-long goals and aspirations?
- Do you have passions that you want to pursue, that get crowded out because ‘There simply isn’t enough time’?
- Do milestones like New Year’s and birthdays leave you feeling empty, like life is passing you by, or energized and eager to tackle the year ahead?
If any of that is you, consider these 5 simple tips to get started on your own Personal Monthly Retreat habit:
- Set a scheduled time each month that is blocked off in your calendar to focus on you!
- Get away from it all! Go off to a place where no one can find you, turn your phone off, and away from the distractions of your everyday life. (i.e. NOT at home or the office!)
- Stay focussed! Little ideas and projects that you have to do will occur to you. Write these things down, and schedule them into your monthly plan, but don’t get distracted from the goal of planning out the next month.
- Develop Action Steps – Each goal in each area of your life needs to be filtered down to the next actionable step. The bigger goals, in particular, will seem too overwhelming and cause stress. Find the next thing that you know you can actually do, and commit to doing it.
- Schedule your ideas! Merely making a list will not work for most people. You need to take your Action Steps and schedule them into your calendar for a specific time on a specific day. Then make sure to honor yourself by honoring your calendar. It is as important, or more important, than your other meetings and appointments with others!
If your life feels complicated and convoluted, you have been partly responsible for letting it get there. What is worse, is that no one else is going to reach down and simplify it for you. Like it or not, no one cares about what you are passionate about as much as you do. That means if any of your passion is actually going to happen in your life, you need to find a mechanism to make it work. So feel free to ‘steal’ my monthly retreat and make it yours. And if that isn’t your thing, then answer for yourself this question: “What am I going to do to get myself feeling like I am in charge of my life again?” Be diligent in pursuing that answer!
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