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Hey there!
Often I hear “It’s been a bad day” Rubbish. Just kidding I know there can be valid bad days but I rarely have them.
Why?
I’m a big believer in having daily habits that enhance vs. detract from life. More often than not we kind of just let life happen and habits form on a whim. No decisions made or planning just waking up and realizing coffee every morning is a thing and not sure when it even started.
I’m not saying coffee every morning is a bad habit but I bet it’s a habit that wasn’t approached with “I’ve decided I’m going to get up at 6am sharp and drink a cup of black coffee every day” type of mentality.
Every month I try to take a really hard look at my processes and see what contributes the most to my:
- Happiness
- Financial Success
- Experience
- Peace
First thing I look at are my daily habits I’ve formed on purpose. So without dragging this out any longer, these are my main habits that have lasted a long time and continue to essentially force every day to be a good one.
WARNING: THIS IS KIND A LONG-WINDED EMAIL SO FEEL FREE TO SKIM FOR ITEMS YOU WANT TO READ NOT NECESSARILY THE WHOLE THING.
#1 I use a Done List instead of a To-Do list
For me personally using a to-do list doesn’t work well. I get a lot accomplished but I almost never get everything done on it that I am hoping to. This leads to a constant feeling of “I’m always behind” even if I have accomplished quite a bit.
On the flip side if I set aside time on my calendar to say work on a new book idea for 3 hours. Then as I accom;lish things on a task list like: come up with outline, find resources, write interesting subheadings or whatever. The feeling is the opposite as I add finished items on to a done list.
In this way my day starts out with a clean slate having already done my morning routine (more on that in a second) and so anything else added to my done list feels like extra accomplishments I hadn’t planned on even getting to.
#2 Using Pareto’s Law or the 80/20 Rule
If you haven’t looked into the 80/20 rule take a moment and look it up. There are a lot of qualified writers who explain it very well.
I’ll summarize.
80% of things in our life produce 20% of the results and 20% create 80%.
I’ll give you an example of this.
If you own a company or work for one as an employee, you can probably identify the 20% of employees that contribute most to the success and profits of the company. They are the go-getters, the on-time ones and generally have it together.
On the flip side you also know those 80% that hang out constantly, watch youtube and produce but not much.
Same with clients and customers. 20% of the customers generate 80% of the income. For me my 20% have my cell phone and are welcome to call me anytime. This is also because they only call when it’s actually important so on average if you were figuring out what I get paid for when I do take a call from them it’s about a thousand dollars and hour.
So each week and heavily each month I look at my continual tasks and figure out which ones are producing 80% of the results I want. Then the rest I put in a “tried and failed” category so I can actually track what is and isn’t working.
In the end you can do a lot more in much less time or scale exponentially as your dial moving items become your only items.
#3 Create your own morning routine to force every day to be a win
I choose my words carefully for a reason and this item is no different. Every influencer and Tim Ferris out there has a morning routine and it’s shared on the internet as much as a joint at a frat party. (Not sure why that analogy came to mind).
Nothing wrong with this.
What is wrong is when we try and form our routine based on someone else’s. It inevitably will get old and feel like a job or to-do list and won’t give us the desired outcome.
So I say create your own morning routine. Whatever works for you personally not someone else.
The reason though it is important is based on the idea that if you can create a few wins for yourself at the beginning of the day, the rest of the day will still feel successful even if everything else doesn’t go as planned.
If your stuck start with some simple things like:
- Making your bed
- Drinking a glass of ice water immediately
- Brushing your teeth
Any items that make you feel better, refreshed or injected with drive qualify. What’s more important though that the items is that they come from you and are actually important to you.
#4 Meditate
OK I know you’ll be tempted to skip this one but hear me out. High achievers, entrepreneurs etc. have a hard time not mentally adding up everything they need to do even subconsciously.
Meditating is consciously taking a moment to clear your mind.
For me it actually creates a feeling of control that otherwise is gone from my daily mental routine. It’s terrible to feel thrown around by anxiety, stress, other people’s needs as if we have no choice in the matter. Taking time to clear your mind on purpose gives you back the power that clients, friends and family take from you.
If you haven’t done it before I would suggest you start with guided meditation. There are a lot of good ones on spotify and youtube.
More than likely you’ll feel your mind wander in the beginning but if that happens just get your mind back to present and keep going.
For me meditation is my favorite part of the morning.
#5 Exercise with a goal or purpose
I won’t yammer on the benefits of exercise. If you don’t know that by now I don’t think you’ll get any help from this whole post.
I will say though to have a purpose that means something to you.
For me I exercise for an event coming up. I used to compete heavily in obstacle course racing. I would train and exercise with that event in mind.
After Covid shut everything down I realized my events that justified my training could be taken away regardless of what I did.
I changed to events I plan and participate in (usually alone). As a for instance, it’s 37 miles from my city to the nearest one.
Most likely my next bigger event will be to traverse over the mountains to St. George in one unassisted run.
I already ran 40 miles straight assisted for my birthday so the mileage isn’t an issue I just want to do it now without help.
That’s the goal so now I enjoy getting up and training with this in mind.
Next year I’ll be doing the Leadville 100. Again a personal goal that means something to me and gives me reason to be excited about exercising and staying fit.
#6 Learn to Say No even if it’s very painful
This is a hard one.
When was the last time your spouse or significant other asked you to visit their family or friends and you said:
“No, sorry I just don’t want to”?
Usually the answer is closer to a white lie than the actual truth because it feels better for us in the short run. It also keeps us from being uncomfortable.
In business we often feel like we have to say yes because the customer is paying us to serve them in one way or another.
This really isn’t true.
If you provide carpet cleaning and a customer says: “hey I noticed you have a truck, could you take this carpet roll to a nearby dumpster?”
Unless it’s a part of your service, it’s perfectly fine to say: “No, sorry we can’t.”
You’ll get people who constantly test where you boundary is so learning to say no in a polite but firm way is essential and I mean ESSENTIAL to your success as a whole.
I’ve owned my marketing company for close to 17 years now and I still have long time clients that will occasionally call me angry with some kind of accusation like “WELL I THOUGHT YOU GUYS HANDLED THIS!” I had someone do that the other day with their phone system.
When I explained we aren’t their phone provider they did end up apologizing but it was only after I explained we handled their website and no more that they backed down. At one point in the conversation they literally wanted me to investigate the issues for them and get back to them. Can I handle your laundry while I’m at it?
I’m not trying to be rude but people need to be told no in order to respect you. With some practice you can do it without upturning the apple cart too much, but be willing to do it even if that’s going to happen.
#7 Have a Weekly and Monthly Review with yourself
Every week I review some very specific things for patterns, successes and failures. These include my 5 minute journal, done list and calendar.
Every month I review with the intent of seeing where I’m at with my 3 month focus. (That’s another post but I only plan 3 months out with everything I’m working on).
Most of the time I think people assume they will just KNOW where they are with their goals and progress. Subconsciously though we tend to avoid thinking about areas that aren’t working in hopes that they will fix themselves or magically get better. They won’t.
Back to the 80/20 rule, I can only identify what my highest producing items are by actually evaluating my tasks on a weekly and monthly basis and then match them up to the cooresponding results.
If you want to implement this in your life try working backwards. If the result is more clients then look at how many clients you got in the last month. Where did they come from? What did you do to foster them coming to you? If all of your clients came from referrals, then what did you do to make your customers want to refer others to you.
This is much better than putting your effort into marketing that isn’t working while allowing the tried and true methods to work in the background and hopefully keep you afloat.
I’m using an example that is financial but do the same with your routines outside of business such as family, school or friendships as well.
It can be harder to cut off friends compared to business tasks that don’t work but the results will be even better.
#8 Tell the absolute truth always
There is no adventure if you are catering what you say to get the most likely response you want to hear.
What a terrible way it is living our lives in a constant state of trying to control it. We all do it though. We adjust what we say to people we love, hate, work for etc. all in the name of trying to change the outcome.
I don’t know that we even think about it when we do it, but small white lies of keeping the peace turn us into boring unfulfilled individuals with not much excitement.
Imagine a day where you tell the absolute truth to everyone you talk to. I’m not saying go out of your way to hurt people’s feelings but just speaking the plain truth without worry of the fallout. Man it’s a rush.
I’m not perfect at it but I’ve had experiences in just the last 6 months that I didn’t know if the other person would punch or kiss me after speaking the truth. What a ride
This is probably going to be a difficult task to master but I would encourage you to focus on pausing and thinking about what you say until it becomes more natural to speak truth over ego caressing lies.
#9 Schedule in some fun and socializing
All work and no play makes _____________(insert your name) a dull boy/girl.
I won’t make time for fun unless it’s put there on my calendar. It’s not enough for me to just leave spots blank. Unfortunately I’ll fill them with more work.
Instead in the middle of the day I often schedule a hike, or tv show with my wife, etc. Making time for nothing super important actually becomes one of the most important things I do.
I’m telling my brain that I’m in charge and I don’t want to work all day long every day.
After all, what’s the point of playing this game if it’s never any fun?
Take some time, play a little, schedule it in and practice not thinking for a time about literally anything. It may just be that you remember how it was to have a little fun and focus on the unimportant for a moment.
If you’re like me schedule it in. Don’t just wait for it to happen. It probably won’t.
Those are my things if you want to call them that. I may not get to all of them every day but over and over I’ve been able to force good days by sticking with them.
Hopefully they will inspire you to create your own things that force good days every day for you.
Sincerely yours,
Joseph
P.S. Did you like this email or find it helpful, entertaining, life altering?!!!! If so I would love it if you forwarded it to a friend you think would enjoy it. You rock 🙂
