In my last post, I mentioned some tools I’ve been using lately to redirect my anxiety into productivity, as well as outline my goals for 2017 with more clarity than ever before.
Today, I’m going to go over these tools, in the hopes that if you are currently struggling, or hoping to make 2017 your best year yet (despite whatever might happen in Washington), you might find some value in them as well! If you’re in a rush today, but would love to have these tools to look over and check out later, you can go ahead and download the .pdf resource guide I made up for you here: 4 Tools for Life Success. Enjoy!
For those of you who want the full rundown, stick around!
I found all of these things in late December, but didn’t start consistently implementing them until the 1st of the year, simply to capitalize on that arbitrary date we mentioned and join the fun of Resolution Season.
But here’s the weird thing. In 18 days of doing all of these things regularly, there has been such an absolute transformation of my life that it honestly almost seems surreal. Now, each person is different, and the point of many of my new habits is that I took half of December to tweak them to my own personal preferences. But I’m going to lay it all out for you here, and you can follow the bread crumbs and see where they take you!
(“But wait a minute,” you might be saying. “Aren’t you an author? Haven’t you been writing here for years about how all you want to do is write all day every day? What’s with all this mental and emotional mumbo jumbo here?” Well, that is a fabulous question. I’m glad you asked! Of course you know that when you’re happy, everything else in life is better and brighter and easier. And when you’re depressed, the exact opposite happens. There was about a week in November I thought I might never write a book again. SERIOUSLY. So the deal is this: Yes, writing is my thing. But I can’t write if my headspace and my bodyspace aren’t in order. And that’s what I’ve spent the last two months doing, getting those back in order, and to a place where they’d be stronger next time, too. Let me tell you, it has made the writing and publishing front infinitely easier in the meantime! Let me tell you how….)
The one single thing that has made the most noticeable difference in my daily life is:
A Morning Routine
A few months ago I began implementing, as often as I possibly can, a morning routine. My inspiration came from this article by Benjamin Hardy initially, and through his mailing list I received an even more involved breakdown that I’ve since taken to heart and performed religiously EVERY.SINGLE.DAY. THIS ONE THING, people, makes such a MASSIVE difference to my days. I wanted to start such a thing because it gives you control of your day right from the moment you wake up. Once you turn your mornings into ordered reflection and quiet, the rest of your day becomes much easier to manage. I was tired of waking up cranky and exhausted. Of rolling out of bed only to go straight into “must do this”, “must do that”, “rush rush rush you’re going to be late!” “oh crap you forgot x, y, z” “too late now you gotta go!”
I wanted to start such a thing because it gives you control of your day right from the moment you wake up. Once you turn your mornings into ordered reflection and quiet, the rest of your day becomes much easier to manage.
18 days into being consistent with this, and the difference in my daily stress and anxiety is enough that my chiropractor actually noticed how much less tense and knotted my neck and shoulders were at my last appointment. In general, things irritate me less. I am far, far more focused on work or writing tasks throughout the entire day, I spend less time multi-tasking, and am far more productive. I haven’t changed the number of items on my daily To Do list, yet I’ve been obliterating them lately, whereas before I never completed everything on the list (which only added to the anxiety). Not only this, but I’m actually finishing things early, leaving me extra time! I’m so unused to such a thing, I sort of panic when it happens! And, on top of all of that, I sleep like a rock, and while a bit groggy when the alarm first goes off, it’s not the bone-tiredness (despite getting plenty of sleep) it was before.
So what in the world could I possibly be doing to create such a change?! Of course it is meant to be tailored to what works best for you, and through trial and error I have found the following items to be the most important to me:
- Before bed, take a few minutes to write out top priority TO DOs for the next day (I’ve always done this, but without combining with the other stuff, it wasn’t all that helpful)
- NO electronic screens at least 30 minutes before bed (sometimes I break this rule to catch up on TV with the hubby, but it definitely affects my sleep, so I try to build in some padding between that and bed now. The only other exception occasionally is a late-night writing session, but that doesn’t seem to bother me so much.)
- NO social media at least an hour before bed (this one is SUPER important for me)
- Get at least 7 hours sleep
- Set alarm across the room (wow, so this idea always made me cranky to think about, but when I actually did it, I was surprised at how well it works at getting you up faster)
- No social media or email for at least an hour after waking up (another EXTREMELY important item for me)
- 2-10 minutes of meditation upon waking up: I tend to focus on gratitude, awareness of my body and how it’s feeling, and imagining the success of my big picture goals
- Read or listen to something uplifting: currently I’m reading The Daily Stoic (link below)
- High protein breakfast
- 20 minute yoga or Pilates routine
- 60 to 90 minutes focused on a big picture project/passion project as early in the day as possible
- Cold shower (at the end of a regular shower)
Now, of course I don’t always get to do every single one of those things in that exact order, but I try my best, with adjustments as I go if needed. I’m not generally a morning person, but now I actually look forward to waking up earlier so I can have some quiet time for this routine! It works!!!
Intellectual Reading/Listening
Also on recommendation from Benjamin Hardy, I chose the book The Daily Stoic as my uplifting and motivating reading material. I liked what I saw in the Amazon preview, and I like that they are short, daily reads. Something I know I won’t get sucked into for hours, but that really helps me stay focused and gives me something to think about, too. I cheated and began reading it before January 1st, but since the turn of the New Year, I went back and started over again.
I also love Sam Harris, the neuroscientist who first blew my mind with his book The Moral Landscape (HIGHLY recommend), and it just so happens he has a podcast, Waking Up. This is my other pick for intellectual listening, although these are a lot longer than the daily reads. But, it has the added bonus of sparking novel ideas with such involved discussions on complex topics.
The Dreambook
One of the most important things I’ll probably ever own, and I stumbled upon it by accident. At first I wasn’t even interested in it. But then my mom ordered one, and as soon as I began casually thumbing through it, I knew it was actually something I really needed.
The Dreambook.
The Dreambook is a planner. But it’s also what it says it is, a DREAM book. Not for night time dreams, for LIFE dreams. The Dreambook has hard questions to ask yourself in order to fully realize your ideal future. It makes you think about every aspect of your life, and analyze exactly what you want out of it. It helps you narrow down your life purpose, your core values, and specifically imagine your ideal life in great detail.
Before the Dreambook, my future plans were rather vague. Even when I thought I was being specific (ie, “become a full time career author by age 40”), I wasn’t. The Dreambook helped me realize this, and helped me get specific in every area of life, not just in regards to my writing. Then it has guided pages for you to write out your Life Goals, 10 year goals, 5 year goals, 3 year goals, and 1 year goals. And the planner part of it is structured to guide you toward those life goals, too. It’s not an out-of-sight, out-of-mind thing, in that case. You get daily reminders and daily structure, which I’m really looking forward to trying out! The Dreambook, more than any other goal-achieving thing I’ve completed thus far in my life, has helped me really hash out my ideal future, which makes it possible to find and aim for the stepping stones I’ll need to get there!
5 Days to Your Best Year Ever
The linchpin to everything else, though, is Michael Hyatt’s 5 Days to Your Best Year Ever online course. The email came at the perfect time. I’d just started filling out my Dreambook, and after watching Michael’s webinar about his course, I knew it was precisely what I needed at precisely the right time. The Dreambook has helped me KNOW what I want out of my life, and Michael’s course neatly aligns with the Dreambook’s questions (although they are unaffiliated). The Best Year Ever course has helped me learn EXACTLY how to implement my step-by-step goals for my big picture. He outlines strategies for setting exciting and achievable goals, for structuring your days and weeks for best results, and has answered every single one of my questions about the course material personally via the Facebook group.
The course workbook takes you through an Action Plan after each module, so that you can find which goals are best for you, and frame them in a way that is exciting and most importantly, doable. This course invites you to challenge yourself in your goal-setting, encourages you to learn from your past mistakes, reminds you to acknowledge your past successes, and helps you stay accountable through the Facebook group. This is absolutely one of my favorite online courses (and I’ve probably enrolled in too many), and I highly recommend it. Enrollment is closed for this year, but if it looks to be like something you might be interested in for 2018, bookmark the page and/or join his mailing list to be notified when it opens again!
And that’s it.
Those four things have been very, very important to me over the last few months. I imagine they will set the tone for the whole of my 2017, as well.
If you’d like to check them out yourself, feel free! Let me know which ones sound most exciting to you, and if you do undertake any of them, let me know how they work for you!
You can download a one page resource list with links to everything I mentioned above by clicking the button below. I hope some or all of these things might prove as useful to you as they have for me. Together, we can make 2017 one hell of a year!
Download “4 Tools for Life Success”!
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