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habits

Feb 18
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The Habit of Excellence

By Blogpost, habits

Aristotle said, “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then is not an act, but a habit”.

What is excellence? It is thinking, speaking and acting your best (without comparing yourself to others except to be inspired by them). Are you giving your best efforts to everything you do? If you adopt a habit of excellence, you will transform your professional and personal life in amazing ways.

Excellence

Creating any new habit takes about 30 days of DAILY repetition of just a few minutes a day. The hardest part is starting and sticking with it while it’s new, weird or uncomfortable. Are you willing to create excellence in 30 minutes or less a day? A few minutes a day is manageable! Think of the repercussions as you create excellence in your thoughts, speech and actions!

The following are excellence habits you can create in a month. Take on no more than one or two at a time, and start with the ones that:

  • give you the most return, in terms of accelerating your goals achievement
  • resonate with you (not all of these are habits you need; they’re intended to cover a broad range of needs)

Commit to them wholeheartedly. Practice them EVERY DAY without fail. Once the one or two habits you’ve chosen become automatic, pick another one or two. And watch your personal and business life transform before your eyes!

1. Try something new every day for 30 days. Constant learning is a form of excellence. Learning and using a new word a day is a great way to establish this habit. Have fun with this: try urbandictionary.com for some unexpected definitions and made-up words.

2. Give, to get what you want. Give, help and reach out with no thought of reward; selflessly and genuinely. Create a powerful OUT-flow of energy that has no choice but to come back to you as an IN-flow of what you want. Nature abhors a vacuum and the more positively you give, the more positively you’ll receive.

3. Smile. Smile at yourself in the mirror, smile at strangers, smile at everyone. Nothing opens doors faster than a warm, genuine smile. A smile changes your physiology – instantly lifting your mood! Encourage people to smile back by acts of kindness and an uplifting attitude.

4. Learn and practice a new skill daily. Can’t use a power tool? Trouble with technology? Can’t figure out a spreadsheet? Learn and practice until you feel comfortable and confident.

5. Teach what you know (or what you’re learning). Nothing cements a concept in your mind and accelerates your own mastery faster than teaching. You don’t have to wait until you’ve completely mastered a skill. You only have to be better at it than the person you’re teaching!

6. Control your response. Even if people are horribly rude to you, maintain your calm and remain in a state of grace. Don’t stoop to their level. Be respectful and compassionate, and watch how people’s attitudes change (especially as you become practiced in this).

7. See the lessons in every difficulty. Journaling helps you see beyond problems to the hidden positive and valuable lessons. Look at the bright side; the silver lining; the opportunity. Look for the best in people and situations.

8. Take time for your passions. Take at least 30 minutes a day to do something you love. Bring happiness and meaning into your life and positively influence people around you!

9. Simplify. Get rid of one thing every day for 30 days: unused books, clothing, household items, office equipment, etc… all the clutter that surrounds you. Everything you own requires energy: you must work for the money to purchase, store, insure, maintain, repair and even use the things you own. How much of them are useful NOW and bring you joy NOW? Keep them and simplify your life by getting rid of the rest.

10. Be absolutely truthful for 30 days. Most of us tell little white lies – even those count.

11. While you’re busy acquiring new habits, quit an equal number of unwanted habits. Just as you are creating new neural pathways by creating excellence, you can un-create destructive habits like procrastination. by giving yourself a REWARD for doing the opposite of an unwanted habit: with repetition, you’ll lose that habit forever.

12. Wake up 30 minutes early every day and spend them on meditation, journaling, feeling good, doing what you love, exercising, goal-setting, planning… anything that moves you in the right direction!

13. Work on your goals for 30 minutes a day. You will achieve your goals remarkably quickly through small but consistent daily actions!

14. Do something every day that makes you laugh.

15. Substitute reading for TV for 30 minutes a day.

16. Practice EXCELLENT self-care for 30 days. Exercise for 30 minutes every day (a brisk walk is excellent!); avoid or drastically cut back on alcohol, drugs, coffee, sugar, wheat and junk food. Get more sleep.

17. Live below your income for a month. That goes for businesses and individuals. Don’t create any more debt; pay cash for everything, and learn to say no to impulse purchases.

18. Tell a new story. Our lives are full of “I am…” and “I have…” statements. But are they positive and proactive, or are they painting a negative picture? Be very careful how you use these statements. Start telling a story of WHAT YOU WANT as though you already have it.

19. Do something scary or uncomfortable every day. Face your fears and take action anyway – small actions are fine. Just don’t allow fear to paralyze you.

20. Spend the last few waking moments of the day thinking about what went well, what you did right, and on gratitude for everything.

21. Write in your journal every day. Write about the highlights of the day; ideas; inspirations; mistakes; triumphs; lessons; conversations; regrets; actions; observations; delights; hurts. Be completely self-aware and honest as you describe your inner and outer life.

22. Take full responsibility for every action you take and every thought and interpretation you have. For 30 days, DO NOT: blame, complain, criticize, judge or condemn.

 

Inspired by a blog post on www.marcandangel.com

 

 

Mar 09
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5 Steps to Amplify Your Activity

By Blogpost, habits

Want to “Amplify your activity” towards your goals?

 

Here are 5 quick steps to make it happen:

1. Daily Dosage

Every day do something towards your goals. Choose an actity that will get you that little bit closer. No matter how big or small the activity is, just make sure it happens. This will amplify your activity, keep you focused and motivated towards your goals.

2. Daily Accoutability

The big “A” word – accountability. Keeping yourself accountable will make sure you are doing something daily. Firstly, choose someone that will support your goals. Then define your daily activity that is required (set your daily goals). Next, choose a metric for your goal that you will report. Example might be: calories eaten each day, number of sales calls made, number of dollar productive hours, or hours spent with the family. Choose a metric and send them your daily results.

3. Goals Card

Have your goals written up on a Goals Card and carry it with you everywhere. Make sure it is easy to fit into your wallet or handbag. Each time you have a spare minute (waiting at traffic lights, on the toilet, or on hold on the phone) get it out and read it. This keeps your focus on the goals numerous times throughout the day.

4. Visualization

 

Visualize your goal everyday. Take just 5 minutes at the beginning of each day to visualize yourself achieving your goal. Bring that internal picture of you successfully achieving that goal, associating yourself with the picture, sounds and have that amazing feeling flowing through your body of that success.

5. Weekly Review

Reviewing is extremely important when it comes to achieving your goals. This brings clarity towards your goals and makes sure you are on track or if you need to change slightly. This will be easy to do each week now that you have been reporting your activity daily. When reviewing ask yourself the 4 key reviewing questions:

a. What has been working?

b. What hasn’t been working?

c. What have you learnt?

d. What do you need to be doing differently?

There you have it… 5 quick steps to amplify your activity to fast track your goals. Start these quick steps today and watch what happens over the next two weeks… You will be amazed. Enjoy and good luck!

 

Jan 24
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Goals and Choices

By Blogpost, Goals, habits

Images

 



Every single action you take, and every single action you don’t take, is a choice. So when you get down to it, the process of achieving your goals is just a series of choices.
 

We often think that we don’t have choices about certain things that are out of our control. Well, sure we do. We can choose how to react. We can choose how the situation is going to make us feel. We can choose to be the victim, or we can choose to learn and become stronger.
 

Take a look at your goals all the way from top to bottom: from the moment of achievement to where you are right now. And right now, based on the time line you’ve set for yourself, based on the intermediate goals and the sometimes mundane and boring-as-hell things you have to do along the way, realize that you have choices. You can choose a happy, enthusiastic attitude that makes even boring, repetitive tasks enjoyable. Or, you can choose to view them as drudgery. Which attitude is going to move you toward your goal? You can choose to do the things that make you shake in your boots with fear. Or, you can choose to take the easy route and give up. These are obvious choices.
 

But keep in mind, we do a lot of things by habit. They’re the actions (or thoughts!) that we’ve done or thought a zillion times. They’re so much a part of us that we don’t use any conscious thought at all and we still manage to get them done, the same way as always, while our brain is engaged with other things. Seriously – think about how you towel off when you get out of the shower. It’s exactly the same order of body parts, every time! Or when you sit down to work: you have a little ritual, and you probably don’t even know it. Do you start working without checking your email? Can you start working without that hot cup of coffee in front of you? When you think about something that worries you, your thoughts also follow very predictable, tried-and-true patterns. The thing is, even though these actions and thoughts are so habitual they’re subconscious now, they are still choices.
 

So it’s a good idea to examine just how you do things, and how you think, for a day or two. You may find that certain habits are actually counterproductive. And even though you do them without even thinking about them, you have the choice to take control and do things (or think) according to the best interests of your goals! Try towelling off a totally different way tomorrow. Try mixing up the order in which you do things at work. Bring awareness to what you do.
 

If you *have* to check your email before you start work, tell yourself, “I’ll check my email in one hour.” And then dive in and get to work. One hour isn’t critical, in the grand scheme of things and you can accomplish a LOT if you focus for an hour. Of course if your goal requires time-sensitive actions based on critical information you receive via email, then this example doesn’t apply to you – unless you also spend time on personal emails while you could be working on your goal!
 

One great trick to become aware of how you do things is pretend you’re observing yourself – as if you are an alien beamed down here from a far-away galaxy – and become fascinated with what this strange creature (you) is doing. The observer you (the alien) might say, “Wow, he always sips his coffee three times before he puts the cup down! How interesting that she always puts her left shoe on first! I wonder why he has to completely organize his desk every single day – what’s he looking for so urgently, every single morning? Why does she always do the easy stuff first and leave the hard stuff for later in the day when she’s tired?” I know, this seems like a silly game, but the more aware you are of your habits, the more you can change them if they interfere with your goal-achieving.
 

You have a choice – as with everything. The blue socks, or the black socks? The 10-minute phone call to a potential client, or 10 minutes on Facebook? The cheesecake or the sorbet? Ask yourself if your choices are getting you to where you want to go.
 

Inspired by a blog by Frank Purdy at www.goal-setting-for-success.com.

Jan 15
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6 tips to create your habits faster and longer lasting!

By Blogpost, habits
Habit

 

The quickest and most effective way to create positive change is to develop positive habits in your life, which will result in achieving your goals faster!

Wikipedia explains “A habit is the process by which a behavior becomes habitual. As behaviors are repeated in a consistent context, there is an incremental increase in the link between the context and the action. This increases the automaticity of the behavior in that context.”

Let’s look at some positive habits you may want to create. From exercising daily, drinking more water, keeping track of your spending, or even reading more! The list is endless – all depends on what your outcome is in relations to creating a new habit.

So here are 6 tips that help you create the habits faster and keep them for longer;

1. Make your habit visible.

Identify what habit you initially want to change and make visible your new habit – This might sound simple, but by identifying what habit you want to replace will create awareness and motivation to move away from it and focus on what you want to achieve. Then write down the NEW habit you want to create and POST IT EVERYWHERE… That’s right – everywhere… Shower, fridge, computer, car – even next to the toilet – make it visible, bold and loud. This is so you are reminded each and every time you see it. Bring it to life, bring it into your awareness!!!

 

2. Work in two week blocks

Thinking of doing the same thing over and over (as that is how habits are formed) for long periods of time sounds daunting. Imagine thinking of keep a log book for your spending for the next six months… OMG – no way… But what about for two weeks – a bit more manageable and you can rationalize it in your head. Just think two weeks – no more – at this stage.

3. Rewards and Non Rewards

Now that you are in the mind frame of two weeks, lets increase the motivation even more by creating some pleasure and pain motivators. Pleasure motivators (rewards) is something that you will reward yourself once you complete your habit daily for the first two weeks. Some examples might be a massage, going to the movies, or buying a new piece of clothing. However, on the flip side – Pain motivator (non reward) is something that if you break your habitual activity, then you will have to achieve that, which is usually something that you wouldn’t want to do. Examples of this may include; giving your favorite piece of clothing to charity, washing the bosses car, giving your ex-partner a $100 gift voucher – something that will motivate you NOT to give up and create your habit.

4. Focus on ONE habit at a time.

From the extract from Benjamin Franklin’s “striving for moral perfection” explains the importance on focusing on ONE virtue at a time. This will channel your concentration and take your “normal” focus to “laser” focus to create your new habit.

5. Journal daily and acknowledge yourself.

Keep a diary next to your bed and each night before you go to bed, write down your successes for the day – in particular how many times you did your new habit and what other positive/successful activities did you do that had an impact on your new habit and goals. This will keep your mind in positive spirits, especially just before going to bed.

6. Surround yourself with a supportive team.


Form a mastermind team, join a support group, share your new habit with those who are on the same journey. Report in to them daily or couple times per week to keep yourself accountable and on track. Having the right support team, that motivates you, keeps you accountable, and this will improve your focus, intensity and commitment to form your new habit.

These 6 tips will get you on the road to quickly create new positive habits which will result in a massive difference in your life. Start now and make a list of the new habits you want to create. Enroll others to do the same. Simply retweet this article or share it with your friends. Remember, the more support – the more positive habits can be formed.

Oct 25
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Adopting great habits

By Blogpost, habits

Remember when you were learning to drive, and you had to think about every single action you took to make the car go? Remember how overwhelming that seemed at first? Now when you drive, how much conscious thought do you devote to your physical actions when you’re driving (clutch, shift, brake, signal, etc.)? Probably not much. All those years of practice have paid off – now you operate the car subconsciously and turn your attention to more unpredictable matters like traffic!
 

How many other habits have you developed over the years? Do you even think about how you brush your teeth or the actions of getting dressed? Do you ever think about the mechanics of walking and the communication that’s going on between your brain and your legs? Do you have a habit of procrastinating when it comes to doing things you don’t want to do? Do you have conditioned responses to certain situations?
 

Habits are nature’s brilliant way of allowing us to operate without having to make any conscious mental effort to make it happen, freeing us up to think about new or unfamiliar things. Habits are nothing more than actions repeated over and over until they become subconscious. Just as we have motor habits (walking, for example) we also have thought habits.
 

Thought habits can be beneficial, but they can also be very damaging to your goals. Procrastination is an avoidance habit that your brain uses to prevent the possibility of harm. Your brain’s main job is to keep you safe. Take yourself out of your safe zone by doing things that are new, and your brain says “whoa, this could be dangerous!” and releases chemicals that create negative emotions about the new activity and entice you to go right back to where you feel comfortable.
 

But, as you know, you can’t get “there” by repeating the same behaviors that got you “here.”
 

So it’s time to bring out the whip and the chair and tame that unruly beast of a brain, right? Yes – only it doesn’t need to be that dramatic!
 

Developing new habits (habits that actually serve you) is just as easy as developing bad habits. You simply have to repeat certain thought patterns until they embed in your subconscious. The problem lies in becoming aware of the thought patterns that need eliminating. Can you listen to yourself objectively? Can you see past your inner self-talk (designed to make you feel good about staying right where you are!) and deliberately make yourself think different thoughts? This is not something that’s easy to do on your own. Identifying the thought-habits that hold you back is much easier when you can talk to someone trained to spot your habitual negative thoughts and help you formulate a plan to move you past them.
 

Try an experiment for the next 45 days. Every day, write in your journal the opposite of a belief and negative thought pattern you have. For example, if you are shy about asking for money for your services, write in your journal, “People see the value in what I’m giving, they gladly pay for it, and I receive it gratefully. This is how it should be.” Or something like that, in your own words. You have to write this every single day for 45 days. If you miss a day, you must start over! This is similar to experiments done by brain scientists to figure out the precise moment when a thought becomes a thought-habit. It takes somewhere between 30 and 45 days for a new thought to become a thought-habit, and you must be consistent about it. Stick to 45 days, just for good measure.
 

What’s going to happen at the end of those 45 days? You will start feeling worthy of the money you receive for your services. You will be bolder when asking for fair compensation. You will actually attract more customers or clients because you will project confidence in yourself (and you will be perceived as having more to offer than if you short-change yourself!)
 

Building these new neural pathways takes time and persistence. Your new thoughts will lead to new beliefs, and new actions. Then, watch your results go through the roof!