Do you ever feel like the day ‘got away from you’?
It could be because you’re taking the day ‘as it comes’.
- You check your email first thing in the morning.
- You check it again after breakfast (Or DURING breakfast)
- You start the computer and go to Facebook to “see what’s happening”
- You take another peak at your email and see something you ‘should’ respond to.
And then…BOOM the day’s gone. The files you were going to put away are STILL sitting on your desk.
Ah well, you’ll get to them tomorrow – you had too many important things that came up.
Typical right?
That’s reacting to the day.
It’s not proactive or strategically doing things to advance you or your business.
“Fires” and even the ‘stuff’ that ‘needed’ to get done aside, if you always find yourself in this pattern of getting caught up or answering the beckon call of someone else…
That’s a HABIT.
And it’s not a good one.
Change A Habit, Change Your Life
How could one habit change your life? It probably won’t. But it will start you on the path of changing more.
And THAT changes your life.
Imagine if you changed or introduced a new habit every month. What would your life look like at the end of the year?
Don’t you think by just changing the one bad habit of reacting to your day, it will dramatically change your life? ( you should be nodding “yes” right now)
Whatever you,re doing that is a negative to your life and your business should needs be changed.
And introducing a new habit or changing an old one is not easy. It TAKES work. That’s why most people fail at it.
It’s not as simple as wanting it to happen.
How To Change A Habit
You MUST track what you want to change and put all your willpower into doing it.
Willpower is the key because we have only a BIT of it every day. Most of us waste it.
I remember Eben Pagan suggesting to use our willpower to change only ONE habit per month. I’ve been following that strategy for a couple of years now.
It’s really quite remarkable what happens when you concentrate on just ONE thing you want to add or change per month.
I’m naturally impatient (working on that) so I was trying to change a whole bunch of stuff at once. “Let’s just get this done.”
My willpower was spread too thin. It didn’t work.
When I focused just on “drinking 2 litres of water a day – 500ml first thing in the morning”, it has become HABIT.
It is such a habit that If I DON’T have 500ml in the morning, my day is not the same. I’m actually ADDICTED to having my water. That’s a GOOD thing, don’t you agree?
If you are addicted to anything else in the morning, like a coffee or a cigarette, you know what I’m talking about when it comes to “have to have it”.
Imagine if that “have to have” was actually GOOD for you.
My point is, it doesn’t matter what habit you want to change…you have to mentally make that shift every day. You need to employ that willpower you have in the morning to get over the first two weeks or so of battling with your ‘old way’ of doing things.
So why not give it a try?
Take the example above of reacting to your day and change something about it.
Maybe Modeling What I Did Will Get You Started
I made a “simple” change.
It was to “never looking at my email until 10am”. This gives me HOURS of time to myself to wake up and enjoy being present with my family, do some reading and working out, set up my day and DECIDE what I’m going to accomplish BEFORE the ‘world’ gets my attention.
It was hard as hell to leave my phone off or ignore the little blinking light. So I TURNED OFF the blinking light. I kept my phone OFF.
Every little thing helped to get out of the bad habit. Simple right?
Still, simple strategies are usually the hardest to implement.
But I’m sure if it means something to you, you’ll go do it!
I’m with ya!
Let me know what you thought…
Or even better, post your outcomes below! I’d love to hear what’s happening with you.
– Joey