Self Education Is Important For Success

Why Self Education Is Important For Success

Formal education is good for living an average life. But if you want to live an extra ordinary life and the life you dream about, you need to self educate yourself. Self education is important for success and growth in life.

It is nearly impossible to become successful without self education. Most people choose formal education and after completing the degree, they stop educating themselves.

But to succeed in life, you need to have self education. There are so many reasons behind it and that is what I’m going to tell you.

Here’s Why Self Education Is Important For Success.

1. It makes you think out of the box.

Self education will make you think out of the box. It develops you into a new person. When you start to self educating yourself, your brain will get out of the narrow mindset. It will start to expand your mindset.

You will be able to solve any problems without any difficulty. Most people who never try self education always remain at the same place. They stop learning after the college and this prevents them from thinking out of the box.

However, successful people read and self educate themselves. This makes them think out of the box.

Read this, if you want to know 3 ways to think outside of the box.

2. It makes you smarter than others.

If you want to be smarter than others, start self educating yourself. This will change your life forever. It will give you lots of knowledge about success and growth.

Majority of people stay average because they never choose self education. They think they are smarter than others but this is not the reality. They only imagine themselves as smart person.

However, successful people never accept they are smart because they believe in lifelong learning. They call themselves ” a student of life”.

They believe self education is important for success and this is why they improve themselves by learning new things everyday.

3. It makes you an optimistic person.

“Pessimistic person always see a difficulty in every opportunity and optimistic person always see opportunity in every difficulty”.

Self education will make you an optimistic person because you will have more referrals. In other words, you will think like ” if he can do it, then I can do it too “.

Unfortunately, most people never look for referrals, so they believe it is hard to become successful in life.

This is the reason you need to self educate yourself. There alot of benefits of self education which you can use in order to become successful.

Read this, if you want to know 7 best ways to become an optimistic person.

4. It makes you rich person.

Self education will definitely make you rich. There are 85% of millionaire’s are self made millionaires. They acquired these wealth from self education.

Self education will give you financial intelligence. When you financial intelligence, there is no doubt, you are going to be rich.

Most people believe that you can only get rich with a college degree but reality is different. 30% billionaire’s are college drop out. And these billionaire’s has 85% wealth of the total population.

This is the reason self education is important for success and growth in life.

5. It will make you a better communicator.

People who has great communication skill often wins the heart of others. There are lots of books about communication like “how to win friends and influence people” by Dale Carnegie.

If you want to succeed, you need to be a great communicator. This will help you in long run for success.

Most people are not good in communicating with others professionally.

Unfortunately, this is why they like to be surrounded with average people.

If you want to grow, you need to interact with successful people and you need a great communication skills to do that.

Read this, if you want to know 9 best ways to become a great communicator.

6. It makes you think big

Thinking big is very important in life. Self education is important for success because it helps you to think big like other successful people.

It makes you think beyond limitations and this is the biggest reason why people succeed in life.

Most people are not comfortable thinking big because they believe it is impossible to achieve.

If you want to achieve high level of success in life, you need to think big. And this will come from self education. The more referrals you have, the bigger you will think.

7. It will make you unstoppable.

Self education will make you unstoppable. When you will start to self educating yourself, you will become more productive in life. The more you will be productive, the more you will become unstoppable.

You will be at the level where no one can ever stop you reaching your goals.

Most people listen to others and eventually they stop. This is not the right way.

Successful people never listen to friends, family, acquaintances, or internet. If they believe something they can do it, eventually they do it.

Read this, if you want to know 10 best ways to be more productive.

Here are the reasons why self education is important for success.

Share this now with your friends and family if you want to make them aware of this information.

How To Embrace The Gift Of The Present Moment

“woman with sunglasses sitting on mountain during daytime” by Vidar Nordli-Mathisen on Unsplash

Escape The Here And Now

“There’s only one reason why you’re not experiencing bliss at this present moment, and it’s because you’re thinking or focusing on what you don’t have…. But, right now you have everything you need to be in bliss.” — Anthony de Mello

Precious moments are the fertile seeds life embeds into our now experience. Consider the following tale by the late psychotherapist Anthony de Mello which reminds us of the futility of clutching onto the past when our needs are grounded in the present moment: “How shall I attain Eternal Life?” “Eternal Life is now. Come into the present.” “But I am in the present now, am I not?” “No.” “Why not?” “Because you haven’t dropped your past.” “Why should I drop my past? Not all of it is bad.” “The past is to be dropped not because it is bad but because it is dead.”

It is difficult to stay in the present moment when bombarded with the avalanche of outside noises that compete for our attention. Mobile phone devices and other electronic gadgets prevent us from opening to the present moment because our attention span is limited. The need to escape from the here and now through multitasking, for example, is based on the assumption that we will be more productive. It is the lure of the future being better than the present that most excites us. So, we transition from one moment to another, hoping the next will be better but rarely is it that way. Do you get that impression? That you are always moving from one thing to the next without truly savoring your present moment experience?

“woman sitting near open window” by Natalia Figueredo on Unsplash

Craving The Next Thing

“Always hold fast to the present. Every situation, indeed every moment, is of infinite value, for it is the representative of a whole eternity.” — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The future has its own problems and challenges, but we are eager for the next moment to arrive since we are discontent. Can you see the foolishness of our thoughts when we believe our happiness lies in the future and not in the present moment? In that respect, we are like mice in a lab experiment looking for the exit out of the maze, only to be met with a dead end. It is a relentless journey of anxiety, frustration and longing. We become spectators of our life instead of being the main character. We flee from the present moment just like an actor transitioning from scene to scene in a play.

Acclaimed spiritual author and my mentor, Dennis Merritt Jones explains in Your Redefining Moments: Becoming Who You Were Born to Be of connecting with our body through the lens of mindfulness: “The irony is, our body can’t be any place other than in the present moment, but far too often, our mind is elsewhere. Mindfulness is the practice of calling the thinking mind back to where the body is, wherein the two become as one in the present moment.”Happiness is not dependent on attaining something outside of us because once we do, we are likely to crave the next thing. After a while, we become accustomed to yearning and not appreciating what is taking place now. For that reason, I invite you to connect with the power of precious moments to cherish the gift of your now experience.

“woman lying on green grasses” by Jacob Townsend on Unsplash

The Power Of Precious Moments

“Life is all memory, except for the one present moment that goes by you so quickly you hardly catch it going.” — Tennessee Williams

I was speaking with a client recently who was bemoaning her current problems. They were resolvable by any means, but from her perspective they were out of reach. I invited her to consider the issue from the viewpoint of a person dying from a life-threatening illness, someone who would give anything to be in her shoes. While an extreme example, it helped her see the folly of her thoughts and the insignificance of her dilemma. The point is: when we are caught up in our pain and suffering we want to run towards pleasure — hoping it will end the suffering. However, these are momentary glimpses into happiness since we are not confronting our problems but fleeing from them. To appreciate the precious moments of our life, we must accept each one as perfectly orchestrated for our highest good, even if it doesn’t look that way. This means being in a state of reverence for co-creating each experience as it should be.

The key is to lean in to our problems and openly accept them, knowing they contain the seed of something extraordinary for our life to unfold. If we continue to run away from the present moment, it will gather momentum and come crashing upon us when we least expect it. This moment, this wonderful precious moment is a gift. There is nothing for us to do other than to be alive and appreciate the wakefulness of it. The present moment is to be treasured because it is there where we experience our authentic self. It is not the Returns and Exchanges division at our local department store, but a treasured gift that flows through our life unimpeded. To analyse the past with regret or look to the future denies us the gift of our now experience.

“woman standing on sand and facing at seashore” by Linda Xu on Unsplash

Aware And Awake

“The present moment, if you think about it, is the only time there is. No matter what time it is, it is always now.” — Marianne Williamson

I am drawn to the passage by the Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh who writes: “Life can be found only in the present moment. The past is gone, the future is not yet here, and if we do not go back to ourselves in the present moment, we cannot be in touch with life.” A great deal is written nowadays about the power of gratitude — and for good reason. It is an important lesson that teaches us to stop and be present, instead of being caught up in our minds. We become aware of and awake to our present moment surroundings and appreciate what unfolds. To expect the story conjured in our minds will somehow come to life as we imagine, only fuels our suffering. Moreover, this imagined plot seldom transpires as we hope.

A practice I take part in when I sense being disengaged from the present moment, involves walking around my home touching various objects while noting their texture. Some surfaces feel cold, hard, and soft yet they evoke distinctive sensations within my body. This simple practice anchors my awareness to the present moment instead of being caught up in my mind’s dialogue. By being aware of these moments, life is offering me clues to what is in harmony with my greatest self. I need not run away from the present, but pause and offer gratitude for the opportunity to experience what is taking place.

Make it a priority to disconnect from what you’re doing throughout the day, even if it means stepping away from the office or your work schedule. Notice as many things as you can while outdoors and appreciate what you see. Avoid constantly checking your mobile device for status updates or news events which keep you hypervigilant as to what is wrong in the world. This is not your reality but the reality you are dragged into. If you seek happiness, it will can only be found in the present moment, not in a mobile app. Be mindful of what is taking place in your immediate environment for that is the true source of happiness.

For the Master knew we must let go of our attachments to the past not because it is bad but because it is dead. This vital clue alone points to the significance of each moment being a precious gift that can slip through our fingers if we’re not attentive. After all, the past and future cannot coexist anymore than our thoughts about it create its reality.

Snacks That Cause Your Face to Bloat — and Foods to Eat Instead

10 Snacks That Cause Your Face to Bloat — and 5 Foods to Eat Instead

• 10 foods to avoid
• Morning remedies
• 5 foods to eat
• Takeaway

Food isn’t just responsible for gut bloating — it can cause facial bloating, too

Do you ever look at pictures of yourself after a night out and notice that your face looks unusually puffy?

While we commonly associate bloating and the foods that cause it with the body’s stomach and midsection, certain foods can cause your face to swell as well.

According to Starla Garcia, MEd, RDN, LD, a registered dietitian in Houston, Texas, and Rebecca Baxt, MD, a board-certified dermatologist in Paramus, New Jersey, foods that have shown to cause facial bloating are often are high in sodium or monosodium glutamate (MSG).

It’s also called “sushi face,” thanks to actress Julianne Moore, and has been used to describe bloating and water retention that occurs after eating high-sodium meals like ramen, pizza, and, yep, sushi (likely due to refined carbs and soy sauce).

“Normally after eating a meal that is high in sodium, your body needs to balance itself out, so [it] will end up holding onto water in certain places, which can include the face,” Garcia said.

(It’s known that for every gram of glycogen, which is stored carbohydrate, your body stores 3 to 5 grams of water.)

Here’s a list of late-night snacks you should avoid

Avoid eating at night

• ramen
• sushi
• processed meats like ham, bacon, and salami
• milk
• cheese
• chips
• pretzels
• french fries
• alcoholic beverages
• condiments such as soy sauce and teriyaki sauce

For the sake of looking camera-ready the next day, it’s a good idea to avoid all the refined and processed carbohydrates, processed foods, and dairy products, because when it comes to having your sodium and not being bloated too, Baxt says it’s nearly impossible.

“There’s really no known way to prevent bloating from foods that are high in salt and carbohydrates. A lot of it really just comes down to common sense,” she says.

“If you know you want to avoid this reaction on a specific day or occasion, your best bet is to simply avoid these foods for a couple of days beforehand and focus on a healthier diet with less salt and refined carbs. When you do eat these foods and experience facial puffiness, it should resolve itself within a day or so, once they are worked out of your system.”

Garcia recommends staying away from these foods for most of the week leading up to any camera-ready event.

Quick hacks to reduce facial bloating

If you’re in a time crunch on the day of a special event, you can try some quick hacks to get your facial bloating to go down.

Jade rolling:

This technique has been said to boost circulation and assist with lymphatic drainage, helping your skin look brighter and more energized.

Face yoga:

Incorporating some facial exercises into your beauty routine may also help strengthen the muscles under your skin, helping your face to look leaner and toned rather than puffy.

Wash with cold water:

Cold water can constrict the blood vessels and help the swelling go down.

Exercise:

Cardiovascular exercise may also help bloating go down, so waking up to do your daily run in the morning might be worth the early alarm.

Review your diet:

If you want to take further steps to reduce water retention, take a look at your overall diet. You may want to consider your intake of certain vitamins and minerals, or incorporating certain herbs when cooking, such as garlic, parsley, and fennel.

Here’s what you should focus on eating, especially at night

Fortunately, there are certain food groups that can actually help reduce the occurrence of bloating in both your midsection and, in turn, your face, Garcia says.

Here’s what you can snack on at night, instead.

1. Snack on fruits and vegetables

Fruits and vegetables are known to be some of the highest sources of fiber, antioxidants, vitamins, and minerals — while at the same time being low in fat and sodium.

Many fruits and veggies also have a high-water content, which assists your body in staying well-hydrated and decreasing bloat.

So the next time you feel like having a late-night snack:

Opt for a bowl of berries or sliced red bell pepper with guacamoleinstead of cake.

The fiber will help you feel fuller faster so you won’t overeat, which could happen when it comes to processed snacks or desserts.

Loading up on fruits and vegetables can also increase water intake, as the majority of them are made up of water. This also aids in decreasing inflammation and bloat.

2. Eat yogurt, instead of ice cream for dessert

Yes, even though other dairy sources like milk and cheese are known to cause bloating, yogurt might actually have the opposite effect.

By choosing a yogurt that’s low in added sugar and contains live, active cultures — which indicate that it contains effective probiotics — you can help reduce the frequency of bloating and uncomfortable symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome.

Snacking tip:

Greek yogurt with mixed berries is an excellent snack choice to help prevent bloating and puffiness.

3. Try fermented foods and beverages

Just like many yogurts out there, fermented foods and beverages have been shown to promote good bacteria or probiotics in your gut.

The good bacteria could help with bloating — and by reducing overall bloating, this might help with facial swelling.

Examples of these foods include:

• kefir, a cultured dairy product similar to yogurt
• kombucha
• kimchi
• fermented tea
• natto
• sauerkraut

4. Stick to whole grains, instead of processed foods

Whole grains such as whole-wheat bread and rice alternatives like quinoa and amaranth are high in vitamins, minerals, and fiber, unlike their refined counterparts like white bread and pasta.

So if toast is one of your go-to breakfast or snack choices, opt for a sprouted grain bread like Ezekiel bread instead of plain white.

Quinoa and amaranth — which can be enjoyed as a substitute for oatsor a side dish with dinner — are also high in protein and antioxidants.

When you include nutrient-dense, fibrous carbs over refined, sugary carbs, it can help combat inflammation and thus keep facial puffiness at bay.

5. Stay hydrated

While water isn’t technically something you eat, just staying hydrated throughout the day and night can help to reduce water retention, stomach bloating, and the chance of facial puffiness as well.

The Institute of Medicine recommends that adults consume 72 to 104 ounces of water a day in total from food, other beverages, and water itself.

Some easy ways to get this are to carry a 16- to 32-ounce bottle of water and refill it as needed, and also to only order water to drink when dining out (which will also save you money as an added bonus).

Do you need to see a doctor?

“While facial bloating isn’t a cause for concern beyond the fact that it might make you feel self-conscious, if you experience symptoms like hives or an upset stomach, you should consult a primary care doctor or gastrointestinal specialist,” Baxt says.

“[A doctor can help] determine if you might have a food allergy or undiagnosed stomach condition.”

“If you consciously choose foods that are wholesome, natural, and free of preservatives you have a better chance of being bloat-free,” Garcia reminds us. “The longer you avoid, you don’t have to worry about bloating at all.”

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Emilia Benton is a freelance writer and editor based in Houston, Texas. She’s also a nine-time marathoner, avid baker, and frequent traveler.

LIFE – THE ODDS OF LIFE AND TO OVERCOME THESE

Anthony Moore

Photo by Brook Anderson on Unsplash

The Odds Are Stacked Against You. You’re Screwed Unless You Do This.

“Never tell me the odds.” -Han Solo

Most people don’t want to hear how difficult their road to success is. They don’t want to know the odds.

But I’m not here to coddle you. You’re not a child, and I’m not going to treat you like one. If you’re reading this, you’re probably someone who wants success. If that’s you, you need to know what you’re up against.

• In America, less than a third of alcoholics will actually get sober (and stay sober).
• 60% of restaurants will fail in the first year. 80% will fail by year 3.
• About 50% of marriages will end in divorce.
• The overall chances of an obese woman obtaining a normal body weight are 1 in 124 (for men, the chances are 1 in 210).

Here’s a blunt truth most people won’t tell you:

The odds are stacked against you. You’re screwed if you keep doing the same thing you’re doing.

The game you’re playing is unfair and heavily favors others over you.

• If you don’t have the right degree from the right college, you’re screwed.
• If you’re not pretty/handsome enough, you’re screwed.
• If you don’t know the right people, you’re screwed.
• If you’re not a charming extrovert who knows how to network with the right people, you’re screwed.
• If you don’t live in the right city, you’re screwed.
• If you don’t have the right goals and dreams, you’re screwed.

Very few people will escape this losing game. They will spend their whole lives fighting a losing battle, seeing others win what should have been rightfully theirs.

It’s unfair. It’s profoundly frustrating. It’s discouraging.

Sadly, it’s not going to change.

But I have good news for you. Great news, actually. The best news you’ve heard all day.

You don’t have to end up like this. You can beat the system and can quit this terrible game, make your own rules, and win more than ever before in every area of your life.

But there’s a specific way to avoid ending up screwed like everyone else. If you follow these guidelines below, you’ll be able to stop playing a losing game with unfair rules and finally start winning, consistently.

This Response to Unfair Advantage Will Make You Unstoppable

“Bad things are fuel. And you don’t just want fuel — you need it. You can’t go anywhere without it.” -Ryan Holiday

Most people respond to unfair advantages the wrong way: whining, complaining, and blaming others as they stop putting in work. This response guarantees continued mediocrity and subpar results. It’s why most people will remain in mediocrity.

There’s a better way, one that will make you unstoppable and give you consistently excellent results.

One example I’ve experienced personally recently is Medium itself. After speaking with numerous writers from the platform, the feedback has been the same: numbers are down. What used to be a pretty straightforward meritocracy seems different now. Getting a fair shake isn’t guaranteed anymore.

You might think I’m angry. Frustrated. Pissed off and resentful. Frankly, sometimes I am. Many others are. Sometimes, I just want to quit and go somewhere where the rules are fair.

But this feeling doesn’t last for long. I like the challenge. Medium’s new changes force me to become the best, the most compelling I can possibly be. Otherwise, I’m toast. I’ll end up just like almost everyone else.

Most people have the wrong response to this scenario: resentful foot-stamping and miserable complaining. Many people who finally realize the game is unfair stop what they’re doing, set up camp, and angrily criticize how unfair things are. They shift their focus from progress to blaming others.

In some cases, this response is valid. But in most cases, this response isn’t helpful or productive. If you begin to consistently label yourself as helpless and a victim, that’s what you’ll become. Tony Robbins once put it this way:

“We all act consistent with who we think we are.”

If you start believing there’s now way to succeed — as a writer, creative, designer, actor, singer — then that’s what will happen. We attract what we see ourselves as.

When the odds are stacked against you, you have 2 choices: evolve, or die.The elite evolve and become more skilled, more adaptable, more flexible. The average Joe complains and gives up. The response to unfair advantage that will make you unstoppable is simple: use it to become better.

Best-selling author David Kadavy once put it this way:

“Criticizing others wastes energy we could be using to grow.”

Don’t fall into the trap everyone else falls into. Don’t complain, use your obstacle as fuel. A chip on your shoulder is a powerful tool when used right.

Pablo Rebolledo on Unsplash

The Recipe For Success Has Been the Same For Thousands of Years

“Success is neither magical nor mysterious. Success is the natural consequence of consistently applying the basic fundamentals.” -Jim Rohn

One of my favorite writers Jim Rohn once wrote, “There are no new fundamentals. Truth is not new, it’s old. You’ve got to be a little suspicious of the guy who says, ‘Come over here, I want to show you my manufactured antiques!’ No, you can’t manufacture antiques.”

There is no such thing as a “manufactured antique.” The only way an idea can become a proven truth is by constant use over a long time. That’s what success is like, and it’s worked for thousands of years. Anyone trying to tell you about some “new” idea of success is probably trying to tell you something.

Success isn’t a mystery. It’s actually very simple. If you follow the proven guidelines of success, you’ll achieve success. That’s just how it works.

One of the most important fundamentals of success is this:

Be consistent.

Consistency beats talent, good luck, good intentions, and even quality. The individual who is able to come in and put in the work every day will soon achieve mastery, more influence, and more success.

The problem is, most people aren’t consistent. I know I wasn’t. I wrote for 4.5 years and never achieved anything, because I was terribly inconsistent. I would write like crazy for a few weeks, posting passionate blogs written from the heart. But upon seeing dismal page view numbers, I’d quit. I wouldn’t write again for months. I wanted big success very quickly.

Then, I decided to become consistent. No matter what, I’d publish. So I did. I wrote 30 posts in 30 days. The first day, I had no views. A week in, I had a few views. 2 weeks in, a few dozen views. By the end of the month, I was getting hundreds of views in a single day. That was the most progress I’d ever seen in almost 5 years of writing.

Be consistent. It’s proven to work.

Another crucial rule of success:

Become a Student of the Game.

The difference between the professionals and the dreamers is that the professionals actually become students of their craft.

If you don’t become a student of your craft, you’ll never be great at anything. If you want enormous success, focus on learning and growing, not distracting entertainment.

A quote by best-selling author Hal Elrod comes to mind:

“Repetition can be boring or tedious — which is why so few people ever master anything.”

Most people will never decide to put in the time to actually master their craft. You can work on your craft for years and still not get any better. A bad accountant can still be a bad accountant 10 years later. A jogger might still never break her 5-mile record ever after years of jogging.

If you’re ever going to be “great” at anything, you need to become a serious,committed student of it. You need to practice, learn, and develop skills you don’t have before. As Dilbert creator Scott Adams once said, “Every skill you acquire doubles your odds of success.” The more you learn, the better your odds.

One last fundamental you can’t afford to ignore:

Be humble and ask for help.

Jorge Saavedra on Unsplash

In his autobiography, Arnold Schwarzenegger described his early days as a struggling actor in America. Imagine an enormously muscular, deep-voiced immigrant with a heavy foreign accent, going to Hollywood and auditioning for roles. He was jeered and laughed at. No one would hire him.

Schwarzenegger said he would never have had the acting success he achieved if he didn’t ask for help. He met up with everyone he could — producers, actors, directors, writers, coaches, managers — and asked for advice. How could he be better? What could he do differently? What did he need to work on?

He applied this mindset to several other endeavors where he’s achieved world-class success — politics, power lifting, real estate, investment, even working with the Special Olympics.

In his old parable The Richest Man in Babylon, George S. Clason wrote:

“This is the process by which wealth is accumulated; first in small sums, then in larger ones as a man learns and becomes more capable.”

Success comes after momentum, after you master your current obstacle. The best way to do this is to continually and humbly ask for help by those who have done it already. Prideful people may achieve success, but humble individuals achieve true, lasting success that can be replicated.

“Any human being that will observe the laws of life as carefully as a successful businessman observes the laws of business will come to that inward poise and triumph which is life’s happiest crown.” -Frank Crane, American author

In Conclusion

“Would you be as successful if you followed all the rules and always behaved and never took chances? No, you’d be just like everyone else, scared about failing and worried about being liked.” -Tim Grover

The odds against you are formidable. Frankly, most people won’t ever beat them. If they do, it will take them years to accomplish what could be achieved in a fraction of the time.

The truth is, the odds against you are unfair. They favor other prettier, funnier, smarter, richer, more likable people than you. You’re screwed…unless you change the game.

Most people’s response to unfair odds is to complain. They stop working towards their goal, stopping in their tracks to prepare for war. Their progress slows to a complete stop.

If you want to become unstoppable and beat unfair odds, you need to change the game. Stop fighting a losing battle against those with more power than you.

Rely on the fundamentals of success. They’ve worked for thousands of years, and will be working long after you and I are gone. Consistency, learning, humility, and focus will help you achieve your goals, no matter who is standing in the way.

Time Management

3 Time Management Tips That Actually Work

Time management can be tough. What is urgent in your life and what is important to your life are often very different things.

This is especially true with your health, where the important issues almost never seem urgent even though your life ultimately hangs in the balance.

• No, going to the gym today isn’t urgent, but it is important for your long–term health.
• No, you won’t die from stress today, but if you don’t get it figured out soon, you might.
• No, eating real, unprocessed foods isn’t required for you to stay alive right now, but will reduce your risk of cancer and disease.

Is there anything we can do? If we all have 24 hours in a day, how do we actually use them more effectively?

And most importantly, how can we manage our time to live healthier and happier, do the things that we know are important, and still handle the responsibilities that are urgent?

I’m battling with that answer just like you are, but in my experience there are three time management tips that actually work in real life and will help you improve your health and productivity.

1. Eliminate half–work at all costs.

In our age of constant distraction, it’s stupidly easy to split our attention between what we should be doing and what society bombards us with. Usually we’re balancing the needs of messages, emails, and to–do lists at the same time that we are trying to get something accomplished. It’s rare that we are fully engaged in the task at hand.

I call this division of your time and energy “half–work.”

Here are some examples of half–work…

• You start writing a report, but stop randomly to check your phone for no reason or to open up Facebook or Twitter.
• You try out a new workout routine. Two days later, you read about another “new” fitness program and try a little bit of that. You make little progress in either program and so you start searching for something better.
• Your mind wanders to your email inbox while you’re on the phone with someone.

Regardless of where and how you fall into the trap of half–work, the result is always the same: you’re never fully engaged in the task at hand, you rarely commit to a task for extended periods of time, and it takes you twice as long to accomplish half as much.

Half–work is reason why you’re able to get more done on your last day before vacation (when you really focus) than you do in the 2 weeks previous (when you’re constantly distracted).

Like most people, I deal with this problem all of the time and the best way I’ve found to overcome it is to block out significant time to focus on one project and eliminate everything else.

I pick one exercise and make it my only focus for the entire workout. (i.e. “Today is just for squats. Anything else is extra.”)

I carve out a few hours (or even an entire work day) to deep dive on an important project. I’ll leave my phone in another room and shut down my email, Facebook, and Twitter.

This complete elimination of distractions is the only way I know to get into deep, focused work and avoid fragmented sessions where you’re merely doing half–work.

How much more could you achieve if you did the work you needed to do, the way you needed to do it, and eliminated the half–work, half–wandering that we fill most of our days with?

2. Do the most important thing first.

Disorder and chaos tend to increase as your day goes on. At the same time, the decisions and choices that you make throughout the day tend to drain your willpower. You’re less likely to make a good decision at the end of the day than you are at the beginning.

I’ve found that this same trend holds true in my workouts as well. As the workout progresses, I have less and less willpower to finish sets, grind out reps, and perform difficult exercises.

For all of those reasons, I do my best to make sure that if there is something important that I need to do, then I do it first.

If I have an important article to write, I grab a glass of water and start typing as soon as I wake up. If there is a tough exercise that I need to do, then I do it at the beginning of each workout.

If you do the most important thing first, then you’ll never have a day when you didn’t get something important done. By following this simple strategy, you will usually end up having a productive day, even if everything doesn’t go to plan. If you actually do the most important thing first each day, it is the only productivity tip you’ll ever need.

3. Reduce the scope, but stick to the schedule.

I’ve written previously about the importance of holding yourself to a schedule and not a deadline. There might be occasions when deadlines make sense, but I’m convinced that when it comes to doing important work over the long–term, following a schedule is much more effective.

When it comes to the day–to–day grind, however, following a schedule is easier said than done. Ask anyone who plans to workout every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and they can tell you how hard it is to actually stick to their schedule every time without fail.

To counteract the unplanned distractions that occur and overcome the tendency to be pulled off track, I’ve made a small shift in how I approach my schedule. My goal is to put the schedule first and not the scope, which is the opposite of how we usually approach our goals.

For example, let’s say you woke up today with the intention of running 3 miles this afternoon. During the day, your schedule got crazy and time started to get away from you. Now you only have 20 minutes to workout.

At this point, you have two options.

The first is to say, “I don’t have enough time to workout today,” and spend the little time you have left working on something else. This is what I would usually have done in the past.

The second option is to reduce the scope, but stick to the schedule. Instead of running 3 miles, you run 1 mile or do five sprints or 30 jumping jacks. But you stick to the schedule and get a workout in no matter what. I have found far more long–term success using the this approach than the first.

On a daily basis, the impact of doing five sprints isn’t that significant, especially when you had planned to run 3 miles. But the cumulative impact of always staying on schedule is huge. No matter what the circumstance and no matter how small the workout, you know you’re going to finish today’s task. That’s how little goals become lifetime habits.

Finish something today, even if the scope is smaller than you anticipated.

Time Management Tips That Actually Work

 

There are thousands of time management apps and productivity gadgets. You’ll find more calendars, reminders, and task lists than you know what to do with. But in my experience, the most effective and practical time management approaches are simple.

When it comes to living a healthy and productive life, I do my best to focus on three things…

1. Eliminate half–work and focus deeply.
2. Do the most important thing first.
3. Stick to your schedule and build the habit, no matter how small the accomplishment.

How have you managed your time better and accomplished more at work, at home, or in the gym?

The Million Dollar Habits

Do you remember the first time self development became important to you?

I do. I was 7 years old and I was in love with basketball. My mother had bought me a book called Rare Air, the autobiography of Michael Jordan.

Through this book, Michael Jordan brought me into his world. He shared stories of what inspired him, the emotions he felt, how he handled the failures and rejections and how he discovered his passion.

I was absolutely blown away and fired up after reading his book. It felt like my childhood hero was right there with me, teaching me about the importance of working on yourself and becoming the best you can possibly be.

I read this book every morning before school to be highly motivated for the day ahead.

Once that book was finished, I continued to read other books like 20 Ways to Make Pocket Money and Rich Dad, Poor Dad Quotes. As I made this motivation session part of my morning ritual, I noticed my belief, confidence and passion skyrocket.

I wanted to be just like these high achievers so I started waking up early, setting my goals and learning as much as I could about new skills and life each day. Little did I know that I was hard-wiring a series of positive unconscious actions that eventually led me to a life of multiple successes: Hosting radio shows, signing record deals, promotions to higher paying salaries, training with world-class experts, meetings with my idols, creating one of the top self-development websites in the world, being offered millions of dollars for my business and being featuring on the cover of magazines.

I became infatuated with the idea of growing and evolving as an individual so much so that over the past four years I’ve committed to interviewing hundreds of entrepreneurs, authors, celebrities, coaches and multimillionaires to find out what separates the super achievers from your every day “Average Joe.”

What I’ve come to discover is that a good 90 percent of the interviewee’s credit their success to the persisting energy bolts of action that we call “habits.”

So being the curious cat that I am, I decided to go a little deeper and squeeze the juice out of this new discovery.

I started asking each high achiever what their daily habits are that keep them on top. I then averaged their answers out to break it down into these 7 million-dollar habits:

 

 

If you are more of a visual person then save your time reading this and just watch me share The 7 Million Dollar Habits in this video:

Joel Brown sharing his advice back in 2014.

 

Habit 1: Write Your “To-Do List,” The Night Before

The high achievers would write their to-do’s every evening before dinner or bed so they were prepared for the following day.

Prioritizing your “To-Do” list is the key to productivity success.

Action step: The super-successful make it a habit of numbering their to-do lists and you can do this, too, by simply ordering the “Most Important” first, placing a BIG Number 1 or a Star next to the activity, marking the importance of getting the task done first thing in the morning.

They then follow with the rest of the numbers, based on importance as they work their way down the list.

 

Habit 2: The Mind, Body & Soul

Ninety percent of the super-successful practice some form of physical concentration time or health focused activity at some point in their day.

Meditation seems to be a popular habit on the rise between the highly successful.

Deepak Chopra Advice on Meditation a few months ago and he was explaining to me why meditation is so important. He said that meditation increases the amount of rest you would normally achieve through sleep and is almost twice as effective as taking a nap.

Action step: Here are some of the most common practices listed below:

05 – 10 Minutes* – Breathing Exercises
15 – 20 Minutes* – Meditation
20 – 30 Minutes* – Eating Healthy
20 – 60 Minutes* – Exercise (The Gym, Skipping, Running, Swimming, Cycling, Yoga)

*Time on average

 

Habit 3: Goal-Setting and Visualization

Ninety-five percent of the successful achievers I have interviewed practice writing down their goals, plans, or vision for success on a regular basis.

They usually practice this first thing in the morning to set their intentions and to prime their mental state to prepare them for a day of challenges on the road to success.

Multi-millionaire entrepreneur Grant Cardone Quotes even mentioned to me that he writes his 10X goals out multiple times during the day to stay focused on the massive outcomes he desires.

Action step: Deepak Chopra told me to keep in mind when you are setting your goals to:

– Stretch for more than you can reach.

– Make everything measurable.

– Get agreements from your team and supporters.

– Record your progress.

– And set time limits.

 

Habit 4: Gratitude and Positive Self Talk

Being grateful and focusing on the positive seems to be a common priority in the lives of the highly successful.

Something truly amazing that the best-selling author and neuroscientist Joe Dispenza shared with me is:

“If you’re saying affirmations like, ‘I am abundant, I am wonderful, I am unstoppable,’ but your emotional state is in fear, then your body is in opposition.

Thoughts are the language of the brain and feelings are the language of the body. Those thoughts will bounce off because they aren’t equal to the emotions of fear.

If a person feels gratitude, and has practiced it over and over authentically and they say affirmations like, ‘I am wonderful, I am incredible, I am unstoppable’ and so on… and it aligns with their autonomic nervous system then this is where the real power comes into play.”

Gratitudes are powerful, and a lot of people nowadays are catching on to this.

Actions step: Practice three gratitudes a day between you and a friend or partner, or just by yourself. Whatever helps you to stick to this positive habit.

But….here’s the key with sharing your gratitudes: You must justify why you are grateful, this strengthens the affect. So when you say your gratitude, do it this way: “I am grateful for having my partner in my life because, he/she always supports me and encourages me to follow my dreams no matter what.” This reminds you why and has a deeper affect in you than just a surface level statement.

 

Habit 5: Self Development

The super-successful focus heavily on learning new skills, reading practical books and listening or watching podcasts, interviews and informational courses.

During a conversation with the best selling author and leadership coach Simon Sinek, he said:

“My work is never complete, we wake up with a hunger to learn, and no one is ever truly an expert. Anyone who says, ‘I’m an expert at anything’ has closed their mind to the idea that they might not know everything.

There’s always more to learn. I’ve never considered myself an expert. I’m always a student of leadership. All the work is imperfect and all the learning is continuous.”

Action Step: If you can read 20 full pages a day, or even listen to an hour-long audio/podcast, that roughly equals more than 36+ books a year of new knowledge. Wow! (I learned that one from entrepreneur and habits coach James Clear.)

 

Habit 6: Networking

The high achievers know and live by the saying, “Your network determines your net worth.”

So they make it a habit to work on building new bridges, collaborating, helping others, attending social events, getting back to people and being a man (or woman) of their word.

Action Step: Make it a habit to meet at least one new person a day or making one follow up/catch up a day.

 

Habit 7: Meetings and Accountability Sessions

Last, but not least, the seventh habit that was highly practiced by the uber successful was holding accountability calls each week and/or a coffee catch up with a mentor or business partner to hold each other accountable.

Action Step: Find someone who is on a similar level to you in life and make a commitment between you and your accountability partner to hold a catch-up call or meeting once a week to share your achievements, struggles, new goals and what you have learned from the previous week.

This is a great way to stay motivated, knowing that you will have to come clean to your accountability buddy if you haven’t been sticking to your goals and habits.

 

As you can see there isn’t just one key habit that plays it’s part in the life of a successful high achiever. Many daily actions are in play.

If you are new to these habits then I would recommend starting with two to three habits and making them easy, short sessions so you don’t shock yourself out of the commitment. Just know: Naturally this will feel uncomfortable to you until you can solidify it as a hard wired habit in your unconscious.

The key is to commit to at least two to three months of continuous implementation as your body adjusts to the new life you are creating and the habits you are conditioning.

Enjoy the process and make sure you throw in some fun habits, that focus on your mind body and soul also as balance is key to staying sane during this process.

Do you have any success habits you practice daily that has transformed your life? If so please share them with us below, I’d love to hear your success habits.

 

This Morning Routine Will Make You A Millionaire

Benjamin P. Hardy

Greatist

“Lose an hour in the morning, and you will spend all day looking for it.” — Richard Whately

Life is busy. It can feel impossible to move toward your dreams. If you have a full-time job and kids, it’s even harder.

How do you move forward?

If you don’t purposefully carve time out every day to progress and improve — without question, your time will get lost in the vacuum of our increasingly crowded lives. Before you know it, you’ll be old and withered — wondering where all that time went.

As Professor Harold Hill has said — “You pile up enough tomorrows, and you’ll find you are left with nothing but a lot of empty yesterdays.”

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Getting Out Of Survival Mode

It does not matter how successful or unsuccessful you’ve been in the past. Confidence, clarity, and a sense of purpose are all things that need to be established, and re-established, daily.

Each and every day, you have the power to shift who you are, and who you’ve been.

For most people, their morning begins the same way it usually does, by being triggered almost immediately into a subconscious cycle. They pull out their phone, go through their apps, get out of bed on the same side, and then go about their day.

Their physical body has become their mind — and due to the repetition it has experienced, the body can go through the day in an automatic and subconscious way. You eat the same unhealthy foods, distract yourself at work in the same ways.

Your body is a chemical system — and the chemicals your body releases produce emotions. Those emotions are tied to memories. So, when you pull out your smartphone out of habit, your body has taken over your mind, and it is seeking the dopamine chemicals that it has become habituated to. Your body becomes your mind because your physical body quite literally is your subconscious mind. And your subconscious mind makes up around 95% of your behavior.

This is why change can be so difficult. Change is always emotional. You have to decide, very intentionally, who you are going to be every single day. If you don’t make the decision who you will be and how you will act, then your body will go through it’s cycle seeking the same chemicals and emotional states that it has become accustomed to.

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In order to become someone different, you must do something different, today. You must act in ways that are more reflective of the emotions you want to experience in your future, rather than living out the emotions of your past. The only way to do that is to wake up and intentionally decide who you will be and how you will act.

If you don’t start your day with intention, you are living in survival mode. Your time is, without question, moving faster than you want it to. You’re stuck in the past. You’re stuck living out the same experiences and emotions and patterns, over and over and over.

This is not a fun way to live life. Yet this is how most people are living in today’s heavily stimulated and addicting world. We are spending more and more time in subconscious and distracting cycles. More of our time is being taken from us because we’ve allowed our bodies and the external world to govern our lives.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. You can make the decision right here and now to create a new pattern. Rather than living in the past, you can create a new future. But there’s a catch. The past is known. The emotions you’ve become used to experiencing are known and predictable.

One of the primary reasons people stay in even life-threatening addictions is because they know the outcomes of their behavior. The human brain really likes being able to predict the future. Thus, people want their lives to be predictable even if what is predictable is absolutely painful and horrible and regretful.

If you want to become someone new, you have to do something where you cannot entirely predict the outcome. You have to do something different and new, and this will freak you out. When you do something new, your body will experience new emotions, and it will quickly seek its homeostasis. As Napoleon Hill said, “A good shock often helps the brain that has been atrophied by habit.”

If you’re willing to live with intention, and to make new decisions, there is a cost. That cost is emotional. Are you willing to deal with difficult emotions? Are you willing to move forward into your future without being able to fully predict the outcome?

According to some psychologists, fear of the unknown is the basis of all other fears. The unknown is what freaks us out, because we hate not being able to predict exactly how something will happen. Emotionally, this rocks our world. Based on loads of research in psychology, one of the primary attributes of successful people is having a high tolerance for ambiguity and uncertainty.

Are you willing to make new decisions and live a less predictable life?

Are you willing to operate with faith and vision, rather than regret and being stuck in the past?

Are you ready to become a new person; one who lives their life based on what they are striving to create in their future?

If so, then this morning routine will transform your life. You will quickly learn that you can actually change your entire personality. Personality is not something that is or should remain permanent. Rather, your personality is based on the memories you have and the behaviors you repeatedly perform. Your personality is the decisions you make. If you make new decisions and thus experience new emotions and create new memories, then you will change your personality.

Who you are and who you become is up to you. But only if you get out of your emotional and subconscious pattern.

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Optimizing Your Brain In The Evening And Morning

According to Benjamin Franklin, “If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail!” A life-changing morning routine doesn’t just happen. It must be designed and planned for.

According to Stanford Psychologist, BJ Fogg, design trumps willpower. If you simply take a few minutes to set up the environment, then the decision has already been made for you. For example, you can lay your clothes out the night before so you don’t have to think about what you’re going to wear. You can pull some dental floss out and lay it on the counter so you don’t have to make the decision whether to floss or not.

Your evening routine is about taking the decisions out of your morning. You want to wake up already knowing exactly what you’re going to do. You want to wake up with the confidence of a plan so you don’t have to exhaust willpower to get yourself going.

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This Evening Routine Guarantees Success The Next Day

This is one of the most pivotal things you can learn — to set yourself up the night before. Your brain is generally more analytical at night and more creative in the morning. Your evening is the perfect time to take 5 or so minutes planning out your next day.

Your evening is also a really good time to reflect, relax, and recover. Here are the keys to a perfect evening routine to set your next day up for you success.

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1. Write In Your Journal About What Happened That Day

There are several reasons and ways to use a journal. Your journal can be place to record and account the experiences you’ve had and the things you’ve learned. The evening is a solid time to take 5–15 minutes writing down the events of your day. By doing this, you have a record and accounting of what you’ve done. This is an easy way to track key behaviors and spot themes in your life. Also during this evening journaling session, you can begin detailing your plans for the next day.

This type of journaling is best done on a computer using something like Google Docs or Word. The reason you want to use a computer for this type of journaling is that you probably type 5 times faster than you write by hand. Also, this type of journaling isn’t inherently creative, but more reflective, factual, and analytical.

Taking 5–15 minutes every night to go over all of the details of your day is very enlightening, and it is actually a profound way to also get your mind thinking and planning for the next day. While reviewing your day, you can relive and re-experience your whole day. This will create enormous feelings of gratitude. Also, while you’re reflecting on how your day went, you can immediately begin thinking about what could be done better.

It is during my evening journaling session, usually while documenting what I learned that day, that I get all of my best ideas for what I’ll be writing about the next day. Again, this is essential for someone who is creative, because waking up with a plan and an idea almost ensures you’ll be successful the next morning. Conversely, if you don’t have a plan or an idea, but have to start with a blank slate, this is heavily taxing to your willpower. Design trumps willpower everyday of the week.

Another use of your journal is to write your goals and dreams and ambitions in vivid detail. Doing this in the evening is powerful because it triggers your subconscious mind to ruminate and think about it all night while you sleep. However, the morning is most likely the best time to be thinking and writing in terms of your big picture dreams, because by mentally and emotionally envisioning those dreams, you trigger the emotions and experiences you intend to create in the future. Doing this first thing every morning is how you trigger yourself into the state of being you plan to become. This is how you live with purpose and intention. This is how you get out of the trap of the past. This is how you consciously design your subconscious, rather than having your subconscious control you.

More on this type of journaling in the morning routine section.

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2. Make Brief Plans For What You’ll Do The Next Morning

“If you have more than three priorities, you don’t have any.” — Jim Collins

If you have a big to-do list the following day, you probably aren’t using your time in the best ways. In the book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Dr. Stephen Covey explains the difference between activities that are urgent and those which are important. He actually created a useful matrix to explain how the most effective people use their time vs. how most people use their time.

The 4 categories of activities include:

• Important activities that are urgent (they must be done now or soon)
• Important activities that are not urgent
• Unimportant activities that are urgent
• Unimportant activities that are not urgent

Below is a simplified matrix of how this work:

Matrix 1

Here is another matrix of how you should handle all of these activities:

Matrix 2

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As you begin living your days better and better, you’ll become clearer on what matters to you. In the important book, Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less, Greg McKeown says, “You cannot overestimate the unimportance of practically everything.”

Almost everything is a waste of time. The better you get with your time, the less you tolerate things that are not making an impact on your goals, values, and priorities. You get in life what you’re willing to tolerate. Most people tolerate spending huge amounts of their time on things that don’t inspire them because they aren’t clear on what they want. They aren’t clear on what they want because they haven’t begun acting right. Clarity and inspiration follow positive action.

The clearer you get on your goals and values, the more narrow and focused you become on your priorities. You begin to embrace Derek Sivers’ mantra: “No ‘yes.’ Either ‘HELL YEAH!’ or ‘no.’”

Here’s exactly what Sivers’ said:

“If you’re not saying “HELL YEAH!” about something, say “no”.

When deciding whether to do something, if you feel anything less than “Wow! That would be amazing! Absolutely! Hell yeah!” — then say “no.”

When you say no to most things, you leave room in your life to really throw yourself completely into that rare thing that makes you say “HELL YEAH!”

Every event you get invited to. Every request to start a new project. If you’re not saying “HELL YEAH!” about it, say “no.”

We’re all busy. We’ve all taken on too much. Saying yes to less is the way out.”

This is how you need to view your time. This is how you need to view your relationships. HELL YES or no is how you view your planning the evening before.

What are the few things that are absolutely essential to making tomorrow a truly amazing day worth living?

What creative work do you want to do?

What experiences do you want to have?

Who do you want to connect to?

Don’t place any limitations on what you’re willing to do. Remember, you’re no longer living the predictable life you have in the past. You’re no longer going to be enslaved to the emotions that your body is currently addicted to.

Not anymore. Instead, you’re going to live life on your own terms. You’re going to create the future you want. You’re going to operate out of the emotions that inspire you. Therefore, you’re willing to embrace uncertainty and ambiguity. You’re willing to feel the fear and do it anyways. You’re willing to act in bold and powerful ways, knowing that the more bold and emotional the action, the more memorable and transformational the outcome.

Hell yes or no. That’s how you live your life. That’s how you prioritize your time. And therefore, that is your benchmark when you’re creating your plans for the next day.

During your evening journal session where you record what happened to you during your day, give yourself a score for the day on a 1–10 scale. Was your day a 6? 7? 3? 9? 10?

When planning your day, decide what would make the next day a 10.

It shouldn’t be a lot of things. Instead, it should involve the few essential things that mean the absolute most to you.

What creative outlet do you need to engage in to fill your soul and move your dreams forward?

What spiritual experiences do you need to engage in to deepen your connection to yourself and God?

What conversations do you need to have to move mountains in your career and self-improvement?

What experiences do you want to create with your loved ones to deepen those relationships and ensure they are your greatest asset and joy?

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3. Put Your Phone On Airplane Mode

“Wherever you are, make sure you’re there.” — Dan Sullivan

An hour or so before you go to bed, put your phone on airplane mode. You don’t want to be alerted of anything just before going to bed. You want your evening time to be completely present, reflective, and imaginative.

You don’t want your mind to be bounced around like a ping-pong ball with notifications, disruptions, and distractions. You want your mind to relax and recover. You want to be completely mindful of the people around you; and you also want to give your mind room to begin creating ideas for your next morning.

If you give your mind space at night, you’ll get more inspiration and ideas than you know what to do with. Your evening can become the most spiritual and deep part of your day. While the morning has an intense energy of doing and creating, your evening can have a serene energy where deep gratitude, beautiful experiences, and exquisite inspiration flow.

When you wake up the next morning, keep your phone on airplane mode. In order to become a better person than you were the day before, you need to spend your morning visualizing — mentally and emotionally — the future you want to have. This is how you create the emotions you want to experience in the future here-and-now so you can then operate from higher-level emotions than you have in the past.

Be → Do → Have

Your state of being is the emotional state you are operating from. This emotional state influences the powerful and decisiveness of your decision making. Your decisions determine your destiny.

Zig Ziglar said, “You have to ‘Be’ the right kind of person first, then you must ‘Do’ the right things before you can expect to ‘Have’ the things in life that really matter. Be, Do, Have.

If you check your smartphone first thing in the morning, then your body has become your mind. You’ve immediately reverted to your subconscious cycle and you’ve granted complete control to your physical body and its addiction to various emotion-inducing chemicals. As a result, most people’s lives are quite predictable. All you need to do is look at a person’s past to predict their future. Indeed, personality is predictable.

But again, personality should never become permanent, and your life should never be predictable from your past. Instead, you should continually be learning new things everyday. And true learning means you’ve reshaped your memories and have learned new and better ways to operate in the future. If you don’t see and operate differently in the world, then you didn’t truly learn something.

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This Morning Routine Will Make You A Millionaire

If you’ve set yourself up the evening before, then your chances of winning the next day are optimal.

Design is far more powerful than willpower. You must be intentional. You need to set yourself up for successful. If you fail to plan, then you plan to fail. Willpower is for people who are still uncertain what they want to do with their lives. Willpower reflects internal conflict, indecisiveness, and a lack of intentional design.

The following are essential ingredients to a morning routine that allows you to live every day of your life in a peak and heightened state. If you do these things every single day, your life will quickly and continuously evolve. You’ll continue to grow and transform at rocket-speed. While most of the world is living repetitive and predictable lives, you’ll be experiences new galaxies of growth regularly.

Here are the ingredients you want to start your day with. You’ll notice that these are mostly principle-based, rather than direct applications. The exact behaviors and choices are up to you based on the specific goals you’re pursuing. But the principles remain the same.

• Rise Early — ideally at or before 5AM.
• Super-hydrate — 20+ ounces of water immediately upon waking up.
• Connection — through prayer and meditation, you want to seek connection to yourself and God.
• Visualization and emotion — you want to imagine your ideal future and you want to generate the emotions you will experience in that future. You also want to generate and fully experience gratitude for future events before they happen in order to trigger your brain and body to anticipate these future events. You attract what you are.
• Novelty and nutrition — the two things your brain needs to be optimal and remain young.
• Creativity — you need to put first things first, which means you do your most creative and important work first thing in the morning. If you don’t, you’ll never know what true productivity means.
• Courage — every day, you need to do something different and outside your current comfort zone. Courage is the starting point of all growth and evolution. It takes courage to embrace the uncertainties of unpredictable outcomes and new behaviors.

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Rise Early (Ideally At Or Before 5AM)

“He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.”— Friedrich Nietzsche

Waking up early is not difficult for people who are driven by a mission and purpose in life. If you have something important to wake up for, you won’t want to hit the snooze button.

When you become a time-hacker, and begin to realize that you can expand your time 10X, 100X, and 1,000X, you take your mornings extremely seriously. Your mornings are where the magic happens. In fact, you’ll come to love your mornings so much that you’ll be tempted to wake up earlier and earlier and earlier — so that you can get more and more done.

People who know how to use their mornings get more done by noon than most people get done all week. If you learn how to use your morning, it won’t surprise you if you move the needle on an important project, exercise, and read an entire book before 10AM.

Waking up early is also easy if your evening before was truly restful and sweet. A recovered mind translates to a recovered body. Your evening is the easiest time to self-sabotage. If you begin falling apart in the evening and reverting to your subconscious and bodily addictions, then you won’t have powerful mornings.

Your evening routine really matters. It needs to be restful and rejuvenating. Your evenings must become more inspiring and serene. You will never master your mornings until you take control over your nights. When you learn to behave accordingly at night — and not fall into addictions — you will sleep well. When you sleep well, waking up early will not be hard. It will be a joy. You’ll jump right out of bed and immediately begin moving because you’re so exciting about the future you’re creating and you’re so exciting about the new and positive experiences you’ll be creating.

You’ll be acting as a agent rather than operating as an object. Most people are objects that are being acted upon by either the external world or their own body. When you become an agent, you act with intention and definiteness of purpose.

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Super-Hydrate (Drink 20+ Ounces Of Water Immediately Upon Waking Up)

If you use an alarm clock, put the alarm or your phone on the opposite side of the room so you’re forced to get out of bed in order to stop the beeping. Setting up this type of alarm is a forcing function.

Forcing functions are all about designing the right environment so that desired behavior is the automatic and willpower becomes irrelevant. Design trumps willpower.

As soon as you get out of bed, walk to another room in your house and get a giant glass of water. You want to super-hydrate your body first thing in the morning to re-energize your brain and body.

Hydration is essential to a fully functioning brain. Also, the water will wake you up quickly and make you alert and ready to get moving.

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BONUS: Take A 60 Second Ice-Cold Shower

The first thing Tony Robbins does when he wakes up is he jumps into a 57-degree Fahrenheit swimming pool.

Why would he do such a thing?

Cold water immersion radically facilitates physical and mental wellness.When practiced regularly, it provides long-lasting changes to your body’s immune, lymphatic, circulatory and digestive systems that improve the quality of your life. It can also increase weight-loss because it boosts your metabolism.

A 2007 research study found that taking cold showers routinely can help treat depression symptoms often more effectively than prescription medications. That’s because cold water triggers a wave of mood-boosting neurochemicals which make you feel happy.

In less than five minutes upon waking up:

• you could hear your alarm
• get out of bed, walk to the bathroom
• drink a cup or two of water
• step into the shower for 60 seconds
• and dry-off

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Have the cup right next to the sink so it’s easy to fill up. Design trumps willpower. It’s all in the set-up.

It’s now 5:05AM and your body is hydrated and activated. Your brain is flooded with dopamine and other happy-chemicals. You’ve already done one thing today that took intention and choice. You’re creating immediate momentum for having the best day of your life. You’re getting yourself deeper into a flow state. You’re putting yourself in the right frame of mind so you can meditate and pray with purpose, and then visualize your future with energy and enthusiasm.

You can top all of this off by putting on some clothing that triggers you into a state of being awesome. Immediately upon getting out of the shower, I get into dress clothes — a white shirt and tie. This puts me into a great frame of mind for all of the other activities in my morning routine. I don’t spend much time getting my hair ready. I just throw these clothes on so I’m feeling good and ready to have a masterful morning. It’s 5:10 and I’m feeling like a million bucks. And these emotions are the very reason I will be doing work worth more than a million bucks. Be, Do, Have.

If you’re freaked-out by the idea of a cold shower, remember that your fear is emotional, not physical. It’s not physically dangerous or harmful or even hurtful to have cold water splash on your body for 60 seconds. In fact, it’s highly refreshing physically. Your concern is emotional, and it is by stepping into those emotions you want to avoid that you evolve beyond subconscious and unhealthy patterns.

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Connection — With Yourself And God

“I have so much to do today that I’m going to need to spend three hours in prayer in order to be able to get it all done.” — Martin Luther

It doesn’t matter how fast you think you’re moving, if you’re going in the wrong direction you might as well not be moving at all.

There is a huge emphasis these days on HUSTLING! However, productivity is not about doing a lot of things, but rather, about making tangible progress. Progress is made by making the right moves at the right times. It’s about learning from your mistakes and making better decisions.

Ryan Holiday once wrote in a blog post, “This is a fundamental irony of most people’s lives. They don’t quite know what they want to do with their lives. Yet they are very active.”

This happens way too often. We get caught in the thick of thin things. Far too late do we realize that in our mad rush, we were pursuing someone else’s goals instead of our own.

Spending even a few minutes of time in prayer and/or meditation does more than provide clarity to what you’re doing. These things open your mind up to possibilities you can’t get while busy.

While in meditation or prayer, you will get flashes on insight that allow you to make better decisions. Psychologists call this epiphany ability. The ability to generate epiphanies is something you can absolutely master in your life. Your goal is to begin connecting with the highest and best version of yourself that you can presently imagine.

Albert Einstein has said, “Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.”

Stephen Covey similarly said, “Live out of your imagination, not your history.”

Your goal is to get into a highly creative, imaginative, and faith-based state. By faith, I’m taking about the conviction and resolve to bring into existence something you want to see happen. Don’t let what you currently see stop you from creating in your mind and heart something far more powerful. Prayer and meditation is how you begin tapping into your creative and imaginative powers.

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Visualization And Emotion (And Experience Gratitude For Achieving Those Future Goals)

“According to research on mental rehearsal, once we immerse ourselves in that scene, changes begin to take place in our brain. Therefore each time we do this, we’re laying down new neurological tracks (in the present moment) that literally change our brain to look like the brain of our future. In other words, the brain starts to look like the future we want to create has already happened.

If we are truly engaged in this process with passion, we might begin to emotionally experience our future through thought alone. In fact, when we are feeling the emotions of our future — whether that’s gratitude, joy, freedom, abundance, enthusiasm, love, and so on — the creative thoughts in your mind can become the experience. As the body receives the chemical signals of these emotions, essentially the body is receiving the signal that the event has already occurred.” — Dr. Joe Dispenza

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Research on visualization has found that mentally rehearsing something is not enough to reliably create that experience in the future. You need mental imagination and emotional stimulation in order for visualization to be reliable and predictable.

One of the most powerful emotional experiences is gratitude. It is the mother of all virtues. Research shows that gratitude enhances a person’s life in all areas — physical, emotional, relational, spiritual.

While you are envisioning the future you want to create, make that an emotional experience. Truly imagine what it would feel like to have the life you want. Imagine and experience the emotions of achieving certain goals, or having certain experiences. Express deep gratitude for having those experiences. Truly believe the experiences have already happened.

When you express and feel gratitude for the future experiences you are seeking to have, you are folding your future into your present. You are activating your brain and body to experience the chemical and emotional experiences of your future in the here-and-now.

Remember, memories are highly emotional. Moreover, your body and brain and chemically-producing organisms. Neurons that fire together, wire together. When you regularly experience the ideal emotions of your future, you rewire your brain and retrain your biology. Quite literally, you can shift your identity and biology through emotional visualization. Thus, you’re state of being changes. You then want to act and operate FROM THAT PLACE. Be, Do, Have.

When you operate from the most powerful and anticipated emotions of your future, you act with far more power and intention. This is why you don’t want to check your smartphone in the morning. Instead, you want to put yourself in a place so that you are designing and living out your future, rather than re-creating the past.

A very powerful tool for visualizing is your journal. Unlike the journal you used the night before, hand-writing your morning journal with a pen and pad is beneficial to the brain. Writing with pen and pad activates your brain in different ways from typing. Additionally, writing by hand takes much longer than typing, which allows your mind to loosely wander as you write. This mind-wandering is important for creativity, because as your mind wanders, it will make connections in various parts of your brain. Thus, as you’re writing in your morning journal, you’ll become accustomed to getting many ideas through the writing process itself. Again, this is you developing your epiphany ability.

You can get to the point where you learn more through your own journal writing than you do reading books. Learning is all about making new connections in your brain. This is how your memory and worldview is reshaped. This form of journal writing is a potent tool for reshaping memory. You’ll be in a highly creative and spiritual place while writing in your journal, because you took a few minutes to pray and meditate before you started journaling and visualizing.

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Novelty And Nutrition (Two Things Your Brain Needs To Be Optimal and Remain Young)

According to brain and learning expert, Jim Kwik, the two things your brain needs first thing in the morning are novelty and nutrition.

Novelty

Novelty is all about newness. Your brain does not do well doing the same thing over and over and over. Instead, your brain loves making new connections and expanding. In order for you to make new connections, you need to do things that are new, every single day.

One way that Jim fires his brain in new ways is by brushing his teeth in the morning with his left hand. This fires different neurons on the right side of his brain which aren’t normally fired.

Novelty and newness are essential to growth and success in life. If you’re not doing new things, then you’re stuck in subconscious and unhealthy patterns. You’re not evolving. Interestingly, according to research in psychology, the older people get, the less open they become to having new experiences. Instead, they seek the same things, the same people, and the same types of information that confirms their present biases and ways of life.

As will be discussed in the next point on creativity, in order to transform your identity, you need to continually be trying things you’ve never done before. This is how you also gain confidence. Thus, you should be continually working on projects that push you beyond your current abilities. Personality is predictable. If you want to change your identity and personality, you must act in new ways. Behavior is what shapes personality.

Nutrition

Regarding nutrition, Zig Ziglar has said, “Your input determines your outlook. Your outlook determines your output, and your output determines your future.” Your nutrition is the quality of your environment — food, places, people, information, experiences.

Your brain and soul need increasingly higher quality nutrition if you want to operate at higher levels. You can’t develop a six-pack if you continue to drink a six-pack and eat pizza every day. If you want a different you, you need better nutrition. Your brain will thank you, and then you’ll thank you brain for the amazing insights, decisions, and creations that you’re able to do with a better brain.

Your brain is plastic and flexible. You can transform your brain, and therefore, you can transform yourself. You simply need to make better decisions. You need to raise your standards and get better inputs and nutrition. You can develop a genius brain that allows you to make amazing money, create universe-denting innovations, and connect deeply with anyone in the world you choose.

You must design your brain intentionally.

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Create Something (Eat The Frog!)

“If you’re not prepared to be wrong, you’ll never come up with anything original.” — Sir Ken Robinson

You’re not rewarded in life for what you know. Instead, you’re rewarded in life for what you create. You must take your knowledge and experiences and do something with them. You need to find an creative outlet that allows you to build a body of work.

In order to do truly creative work, you must embrace the unknown. As Seth Godin said, “If you’re willing to do something that might not work, you’re closer to becoming an artist.” Creativity is highly personal and emotional. Good art is honest. And art can be anything — it can be a business, it can be writing, it can be coding. It needs to be something that is personal to you.

You have to be willing to try something beyond what you’ve ever done before. If you wake up every day and begin doing highly creative work toward your biggest dreams and ambitions, you’ll begin living a rare and incredible life.

In order to make millions of dollars and stop living the 9–5, you must become a creator. You need to become a master at what you do. The morning time is the best time to creatively work, since your brain is most creative first thing in morning and your mind isn’t muddled by all the happenings of the day.

Mark Twain once wrote, “Eat a live frog first thing in the morning and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day.” That quote has become a principle that many successful people apply. The idea is simple: put first things first. Do the hardest and most creative thing first thing in the morning. If you don’t do your most important work first thing in the morning, you probably will never get it done. The day will begin to take on whatever form it does, and you’ll be left with another day stuck in the same place you were before.

If, however, you do eat that frog every single day, you’ll begin to see something truly magical happen in your life. You’ll begin living a creative and harmoniously passionate life. You’ll begin to create things that other people want. You’ll begin to feel more zest and passion for life. You’ll begin to dream bigger and imagine how you can turn your art into business, such that you can make money by creating value for people in the most personal way youpossibly can.

Ideally, you should try to spend at least 90 minutes per morning working on a creative project that directly translates to your ideal future and the dreams you’re trying to live. If you can give yourself more time, all the better. But shoot for 90 focused minutes of creation. Again, your phone should still be on airplane mode. You should not have checked email or social media.

So far, here’s your morning:

• wake up
• drink water
• cold shower (optional)
• get dressed
• meditate/pray
• visualize/write down goals
• create/work (eat the frog)

Now that you’ve done all of these things, there’s just one more thing you need to do. This last one may come later in the day. But why not do it first thing in the morning when you have all of this momentum?

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Do Something Courageous!

“A person’s success in life can usually be measured by the number of uncomfortable conversations he or she is willing to have.” — Tim Ferriss

Courage is the starting point of all growth and evolution. It takes courage to embrace the uncertainties of unpredictable outcomes and new behaviors. According to Darren Hardy, you can be a coward 99.9305556% of the time (to be exact). You only need to be courageous for 20 seconds at a time.

Twenty seconds of awkwardness or fear is all you need. If you courageously confront fear for 20 seconds every single day, before you know it, you’ll be in a different socio-economic and social situation.

Make that call.

Ask that question.

Pitch that idea.

Post that video.

Jack Canfield once said, “Everything you want is on the other side of fear.” And he’s right. But I’m going to take it one step further. Pain, discomfort, shock, boredom, impostor syndrome, awkwardness, fear, being wrong, failing, ignorance, looking stupid: your avoidance of these feelings is stopping you from a life beyond your wildest imagination.

Wealth, optimal health, incredible relationships, deep spiritual maturity are all available to you. But you have to pay the price to have these things. The primary obstacle in your way is how you feel about what you need to do to have these things.

If you do something courageous every single day, you will fail a lot. But failure is not the opposite of successful. Failure is essential to successful. Failure is learning. Failure is evolving. Failure is stepping outside of the predictability of your subconscious conditioning and creating a life of passion and purpose.

Wayne Gretzky famously said, “You miss every shot you don’t take.” If you act courageously and simply try something new, every single day, life becomes a numbers game. Yes, you will miss a lot of shots. But you’ll also make a lot of shots. For example, I’m always surprised which of the articles I write that end up going viral. Many of the articles I just whipped-out and didn’t think much of went on to be read by millions of people. If I hadn’t written those, I wouldn’t be where I am today.

You need to take a lot of shots. It’s better to be prolific than perfect. Take shots. Fail. Try.

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Conclusion

“Watch your thoughts; for they become words. Watch your words; for they become actions. Watch your actions; for they become habits. Watch your habits; for they become character. Watch your character for it will become your destiny.” — Frank Outlaw

It does not matter where you are in your life right now. You can make a change. However, you must begin acting as an agent rather than operating as an object.

You must make the decision. You must do something that is unpredictable to the past you’ve been living. You must face the emotional void of uncertainty.

You need to begin living your evenings better. You’ve got to unplug yourself from the matrix of social media and information. When you begin having serene and incredible evenings, you’ll be living more presently and happily than you ever have you before.

You’ll begin living better days, and recording the happenings of those days every night on your computer. Over a year or so, you’ll have thousands of typed pages of history typed up. Your grandkids will thank you.

You can transform your identity. You can become a new person. You can live at a much higher state. You can create and be and do at a much higher state. You can attract the most incredible people and experiences to you. Quite literally, you can attract any person into your sphere that you want to. You can develop mentorships and collaborations with your heroes. I’ve done this myself, many times. It’s truly incredible. But in order to do so, you must live by design rather than by default.

You need to begin using your time to create things that transform other people’s lives for the better. You need to becoming increasingly focused on how you use your time. It’s either HELL YES! or no.

You want to get more consistent at having days that you score as a 9 or a 10. This becomes a lot easier when you have great mornings. Elbert Hubbard once said, “Be pleasant until ten o’clock in the morning, and the rest of the day will take care of itself.”

Confidence is the byproduct of prior performance. Success is what creates confidence. Therefore, if you act powerfully in the morning, you’ll have confidence which will allow you to make better decisions in your evening. However, in order to have confidence the next morning, you need to actually live well the evening before. You can’t fall into subconscious self-sabotage. Make better choices during the morning so you can make better choices at night, and then make better choices at night so you can make better choices the next morning.

LIFE – Get Yourself to Do Hard Things, the More Success You’ll Achieve

Alexander Redl on Unsplash

The More You Can Get Yourself to Do Hard Things, the More Success You’ll Achieve

“Only in a state of discomfort can you grow.” -Bill Eckstrom, Tedx Speaker

Often, you have to do the opposite of what you want to get better.

But the thing about doing hard things is that they’re, well…hard. Best-selling author Seth Godin wrote a book describing this phenomenon called The Dip; at some point, it gets really hard to keep going on your path to mastery. This part of the journey is the “dip,” where most people give up; it’s why so few people ever master anything.

But the more you can get yourself to do things you usually don’t want to do — things like:

• Wake up early
• Eat healthier foods
• Cut off toxic friends
• Drink less caffeine & alcohol
• Have difficult conversations
• Admit your shortcomings
• Journaling
• Watch less TV
• Read more
• Exercise

…the more success you’ll experience. Because by doing things you don’t want to do, you increase your capacity to earn more income, have better relationships, experience better health, sleep better, work longer, feel more creative, and increase your energy to do more and more.

It is by doing hard things that we become “harder” ourselves — more resilient, resourceful, and creative. This will increase our influence, which increases our affluence. Small things become big things — what you do today sets you up for success tomorrow. You reap what you sow.

If I can be blunt, entering into the top 5% of your field actually isn’t that difficult. Just like you can lose an incredible amount of weight in a short time (water weight), you can achieve incredible results with a few simple lifestyle changes.

You have no excuse to achieve incredible results very quickly. All it takes isgetting yourself to do the things you usually don’t want to do.

“If you can get through the Dip, if you can keep going when the system is expecting you to stop, you will achieve extraordinary results.” -Seth Godin

Consistency Beats Talent, Luck, Good Intentions, Even Quality

“Successful people do what unsuccessful people are unwilling to do.” -Darren hardy

There’s an old Haitian proverb that goes, “Beyond mountains are more mountains.” Those who can keep overcoming obstacles are the ones that will be successful, because the truth is, obstacles never stop.

That might seem depressing to you. It did to me. I guess I was hoping that at some point, things would stop being so hard and get easier.

The truth is, things do get easier — losing weight, paying off debt, starting a business, jogging. You just gotta do them every day. You need to be consistent. Because consistency beats talent, good intentions, and luck.

When discussing how he was able to develop mastery in so many areas — bodybuilding, real estate, entrepreneurship, politics, acting — Arnold Schwarzenegger put it simply:

“The more you do it, the more automatic it becomes, and the less effort it takes.”

This is why my most common advice to new writers is to just click “publish,” then do it again. And again. And many more times after that. Then come back after you’ve learned consistency, and we’ll talk.

The thing is, most people still value talent over consistency. Perseverance isn’t sexy — being “a natural” is. Because everyone wants to be incredible without doing the work.

In his autobiography, Steve Martin (perhaps one of the most successful comedians in history) described his path to ultra-stardom: “Perseverance is a great substitute for talent,” he wrote. “My course was more plodding than heroic: I did not strive valiantly against doubters but took incremental steps studded with a few intuitive leaps.”

Be more persistent than you are talented. Great results will follow. Many of the world’s most successful people got there by sheer consistency, lacking talent of any kind.

The truth is, you’re likely “talented” in very few areas. But that doesn’t matter, because consistency beats talent. Consistency beats pedigree, wealth, luck, and, frankly, even quality. If you can “be so good they can’t ignore you,” to quote Steve Martin’s famous advice, you can achieve the success reserved for the top 1% of your field.

Photo by Jason Briscoe on Unsplash

Many people will still always value talent over consistency. That’s fine. But this rabid fascination with talent leaves people with a very narrow view of the truth — that how much you improve is entirely up to you. Anders Ericsson, the father of “Deliberate Practice” and high-level performance coach, once wrote:

“There is no point at which performance maxes out and additional practice does not lead to further improvement.”

Most people will always value innate talent over unstoppable consistency.

What they don’t realize is that consistency is better than talent, and some of the world’s most prolific and successful individuals got there simply because they didn’t give up when everyone else did.

“Small, seemingly inconsistent steps completed consistently over time will create a radical difference.” -Darren Hardy

Here’s How Extremely Successful People Upgraded From Mediocre to Extraordinary

“If you want to live an exceptional and extraordinary life, you have to give up many of the things that are part of a normal one.” -Srinivas Rao

As the old saying goes, “what got you here won’t get you there.”

Right now, your life is a product of your past choices. Unfortunately, these choices have led many people to find themselves at a total plateau — physically and mentally, in their careers, relationships, health, and finances. How do they upgrade and evolve?

A major reason people plateau is their environment constantly reinforcing the idea that achieving huge success — the kind reserved for celebrities, athletes, and CEO’s — can’t be done by regular people. In response to this widespread mentality, best-selling author Grant Cardone once wrote:

“Take into account that you have been educated with restrictions. Be aware of this so that you don’t underestimate the possibilities.”

Most people don’t believe in virtually limitless success. They have slowly but definitely accepted that they’ll never enter into the top of their fields, and so settle for second-best, fighting with all the others for the scraps.

Dr. David Schwartz, another best-selling author, put it another way: “All around you is an environment that is trying to pull you down to Second-Class street.” Here’s the thing — it is possible to achieve enormous success if you’re an Average Joe. This is because you can grow to become as big as you want. You need to protect yourself from the voices of doubters and nay-sayers.

Where you are now is a direct result of your choices, actions, and behaviors. If you want what you’ve never had — 100% financial independence, a sublimely intimate marriage, unshakeable self-confidence, whatever — it only makes sense that you’ll need to do what you’ve never done.

Like so many others, I saw my parents’ marriage end in divorce. For as long as I can remember, they didn’t have a good relationship. After 19 years, the divorce papers just seemed like a formality.

I had the self-awareness to know that without some major changes in my life, I was highly likely to end up just like them. I had no model for a healthy marriage or even healthy relationships. I had avoided responsibility for my problems, and instead of confronting difficult issues, I binged on pornography, video games, and mental fantasy for most of my life.

That’s when I made the decision to go to counseling and therapy. I began the long, difficult process of shedding my emotional baggage and learning how to have healthy relationships. My wife and I have been married for 4 years, and it’s safe to say marriage is better than anything I literally thought was possible.

This is the result of taking responsibility for yourself and deciding you won’t stay in the mud from your past. It’s worked for me, and it’ll work for you too — if you work for it.

“You got this far operating under one set of assumptions. Abandoning those assumptions and embracing a new, bigger set may be exactly what you need to do to get to the next level.” -Seth Godin

Photo by Almos Bechtold on Unsplash

You Are the Biggest Limit on Your Capacity For Success

“Every next level of your life will demand a different you.” -Leonardo DiCaprio

There’s a lesson all entrepreneurs and business owners need to learn before they can be successful — the growth of your project is limited by you. Your income, influence, growth, and trajectory all have a limit: you.

This is what best-selling author Hal Elrod meant when he wrote, “Your level of success will rarely exceed your level of personal development, because success is something you attract by the person you become.” Often, the reason you haven’t achieved your goals yet is because you simply aren’t able to handle them yet.

For the most part, people aren’t ready for their biggest goals — millions of dollars, a highly-intimate relationship with a high-powered partner, and influence to affect millions of people. Because what happens when you pour a gallon of water into a 10oz cup? It makes a mess.

If your finances are out of control while you’re making $50,000/year, how can you expect to manage them making $5,000,000/year? (Remember what Robert Kiyosaki wrote in Rich Dad Poor Dad: “More money does not solve the problem: in many cases, the compounds the problem.”).

If you’re single, ask yourself — what would an extremely successful, beautiful, strong, high-achieving partner think of your life right now? Would they wantto date you? Perhaps not.

Jason Russel was the co-founder of Invisible Children, a non-profit based on ending child slavery in Africa. When their Kony 2012 video went viral, Russel couldn’t handle the pressure from such instant, massive stardom. He had to be detained by police for a severe mental breakdown in public as he ran nude through the streets.

We attract what we are. If you don’t have the success you want yet, it’s likely you wouldn’t even be able to handle it yet. That’s OK — it just means you need to focus on increasing your capacity.

“If you want more, you need to become more.” -Jim Rohn

Darren Hardy, author of The Compound Effect, once told a story about how he ended up with his wife.

When he was in his 20’s, he began compiling an enormous list of every attribute he wanted his future wife to have. He eventually filled 40 pages detailing the most exquisite and perfect match he could think of.

At the end of his writing, he realized something very important:

Any woman like that wouldn’t want to have anything to do with someone like him!

Hardy realized he needed to become a far better version of himself to attract a woman like that.

You must become a far better version of yourself to achieve the enormous success you want.

You see what you look for. If you believe monumental growth and never-before-seen success aren’t possible, you’ll become right. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. The great performers, leaders, and influencers in the world have always believed their great victories were bound to happen.

Sadly, this is the opposite of how most people think. Most people are convinced enormous success is reserved only for the talented, the lucky, the “chosen.”

But the truth is, you can make any amount of success you want — as long as you put in the work. You can have whatever you want (if you do whatever it takes).

Focus on increasing your ability and capacity for success, and success will come. Better yet, you’ll be able to manage it, not become overwhelmed by the fame that corrupts so many unsuspecting individuals.

Get Yourself to Do Hard Things, the More Success You’ll Achieve

Alexander Redl on Unsplash

The More You Can Get Yourself to Do Hard Things, the More Success You’ll Achieve

“Only in a state of discomfort can you grow.” -Bill Eckstrom, Tedx Speaker

Often, you have to do the opposite of what you want to get better.

But the thing about doing hard things is that they’re, well…hard. Best-selling author Seth Godin wrote a book describing this phenomenon called The Dip; at some point, it gets really hard to keep going on your path to mastery. This part of the journey is the “dip,” where most people give up; it’s why so few people ever master anything.

But the more you can get yourself to do things you usually don’t want to do — things like:

• Wake up early
• Eat healthier foods
• Cut off toxic friends
• Drink less caffeine & alcohol
• Have difficult conversations
• Admit your shortcomings
• Journaling
• Watch less TV
• Read more
• Exercise

…the more success you’ll experience. Because by doing things you don’t want to do, you increase your capacity to earn more income, have better relationships, experience better health, sleep better, work longer, feel more creative, and increase your energy to do more and more.

It is by doing hard things that we become “harder” ourselves — more resilient, resourceful, and creative. This will increase our influence, which increases our affluence. Small things become big things — what you do today sets you up for success tomorrow. You reap what you sow.

If I can be blunt, entering into the top 5% of your field actually isn’t that difficult. Just like you can lose an incredible amount of weight in a short time (water weight), you can achieve incredible results with a few simple lifestyle changes.

You have no excuse to achieve incredible results very quickly. All it takes isgetting yourself to do the things you usually don’t want to do.

“If you can get through the Dip, if you can keep going when the system is expecting you to stop, you will achieve extraordinary results.” -Seth Godin

Consistency Beats Talent, Luck, Good Intentions, Even Quality

“Successful people do what unsuccessful people are unwilling to do.” -Darren hardy

There’s an old Haitian proverb that goes, “Beyond mountains are more mountains.” Those who can keep overcoming obstacles are the ones that will be successful, because the truth is, obstacles never stop.

That might seem depressing to you. It did to me. I guess I was hoping that at some point, things would stop being so hard and get easier.

The truth is, things do get easier — losing weight, paying off debt, starting a business, jogging. You just gotta do them every day. You need to be consistent. Because consistency beats talent, good intentions, and luck.

When discussing how he was able to develop mastery in so many areas — bodybuilding, real estate, entrepreneurship, politics, acting — Arnold Schwarzenegger put it simply:

“The more you do it, the more automatic it becomes, and the less effort it takes.”

This is why my most common advice to new writers is to just click “publish,” then do it again. And again. And many more times after that. Then come back after you’ve learned consistency, and we’ll talk.

The thing is, most people still value talent over consistency. Perseverance isn’t sexy — being “a natural” is. Because everyone wants to be incredible without doing the work.

In his autobiography, Steve Martin (perhaps one of the most successful comedians in history) described his path to ultra-stardom: “Perseverance is a great substitute for talent,” he wrote. “My course was more plodding than heroic: I did not strive valiantly against doubters but took incremental steps studded with a few intuitive leaps.”

Be more persistent than you are talented. Great results will follow. Many of the world’s most successful people got there by sheer consistency, lacking talent of any kind.

The truth is, you’re likely “talented” in very few areas. But that doesn’t matter, because consistency beats talent. Consistency beats pedigree, wealth, luck, and, frankly, even quality. If you can “be so good they can’t ignore you,” to quote Steve Martin’s famous advice, you can achieve the success reserved for the top 1% of your field.

Photo by Jason Briscoe on Unsplash

Many people will still always value talent over consistency. That’s fine. But this rabid fascination with talent leaves people with a very narrow view of the truth — that how much you improve is entirely up to you. Anders Ericsson, the father of “Deliberate Practice” and high-level performance coach, once wrote:

“There is no point at which performance maxes out and additional practice does not lead to further improvement.”

Most people will always value innate talent over unstoppable consistency.

What they don’t realize is that consistency is better than talent, and some of the world’s most prolific and successful individuals got there simply because they didn’t give up when everyone else did.

“Small, seemingly inconsistent steps completed consistently over time will create a radical difference.” -Darren Hardy

Here’s How Extremely Successful People Upgraded From Mediocre to Extraordinary

“If you want to live an exceptional and extraordinary life, you have to give up many of the things that are part of a normal one.” -Srinivas Rao

As the old saying goes, “what got you here won’t get you there.”

Right now, your life is a product of your past choices. Unfortunately, these choices have led many people to find themselves at a total plateau — physically and mentally, in their careers, relationships, health, and finances. How do they upgrade and evolve?

A major reason people plateau is their environment constantly reinforcing the idea that achieving huge success — the kind reserved for celebrities, athletes, and CEO’s — can’t be done by regular people. In response to this widespread mentality, best-selling author Grant Cardone once wrote:

“Take into account that you have been educated with restrictions. Be aware of this so that you don’t underestimate the possibilities.”

Most people don’t believe in virtually limitless success. They have slowly but definitely accepted that they’ll never enter into the top of their fields, and so settle for second-best, fighting with all the others for the scraps.

Dr. David Schwartz, another best-selling author, put it another way: “All around you is an environment that is trying to pull you down to Second-Class street.” Here’s the thing — it is possible to achieve enormous success if you’re an Average Joe. This is because you can grow to become as big as you want. You need to protect yourself from the voices of doubters and nay-sayers.

Where you are now is a direct result of your choices, actions, and behaviors. If you want what you’ve never had — 100% financial independence, a sublimely intimate marriage, unshakeable self-confidence, whatever — it only makes sense that you’ll need to do what you’ve never done.

Like so many others, I saw my parents’ marriage end in divorce. For as long as I can remember, they didn’t have a good relationship. After 19 years, the divorce papers just seemed like a formality.

I had the self-awareness to know that without some major changes in my life, I was highly likely to end up just like them. I had no model for a healthy marriage or even healthy relationships. I had avoided responsibility for my problems, and instead of confronting difficult issues, I binged on pornography, video games, and mental fantasy for most of my life.

That’s when I made the decision to go to counseling and therapy. I began the long, difficult process of shedding my emotional baggage and learning how to have healthy relationships. My wife and I have been married for 4 years, and it’s safe to say marriage is better than anything I literally thought was possible.

This is the result of taking responsibility for yourself and deciding you won’t stay in the mud from your past. It’s worked for me, and it’ll work for you too — if you work for it.

“You got this far operating under one set of assumptions. Abandoning those assumptions and embracing a new, bigger set may be exactly what you need to do to get to the next level.” -Seth Godin

Photo by Almos Bechtold on Unsplash

You Are the Biggest Limit on Your Capacity For Success

“Every next level of your life will demand a different you.” -Leonardo DiCaprio

There’s a lesson all entrepreneurs and business owners need to learn before they can be successful — the growth of your project is limited by you. Your income, influence, growth, and trajectory all have a limit: you.

This is what best-selling author Hal Elrod meant when he wrote, “Your level of success will rarely exceed your level of personal development, because success is something you attract by the person you become.” Often, the reason you haven’t achieved your goals yet is because you simply aren’t able to handle them yet.

For the most part, people aren’t ready for their biggest goals — millions of dollars, a highly-intimate relationship with a high-powered partner, and influence to affect millions of people. Because what happens when you pour a gallon of water into a 10oz cup? It makes a mess.

If your finances are out of control while you’re making $50,000/year, how can you expect to manage them making $5,000,000/year? (Remember what Robert Kiyosaki wrote in Rich Dad Poor Dad: “More money does not solve the problem: in many cases, the compounds the problem.”).

If you’re single, ask yourself — what would an extremely successful, beautiful, strong, high-achieving partner think of your life right now? Would they wantto date you? Perhaps not.

Jason Russel was the co-founder of Invisible Children, a non-profit based on ending child slavery in Africa. When their Kony 2012 video went viral, Russel couldn’t handle the pressure from such instant, massive stardom. He had to be detained by police for a severe mental breakdown in public as he ran nude through the streets.

We attract what we are. If you don’t have the success you want yet, it’s likely you wouldn’t even be able to handle it yet. That’s OK — it just means you need to focus on increasing your capacity.

“If you want more, you need to become more.” -Jim Rohn

Darren Hardy, author of The Compound Effect, once told a story about how he ended up with his wife.

When he was in his 20’s, he began compiling an enormous list of every attribute he wanted his future wife to have. He eventually filled 40 pages detailing the most exquisite and perfect match he could think of.

At the end of his writing, he realized something very important:

Any woman like that wouldn’t want to have anything to do with someone like him!

Hardy realized he needed to become a far better version of himself to attract a woman like that.

You must become a far better version of yourself to achieve the enormous success you want.

You see what you look for. If you believe monumental growth and never-before-seen success aren’t possible, you’ll become right. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. The great performers, leaders, and influencers in the world have always believed their great victories were bound to happen.

Sadly, this is the opposite of how most people think. Most people are convinced enormous success is reserved only for the talented, the lucky, the “chosen.”

But the truth is, you can make any amount of success you want — as long as you put in the work. You can have whatever you want (if you do whatever it takes).

Focus on increasing your ability and capacity for success, and success will come. Better yet, you’ll be able to manage it, not become overwhelmed by the fame that corrupts so many unsuspecting individuals.

When a Wife feels Unappreciated and Unloved

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7 Tips when a Wife feels Unappreciated and Unloved

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You know it when you are unappreciated and unloved by your husband, when you are no longer cherished and when the romance was gone.

It is when you are waiting late at night but you receive no call or text, only to found out later that he’s just with friends. It is when you’ve cooked his favorite food but he’ll simply say, “I’m full already.” It is when you are dress-up with the most attractive clothes you have yet, he simply don’t notice. It is when you are reminding him of something and he simply ignore. It is when you are talking and he clams up then leaves.

 

Typically, these reactions are the product of long term resentments he’s keeping inside against you. This could have been avoided if in the early years, you have already deposited plenty of goodness in your relationship’s emotional bank.  But who cares about that in the early years of marriage, right?

Nevertheless, we all want to feel cherished. We all want to feel to be number one before anything or anyone else forever. Oh how I wish this could be possible at this point but what if not? What shall we do then?

You are not alone here, my friend. There are plenty of wives who feel deprived and unappreciated and unloved. Believe me, I know the pain too. So today, let me give you some tips to do that may help strengthens your inner self in dealing with your husband’s indifference:

#1. Lower your expectation.

Sometimes, we expect too much that is why we are hurt too much. If we could only learn to expect what is not expected then things would not be this painful. If we could only learn to expect from the Lord, then we will not be this disappointed.

As the relationship go deeper and longer many things will change, embrace that. Even love, which is based on feelings, will go away. Staleness is sometimes inevitable in marriage.

Lowering your expectation suited for your husband’s changing emotions and age will be helpful at this time. All those things he does constantly were all gone now and there is no used forcing him to do them again or to try to live in them in the past. Instead, learn to accept the different personality that he is in every phase of the relationship and based your expectation on that.

#2. Do your responsibility.

Our Christian duties do not change according to how we are being treated. We do our job here despite of. We are like professionals; we remain loyal to our duties no matter how harsh our husbands will treat us.

Are you willing to turn the other cheek if you are being slap on the other? Are you willing to forgive the seemingly unforgiveable and injustice he had done? Well, with the help of God, you amazingly can.

Is this martyrdom? The world may think so but to us, Christian women, we are bound to do this not for the persons we married but in faithfulness to God. That kind of obedience results to lasting blessings.

Teodore Epp said, “If you have been mistreated, cheated or deceived and if your heart has been right all along, be assured that God knows this. God will eventually vindicate you, but in the meantime you should be confidently aware that God knows the truth concerning what has happened to you. He knows if your heart has been right.”

#3. Have a gentle and quiet spirit.

Don’t be tempted to nag. Don’t be tempted to blame him. At this point, you have already learned your lessons from past experiences. God hates a nagger. Pray that He rescued you from this kind of habit because if not, you will forever be unappreciated and unloved.

If you will have to talk, talk to the Lord first — your number one friend who will listen and give good guidance.

We are called in quietness and meekness. How I wish I have this gift earlier in our relationship when we are not yet being bruised with each other’s immaturity. Maybe then, I have not nagged him badly. Maybe, he has not turned out to be a wounded lover. If only a wife and a husband know what to do in the beginning, their relationship wouldn’t be this painful later.

Sad to say, we don’t.

Hannah Whitall Smith stated it this way, “Our lives are full of supposes. Suppose this should happen, or suppose that should happen; what could we do; how could we bear it? But, if we are living in the high tower of the dwelling place of God, all these supposes will drop out of our lives. We shall be quiet from the fear of evil, for no threatenings of evil can penetrate into the high tower of God.”

We are here now. If it is only for today that we understand the virtue of silence perhaps, it is because His best time is now. This is when it will shine more beautifully and win back our husbands without words.

#4. Do not blame yourself.

When I look back to our early marriage, I have full of regrets for the things that I’ve missed to do for him. I should have shown him earlier how happy it is to be a Christian. My attitude to him should be different. I should have brought up the best in him instead of the worst. Maybe, just maybe, things would have been different.

We often think we are the reason why our husbands turned out to be monsters. Even if this is true, ask God to forgive you and forgive yourself.

Every human being is responsible for his/her own behavior. When the time comes that you will face the Lord, you will be accounted for your own sins and not for the sins of your spouse or your children. Therefore, don’t feel guilty when your husband turned out to be bad. He must be responsible enough to own his own faults.  He always has a choice.

“If pride turned some of the angels into demons, then humility can doubtless make angels out of demons.” – Anonymous

 #5. Remember that love is more than feelings.

Love is a commitment, a service and a sacrifice.

If you love your husband, you will not allow feelings to lead you to resentment. You will only allow the Love of God to operate in your relationship.

If you want to receive love, love him. If you want to be cherished, cherish him. If you want to be appreciated, appreciate. If he does not return what you’ve done in kind, surely God will.

#6. Do the opposite of what the worldly wives will do.

I understand that it is human to take revenge when you are not treated the way you should be. But friends, we are Christians, and that’s what made us different.

If the worldly wife would run away and rebel, you will stay. If the worldly wife would look for another man’s love, you will love your husband still. If the worldly wife would nag, be enraged and hit her husband, you will remain meek and gentle. If they go sabotage their marriages, you will remain doing good for the husband and for your household for the rest of your life.

Do it because you love God more than him and because this is how to treat ones enemy – to love him. Now, you have a command to obey.

#7. Do what God tells you to do.

In the midst of the painfulness brought by unloving, unappreciative husband ask yourself, what does God really wants you to do? Seek the scripture. Listen. You are the only one who can discern what the plan of God is in your marriage. Just do not act without clear instruction from the Lord.

Jesus said, “My sheep hear my voice.”

As the iron sharpens iron, man sharpens man. Your husband sharpens your faith and it is good to grow deeper in Him. You have nothing to lose here even if your husband treats you badly and won’t love you for the rest of your relationship. If you do what God wants, He will reward you in due time.

Essentials For Healthy & Efficient Life

Go to bed early and get up early:

Staying awake while tired will make you feel more tired and irritable the next day. It’s almost never worth it to stay up late watching t.v. or getting extra work done. You’ll be more efficient if you start your day earlier and you won’t have to live with the hangover of being tired from the night before.

Start your day off in silence:

No phone, t.v., internet, stressful conversations, etc. Enjoy the quiet of the early morning. Pray, write down your thoughts, read a book.

Drink plenty of water:

 Especially in the morning. Drink two glasses of water upon waking up, before eating anything. Drink a glass of water 30 mins before every meal and 1-hour before bed. If you’re going to drink something with a meal, hot water or tea is better for digestion.

Don’t wait too long to get up and start moving around:

 

After you’re done with your quiet reflection time, go for a walk or do some things around the house. Sweep the floor, put things away, etc. Do some light stretches or joint mobility. These things will help wake the body up and remove stiffness. It will also energize your mind and establish a mind-body connection. You’ll feel better and it’s good for you. Exercise also helps inspire better idea generation and build confidence in your abilities.

Consume fewer calories :

 Especially simple carbs (things containing refined sugar). Only eat when you’re hungry and stop when you’re 80% full. If you’re feeling hungry, it might be dehydration. Drink water first before eating anything. Consume a high fiber diet — all-bran cereal in the morning is a good start. Fiber counterbalances the negative effects from highly processed and sugary foods. It also fills you up. So does food that is high in protein and fat. Fat doesn’t make you fat, carbs and sugars do. Delay eating in the morning as long as you can.

Limit your time on the internet, the t.v., texting, listening to the radio, etc. 

 

They are addictive and distracting. You’ve got better things to do and better messages to feed yourself with.

Limit your exposure to the news:

 

The news focuses on negative events, because negative events are more rare than positive events. The news is more about entertaining you than informing you. Entertainment is what keeps you coming back, and you coming back is everything to them. Most of what the news informs you about are things you don’t need to know and much of it is biased and inaccurate.

Save and invest your money :

Maintain a budget, where you keep track of every dollar you spend. Allocate every dollar at the beginning of the month to a particular expense or savings category. Keep expenses as low as possible. Borrow as little money as possible (preferably none). Don’t incur credit card debt, as the interest rate is far too high. If you insist on using debt to buy a car or renovate your home, use a line of credit instead of a credit card. As for investing, beware of mutual funds, hedge funds, bonds, and crypto-currencies. They’re inferior to index funds that track the broader stock market. Or learn to invest in individual stocks for the long-run (invest in companies that have a “durable competitive advantage” (Buffett). Don’t short stocks and don’t use options. Also, all get-rich-quick schemes are wrong-headed, ignore them.

Don’t have arguments with yourself or with others:

Keep mental dialogues to a minimum — breathe, pray. And don’t let real arguments with people get heated. De-escalate as much as possible.

Be a listener more than a talker :

You’ll learn more that way. You’ll have fewer arguments. And people will respect you more.

Live as though you’re valued by God and treat everyone as though they’re equally valued by God :

We’re all sinners and saints. You may have made your peace with God, but you’re not perfect and neither is anyone else. Don’t expect them to be.

Live as though everything you have is a bonus, rather than a right :

Anything you have can be take away. Even your very life can be extinguished in a moment. Be thankful, always, for what you have. And don’t brag.

Tell your spouse and children everyday that you love them :

Tell them with words and with actions.