Happy New Year to you.
You may be using this time of the year to address working on yourself, and setting some self improvement goals.
Putting some resolutions together which sees you full of enthusiasm.
You say to yourself ‘this is it, this the year that everything changes’.
And come January 1st you set off like a monkey out of a box.
You follow the spreadsheets of life changing tasks you found on the internet.
Some of them seem a little far fetched. But the motivational guru you saw on Facebook was very confident in telling you that’s what’s required.
So you knuckle down and make a start.
It feels good to know you’re doing something for yourself. Something that will change your situation. Something that will transform your life!
Sure there’s a lot to do and sometimes there are clashes with other responsibilities. But it’s ok, it’ll work itself out.
A week passes and you’ve noticed the daily actions take a long time. You’re finding that because they take so long you’re not completing them.
But it’s early days. It’ll work itself out.
Another week passes.
You’ve noticed the no negotiation hardline for working on yourself has been lifted.
Family and work obligations have now resumed the top spot on your priorities list. And your resolutions have taken a back seat.
February your enthusiasm is fading.
And by March it’s completely gone.
Sound familiar?!
How many years have you experienced this?
It’s commendable that you want to change your situation and become a more integral man.
But the mistake you’ve been making is trying to crowbar in time for these tasks (most of which are redundant).
And you were relying on motivation.
What you have to understand is self improvement comes down to building self control. Which is required to remove the bad habits and replace them with good ones.
And you don’t find time…
…you make time!
By removing the distractions and bad habits from your life. The ones that leach your time and drain your life force.
Doing so will free up time, more than enough time for the good habits, the ones that enrich your life.
I must stress that this is simple, not easy.
And I say it’s not easy because you’re going to have to build self control. To resist temptations from others (this means saying no) and also from your innate drives.
Because giving into these temptations in today’s world is dangerous.
Social media,
Fast food,
Nicotine,
Alcohol,
Porn,
TV,
rob you of your time, focus and wellbeing. This is why cutting them out is imperative.
Replacing them with:
Sleep
Writing
Exercise
Nutrition
Challenges
Deep work
Family time
Mindfulness
Investing (money and in yourself)
is when you’ll see an improvement physically, emotionally and spiritually.
It’s about adopting an essential approach, a disciplined pursuit of less.
Because right now if you had more time, you’d only fill it with more distractions. You need to cut out the distractions and action the essentials.
Improve your life by doing less, not more!
I like to call this the minimum effective dose. Performing small actions that see you make marginal gains.
After adhering to them for long enough they become habitual. And these habits compound into huge changes.
If you’d like to discuss changing your situation click here.
