What doesn’t grow dies…
We’ve all heard this before. But when it comes to our own lives, we seem to forget.
In order to set yourself up for success, you need to work on you. You need to keep growing, keep working.
Work on refocusing your energy in ways that will benefit you to the fullest. Far to often we deplete our energy levels completing tasks that do nothing to feed our souls, or to move us forward in life.
Here’s how to be set yourself up for success, and commit to life filled with laughter and learning.
1. Plan For Success!
This step doesn’t have to be complex. The mere task of organizing your week and divvying up responsibilities to specific days will give you an overview of the week you have ahead. When you do this, you can also look ahead and start planning other weeks.
Planning your weeks, and potentially months, sets you up for success because you can see if you have room to take on more responsibilities. If you don’t, it will make it easier to say no when things come up.
2. Prep!
Did you know that the more choices and decisions we have to make earlier in the day, the less likely we are to make good ones in the evening? This can ultimately lead us to feeling as if we had an unsuccessful day. This is why we can make healthy food choices during the day, but by evening we are eating directly out of the ice cream tub. Our willpower has depleted throughout the day.
Set yourself up for success by preparing for your day or week beforehand. Pick out your outfit, get your lunch ready, place your work bag by the door, or prepare your work desk to encourage you to complete the most important task in the morning.
The more things you prep, the more feelings of ‘success’ you will experience. This step is so important that you shouldn’t skip it. Even if you’ve have the most exhausting, tiring day, and simply want to curl up with your blanket and go to bed. Don’t skip this step.
Not only will it start your day off with a boost, but you will also thank yourself on days where you wake up groggy and have little energy to start the day off with a bang.
3. No Snoozing!
Commit to no longer pressing the snooze button. If you are a zombie in the morning, and know that you wont have enough will power to refrain from pressing the snooze button, then move your alarm clock away from your bed. The task of getting out of bed to turn off the alarm should encourage you to get moving.
You may think that an extra 8 minutes of sleep will give you a feeling of rejuvenation, but I assure you it won’t. In fact, it actually does more harm than good since you are resetting your sleeping cycle. Get up and get moving!
Add an extra alarm
Are you the type that will get out of bed to turn off the alarm, and then go back into bed? Then work with your weaknesses. If you can’t possibly refrain from pressing the snooze button, try setting 2 alarms: One to wake you up, and the other to tell you to get out of bed.
But once you do wake up, don’t close your eyes again and relax. Start thinking about your day and what you have planned. Keep a journal beside your bed and write down your dream from the night before, or your future goals.
4. Eat Breakfast
Although there may be some benefits to intermittent fasting, studies have shown that having breakfast in the morning jump starts your metabolism and signals to your body that its time to get moving.
A good breakfast will help make the mind-body connection that is essential for enhancing productivity. It will also reduce the risk of you becoming ‘hangry’ by lunchtime, and therefore getting less done.
… and drink water
Water is just as important as breakfast. I know many busy parents, teachers, and entrepreneurs love coffee, and their initial instinct is to grab a cup first thing in the morning. But since you are coming off of your ‘night-time fasting’ your body is already dehydrated.
Drinking water instead of coffee first thing in the morning ensures that you don’t become even more dehydrated. You can switch to coffee or tea after your first big glass of water when both your mind and body are ready for a successful day.
5. Create A Chain Of Consistency
Create a visual representation of how you’re working towards your goals on a calendar. On specific days, write exactly what you will be doing on that particular day to move closer towards your goals. Use coloured pens, pencils, or highlighter. Since there is a link between the mind, memory, and colour, using a colour on your calendar will help you to keep track of all your tasks.
As you continue to mark the days, you will soon start to see a ‘chain’ of days that represent your progress. ‘Don’t break the chain’, and you’ll be setting yourself up for success by reaching your goals.
6. “Check Engine Oil”
One of the hardest things to accomplish is the notion of work life balance. As we focus more intensely on work, our goals, and our future, sometimes we see our home life responsibilities slip and fall behind.
Laundry begins to overflow, stacks of paper in the home office begin to pile up, or the ‘End of May’ spring cleaning never gets done. During your planning and prep time, schedule a maintenance day.
Use this day to do anything to you need to do to feel good, and set yourself up for success. You may decide to schedule your maintenance day on the second Sunday of each month. Planning and scheduling this into your larger plan allows you to prioritize other meaninginful tasks (whether work or home related), since you know you have a maintenance day approaching. When you do schedule maintenance days… remember not to break the chain!
7. Theme-Based Days
Are you working on multiple projects at once, and feeling overwhelmed? Are you feeling like your working, but getting nothing done?
Create theme-based days and set yourself up for success. When planning, give each day a theme so you can have a fluid work week. By using this strategy you won’t be switching between different projects thoughout the day, and it will allow your productivity and creative energies to flow.
Your theme-based days and week can include both professional or personal goals. Creating a theme-based schedule not only allows you to stay on task, but it also makes sure one project doesn’t get over shawdowed by others.
8. Start with the End In Mind
A portion of your daily checklist or to-do lists should always be part of a larger goal. Connecting larger goals with daily goals ensures that you make use of your valuable time.
Larger goals cannot be accomplished overnight, so it makes sense to schedule blocks of time on your daily lists.
Because if you’re not working on your goals everyday, how do you expect to see any form of success?
9. Believe In Yourself
Even though it’s not at the top of the list, an important step in setting yourself up for success, is believing in yourself.
Believe that you can be successful!
At the end of each day, reflect on your day. Was it productive? Did you experience success? If you did, this in itself is self motivating. But if you didn’t, look into where you can make adjustments to overcome any obstacles. Generally, when you want to do better, you will.
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