A life of well-being, meaning and purpose.
“There’s something magical about repeating the same positive habits every single day.” ~ SJ Scott
What do you do before breakfast? Hyrum Smith calls the early morning hours the “magic hours”, a block of uninterrupted time when you can concentrate on things beyond the normal urgency and routine of the day. Brian Tracy refers to this time as the Golden Hours — the first hours of the day which set the tone for the rest of the day. Continue reading “What To Do Before Breakfast”
Self-regulation (or willpower) is one of the most important strengths to develop. [Miller 91] In fact, developing other strengths often depends on our practicing them when we don’t really want to. In other words, by using willpower. Continue reading “Small Simple Daily Disciplines”
Wearing a uniform is not about doing with less — it’s doing with more . . . more time, more money, more willpower, more peace of mind.
“A [person] is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone.” ~ Henry David Thoreau
Months ago, I adopted a uniform – a specific dress code or set of clothes that I wear each day. Of course, I’m not the first person to do this. One of the most famous uniform wearers is the late Steve Jobs, who was always seen in a black turtle neck, jeans and sneakers. (As a matter of fact, one of my friends began joking about my “Steve Jobs look”.) And there are a number of other people, famous and not so well-known, who have chosen their own personal uniform — Mark Zuckerburg, Albert Einstein, Johnny Cash to name a few. Continue reading “Why I Wear A Uniform”
Have you ever set the intention to eat a more healthful diet? You pass up the doughnuts at work, eat a salad for lunch, snack on almonds or raw veggies in the afternoon . . . then at home, after work, you find yourself sitting on the 2nd shelf of the refrigerator, eating everything in sight. Or you decide to start an exercise program and to go to the gym directly after work. You load your gym bag in the car . . . but at the end of the day, you are so tired, you drive straight home – past the gym – and collapse in a heap in front of the TV. What happened to your willpower? Continue reading “Willpower, Won’t Power, and Want Power”
“Perhaps the most valuable result of all education is the ability to make yourself do the thing you have to do when it ought to be done, whether you like it or not.” ~ Thomas Henry Huxley, Collected Essays of Thomas Henry Huxley
Has this ever happened to you? You set a goal to lose weight and decide you need to eat a healthier diet. So you pass up the doughnuts at work, eat a salad for lunch, snack on almonds or raw veggies in the afternoon . . . then at home, after work, you find yourself sitting on the 2nd shelf of the refrigerator, eating everything in sight. Or you decide to start an exercise program and to go to the gym directly after work every day. You load your gym bag in the car with every intention of going to the gym after work. But at the end of the day, you are so tired you drive straight home – past the gym – and collapse in a heap in front of the TV. What happened? Where did your willpower go? Continue reading “Do The Thing You Have To Do”
“Be the person with embarrassing goals and impressive results instead of one of the many people with impressive goals and embarrassing results.”
~ Stephen Guise
After stepping on the scales one morning and realizing I had gained 60 pounds, I decided it was time to lose the excess weight “once and for all”. So I set a goal for myself: “I weigh 190 lbs. by December 31, xxxx.” This was definitely a stretch goal for me but I gave myself some time – 9 months – and I calculated I only needed to lose a little over 1 pound per week to reach my goal. So I started strong! Continue reading “Start Small”
Continue reading “12 Ideas For Taming Clutter”“Don’t own so much clutter that you will be relieved to see your house catch fire.”
Wendell Berry, Farming: a hand book
Continue reading “Reset”We all need a reset now and again. Old habits die hard, if they die at all. The way to kick an old, unhelpful habit is to replace it with one that better helps us meet our needs and desires.
TheExceleratedLife.com
Automate decisions. The more decisions you can automate, the more will-power you save for situations where you need it. What decisions do you make every day that you could put on auto-pilot?
Today is the 111th day of 2016. A little over 100 days of this year are past and gone. It’s a good time for you and me to evaluate our progress toward our BIG goals. I confess I haven’t made as much progress as I would like but I continue to look for ways to devote more time to my goal, and I continue to work on the basics, the fundamentals, to become the person who can achieve the goals I set for myself.
Continue reading “Boost Your Willpower”