Author: CLFurlong

Firstly, I said it all comes down to priorities and choosing to sacrifice one thing for something else. While at the same time, there are key attributes and activities I focus my time on as they go hand in hand, or work to compliment other elements of my life. i.e Waking up early gives me more time to focus on my hobbies, or plan out my day. While, being active or exercising enables me to sleep better in the evening and so on…

Being able to fine tune, coordinate and emphasis areas of your life through particular activities – essentially enables you to benefit from ‘lifehacks’.

With this in mind, there are 10 things that I believe will make you successful as long as you do them daily. These will vary and alter per person, but the below I personally think will go a long way in helping have a successful day, but also be content at the same time.

Wake up early

It is well to be up before daybreak, for such habits contribute to health, wealth, and wisdom. – Aristotle

Exercise

Those who think they have not time for bodily exercise will sooner or later have to find time for illness. – Edward Stanley

Have a plan

Failing to plan is planning to fail. – Alan Lakein

Spend time on your hobbies

A hobby a day keeps the doldrums away. – Phyllis McGinley

Be active

An active mind cannot exist in an inactive body. – General George S. Patton

Be willing to learn more

A wise man can learn more from a foolish question than a fool can learn from a wise answer. – Bruce Lee

Analyze

When you analyze happiness, it turns out that the way you spend your time is extremely important. – Daniel Kahneman

Pray / Meditate

Half an hour’s meditation each day is essential, except when you are busy. Then a full hour is needed.-  Saint Francis de Sales

Spend time with loved ones

Give in to love, or live in fear. — Jonathan Larson

Sleep the right amount of time

That’s:

• 3,504 hours
• 21,0240 minutes
• 12,614,400 seconds

Let’s put this into a bit more perspective. You have nearly made it half way through the year and my biggest challenge to you is to ask yourself:

• Are you satisfied with what you have achieved so far this year?
• Is there room for improvement?
• Are there things you need to change?
• Should you have spent more time on something better, or less on something else?

Below are a list of questions to ask yourself to really see how you are progressing so far this year. Be honest with yourself, and see what you need to spend more attention on for the rest of the year.

• Have you given your best effort?
• What could have you done better, or not done at all?
• Have you enjoyed what you have been doing?
• What was your motivation for doing what you have done?
• Did you set your goals right, did you achieve them?
• What were your expectations by this time in the year?
• Is it time to change it up?
• Are you still happy?
• Do you see yourself doing what you do now in the next 5 years?
• What have you learnt?
• Have you built your character?
• Have you made better and healthier choices?
• Have you expressed love for family and friends?
• Have you got any grudges?
• Are you content?

If you want something, if you want to be somewhere, if you have a dream, a goal or a mission – what is stopping you from getting there?

What makes you itch? What do you desire?

How much do you want it? If you are not going to get out there and give it a go – you will never ever know or grow.

The limit you have is the limit you say you have. – Chris Furlong

You have all these dreams and ideas playing through your head, but you are too scared to give them a shot.

But imagine if you had no limits, you could do whatever you wanted.

Alan Watts raises the valid point:

“So then, let’s suppose that you were able every night to dream any dream that you wanted to dream, and that you could, for example, have the power within one night to dream 75 years of time, or any length of time you wanted to have. And you would, naturally as you began on this adventure of dreams, you would fulfill all your wishes. You would have every kind of pleasure you could conceive.

And after several nights, of 75 years of total pleasure each, you would say ‘Well, that was pretty great. But now let’s have a surprise. Let’s have a dream which isn’t under control. Where something is going happen to me that I don’t know what it’s going to be.’ And you would dig that and come out of that and say ‘Wow, that was a close shave, wasn’t it?’ And then you would get more and more adventurous, and you would make further and further out gambles as to what you would dream.”

It’s all about accepting the short-term pain, in order to progress on for long-term gain.

But I guess aside from all this – is the biggest factor of all. Your mind. You.

If don’t believe in yourself, how can you expect to have the sheer willpower to push yourself to the limits required to break your stubborn mindsets.

I have said this before regarding the overall impact of no zero days. Applying this technique enables you to increase yore ability to grow and become the superstar you are meant to be. I would expect from this you will take the pledge to yourself.

However…

I have personally found that keeping your goals to yourself, you are more likely to make it to the end. I also found that doing something which is inspiring, encouraging or actually partaking in your goal/passion DAILY will increase and compound your chances of success daily.

So how will you reach for your next goal? Will you apply integrity and surprise people over time? Or will you take a plunge and hit the ground running maintaining a consistent routine?

Life is full of taking risks. Everything you do will have a margin of risk and margin of consequence. No outcome is ever to be 100% certain, therefore, any attempt at anything has a chance of failing.

Murphy’s Law – If it can happen it will.

“You will be bitter in life, when you compare yourself with others. Run the race of life at your own pace.” — Lailah Gifty Akita

How you live your life will depend on the choices you make, the risks you take…

Risk is the absence of security. Taking risk leaves future events to chance. Chance is when one can not accurately, or with assurance, predict a future outcome with confidence. Most people find comfort in security, which is fine but there is comfort in security, but not a lot of reward.

Risks can often result in failure. Rewards become illusive in the sense of “Better to be safe than sorry” being a common reason why risks are left aside.

If there were more risk takers there might be more ideas implemented and discoveries made. Until such time, people will take the safer path, a road more traveled.

The point is, we can be making risks and choices in our lives each day to get us to the places we want to go. To name a few:

• Starting that business
• Pursuing a passion
• Telling someone how you feel
• The use of finances and investments

When this time comes that is when we are to be BRAVE. We are to be BOLD. We need to show a willingness to take risks; to be confident and to be courageous.

Stepping out in boldness in itself is strength but when it is also without hesitation or fear in the face of possible danger this is when the magic happens!

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat. –Theodore Roosevelt

My challenge to you today is to really ask yourself about how strong and how bold you are. As you will find the more that you think that you are strong enough… the more you may have to grow.

We can try so hard being strong and we can fight it out long enough to surprise ourselves, but soon enough you will need to stop kidding yourself and you may just need to ask for some help.

“I’m not afraid of storms, for I’m learning how to sail my ship.” –Louisa May Alcott

And that is why taking a leap is good for you. If you’re not stressed but you are nervous and excited at the same time, then you are in the sweet spot. You are in the position to take a jump and leap into something bigger than before, that will potential be greater for you than ever before. As you enter into this journey, you will become familiar and comfortable with this once known fear and you will be willing to up the game once again.

With this all in mind, this is just the stepping-stone into becoming the greatest success you can be and it all starts by waking up determined every day and going to sleep satisfied.

Life is difficult for one reason in particular. Every single individual in the world, no matter how much he or she enjoys life, no matter how much he or she has to be thankful for, is always trying to do a little better.

You need to wake up with determination and do all you possibly can to go to sleep with satisfaction; it’s the only way to keep yourself in the right frame of mind.

However here are a few pointers for you to think about:

• You should start your day off on the right foot
• Don’t waste your day
• Wake up and be full of momentum
• Don’t live a life of regret

I recently read a small note which I found interesting and it goes a little something like this…

Live the life of our dreams, even if it kills you. Eventually something will… may as well be on your own terms.

The point is, we are in control of our life, even thought we cannot control everything that happens, ultimately we make the choices and decisions that determine the outcomes. These will have consequences, sometimes risks are worth taking but other times they are not worth it at all. Only you can decide with your moral compass. If that includes the big man upstairs then even better… if not, then you need to be wise about it.

Throughout this time, I have limited free time and in this limited free time I am able to departmentalize and prioritize the important things. In doing so I have learned that it is the small things that will make you happy and these will be different for everybody and change over time.

But it is these small things that help you appreciate the bigger things. But as a complete opposite to this, you also learn to not care about other things – meaning they become a lower priority. Your mind begins to shuffle your once locked down mindset and it begins to adapt, haggle and become totally altered.

So what are the small things that make all the difference?

Well I like to see the best in everything I do, well at least wherever I go I try to find the positive and exciting no matter where I am or what I am doing.

I have noted this before but these are just some of the small things, which help me through the bigger picture and the longer days.

• Breakfast – whether it be 2 eggs, some porridge, some raisin toast or a banana blueberry smoothie. These all make my morning that extra special. (I don’t eat all these for one meal)
• Music – dancing / bopping to some tunes in the morning (in the shower) or while walking down the street.
• Sunrise – watching over and over the sun rise into the clouds, behind the clouds, over the horizon, in to the land and into a full bloom. This itself is a perfect reason to rise every morning.
• Routine – a small routine, a big routine, multiple routines… these are all small or big elements to a great day
• Seeing others smile – seeing those around me happy, glad and walking on sunshine is good enough to brighten my day
• Exercise – whether it is a few hours or a quick 10 minute run. I’ll take what I can get and I make the most of it.

Great things are done by a series of small things brought together. – Vincent Van Gogh

These are just some of the everyday small things that are simple areas of my life, but they make the day entirely better. Similarly, your mind believes what you tell it and show it. Like I posted a couple of days back (Day #137: Believe Reality):

Whatever you believe, with conviction, becomes your reality, whether or not it is true or false. – Brian Tracy

Whatever you believe, with conviction, becomes your reality, whether or not it is true or false. – Brian Tracy

Like any habit it needs to be consistent in your life in order for it come in to shape and being. Well this is exactly the same for your belief system. Stepping aside from the usual debate of what you believe regarding religion.

A quick challenge is: What about your attitude and your happiness.

If you are going to wake up everyday and begin the day with a foul attitude of doubt, fear and anxiety, what do you expect the day to be like…

If you wake up ready to take on the day and to conquer the obstacles that come your way, this is always going to make you feel that little extra bouncy!

Now imagine you do this everyday for the next month. Imagine how you will feel. Imagine wanting to jump and spring out of bed because you have realized that each day isn’t a struggle, but each day is an opportunity to learn, grow and to build yourself as an individual. 

Stop putting yourself down. Stop pulling yourself down. Stop thinking and suggesting to yourself that you are not good enough. Take these frustrations and concerns and what I recommend is to take them to the GYM and let them loose!

Now this is a just a quick summary and high level view of a couple of examples. However you can apply this to plenty of factors and areas of your own personal life. 

You should be asking yourself – what are you telling yourself each day. Even if it is something positive or not, I challenge you to write it down.