Daily Ramblings – Motivation Monday – Exercise

Tags

Big Things, Consistency, Exercise, Flexibility, improved immune response, mental clarity, motivation, Routine, Small things, TedEd

For about 50% of the population, exercise is one of the New Year’s resolutions people commit to. Unfortunately, many start, but few achieve their goals. To add a little incentive, watch this video to see how exercise improves so many things without much effort. There is an entire cascade of events that occur within the body when we exercise consistently.

I hope you enjoyed the video and will start your own exercise routine. You don’t have to do much to gain the benefits of exercise. A little goes a long way, as long as you are consistent. Crushing yourself in the gym for a few days and then letting that new gym membership go to waste doesn’t produce the results you may be looking for. Consistency and continuous efforts are what win the day. Remember, your health goals are not a race–they are a marathon. Make them a daily habit, and you’ll feel better in a short amount of time.

Have a great Monday, folks! Get out there and get moving. Take it slow and easy, but consistently and you’ll see improvements in your immune system, your sleep, and even your ability to think.

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Motivation Monday – Small Things Turn into Big Things

Tags

Action Steps, Analysis, Brainstorming, Overwhelm, Planning, Procrastination, Small things, tasks

We had some friends over on Saturday. They took Mom and Dad out to lunch. When they got back, we all congregated in the living room and talked about all kinds of things. One of the topics was overwhelm and a lack of time. Interestingly, we all came to the conclusion that taking a complex set of tasks and reducing that down was the best option. When you do that, time decompresses.

Think about the last overwhelming task you had to do. How long did you procrastinate because you did not know where to start. With each moment of procrastination, the pressure increases, and you begin to think you have no time to do anything. This is the time to decompress time by pulling apart that big project, whittling it down to individual tasks, and attacking those individual tasks one-by-one.

When you begin knocking out these little tasks, the bigger task they are a part of begins to get easier. You begin to see how the project will be finished. This occurs when you can break it up into smaller tasks. The project is no longer daunting. It is simply a collection of small tasks that must be completed in a particular order.

Steps

Look at your project

What has to happen to finish it

What phone calls, people, places, and materials are involved?

Make a list of every single thing you can think of to get this project completed.

Each “single thing” are the tasks you have to complete in order to finish the project

If you run across a “single thing” that is still too complex to deal with, break that down too!

Once you have all these things written down, take some time to organize these tasks by time and category.

What tasks have to happen first?

Once you come up with a semblance of order, begin to knock out these tasks

Re-evaluate

If you take the time to do this, you’ll find your “big” projects are just a collection of little tasks–tasks that are done easily and without any stress. Take the time to go through this exercise, particularly when you get the feeling of overwhelm. You’ll find that this exercise simplifies the project, and will help you overcome feelings of overwhelm.

I hope all of you are having a great day! Here’s to Monday!

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Wisdom Wednesday

Tags

7 habits, Accomplishment, Achievement, Big Accomplishments, Getting Things Done, mini-habits, Small things

“The smallest deed is better than the greatest intention.” John Burroughs

Read more at https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/john_burroughs_120946?src=t_wisdom

Consistent Small Actions Lead to Huge Results

Sometimes taking the smallest action can lead to greatness. How many pages will you read in a year if you dedicate just 10 minutes a day to reading? How many pages could you put toward your book if you wrote one page a day? How many miles could you run if you ran a half-mile each day? How many books could you read, classes could you take, languages could you learn, if you only did a little each day?

I asked you all these questions to drive home a point. It’s the small actions, compounded over time, that deliver results. Not only do these small actions build upon one another, but they also build your confidence, improve your self-esteem, and give your brain a good dose of pleasurable neurochemicals.

I don’t care how big your goal is. Break it down into tiny, discreet, steps that you can accomplish in a short time. After a few months, you’ll see progress. That progress is motivating.

Another benefit of tackling these small steps is that you can work on multiple fronts and still accomplish a great deal. Read a little, write a little, exercise a little, pray a little, learn a little. Over time you will have accomplished a great deal, not to mention avoiding the stress of trying to take on projects that are too big, goals that are too big, or jobs that are too big.

Three Books

Consistent action, moving forward methodically, and just chipping away at something works. I learned all this reading a book called, Mini Habits by Stephen Guise. It is one of those books that you read again and again.

In fact, there are three books I read each year in December, right before kicking into the New Year. 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey, Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity by David Allen, and you guessed it, Mini Habits by Stephen Guise.

Each book contributes to my new year differently. 7 Habits contribute by refreshing my drive to improve my character. Getting Things Done helps me refresh my desire to be organized and productive. Mini Habits helps me revisit the power of creating life-long habits by doing “stupid-simple” tasks each day that transform into powerful habits over time.

I really enjoy reading and learning new things and always on the lookout for that next, great book that will have a real impact on my life. I haven’t found any new ones but I’m still looking. If you are having difficulty in your life and you want to take charge of yourself, these books are a great start. You may not get everything that I have gotten from them, but you will learn something and that “something” will alter your current glide path.

There are so many personal stories I could tell you about failure and disappointment but who wants to hear about that? Take my advice: Read these books. In combination, if you buy the Kindle versions, they’ll run you less than $30. Thirty dollars is two large pizzas, a Starbucks coffee for six days, or a trip to the movie theater. If you’re tired of failing, lost control of your life, and have lost track of where you want to go in your life, read these books. They are life-changing.

For those of my readers in the United States, I hope you had a nice Halloween. We had plenty of Trick or Treaters visit our home yesterday.

Enjoy the rest of the week!

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Daily Quote – Anne Frank

Tags

Anne Frank, Helping Others, Improving the world, Small things

Today’s quote:

“How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.” – Anne Frank

This quote says a lot of things. The first is that each of us has the ability to improve the world. Sounds pretty overwhelming, doesn’t it? Think about how you could improve the world. You improve the world by doing small things. Smiling at a stranger, petting a dog, watering a plant, helping someone who reaches out to you for help, and many others. You see we don’t have to improve the whole world, we just have to improve our little piece of it to improve the world.

If you take a few moments and analyze your life, you’ll see that you are already doing what this quote inspires us to do. There’s someone you’re helping. There is something you are improving about yourself. There are little things you do around your living space that makes it a little more organized or welcoming.

This truly is a wonderful life. We have technology that allows us to communicate with one another, exchange ideas, read our writings. We have access to information we didn’t have access to before. We can watch movies, TV shows, and all the rest at the click of a button or a touch on our mobile phones.

Take some time to reflect on what you do daily to improve your little piece of the world. I’d like to hear about them.

Until next time…

Dave