Daily Ramblings – Motivation Monday – Planning

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Achievement, failure, measurement, off track, on track, Plan, Planning, Success, troubleshooting

If you don’t design your own life plan, chances are you’ll fall into someone else’s plan. And guess what they have planned for you? Not much.

Jim Rohn

I believe that planning is more important than the goal itself. Obviously, we have to have goals, if we want to accomplish anything in a systematic and organized way. The real question for me is how will we achieve what we set out to do? We can only do this by putting together a plan.

Plans can be simple or very complex. It all depends on the goals you want to accomplish. A goal of simply going to the gym would be less complex than writing a novel, for example. The key to planning is realizing what you need to do and then coming up with an order of operations to achieve what you want.

One of my goals each year is to read 60 books. This works out to 5 books a month or about 1,25 books each week. Do I get this detailed? No. I just keep reading continuously throughout the year, reading multiple books simultaneously, and knock them off of my list in Goodreads. I monitor my progress, but my plan is pretty simple. Read an hour a day, a minimum, and you’ll get there. So far, so good. As you can see, the plan is pretty simple. It has also delivered consistently over two years.

Diet and exercise can be more complex. You have to monitor what you eat, monitor the supplements you are taking, and track the exercises you are doing, the weights you are lifting, water intake, sleep schedule, etc. This one is more complex than reading books. You have to put a bit of work and planning to ensure you hit all of the checkmarks required for achieving your goals, whether it be weight loss, improved cardiovascular capability, or strength gains.

I also set goals for myself when I play video games. My current favorite is Call of Duty Black Ops Cold War. I am currently playing the Zombies part of the game and each day I set out goals that I want to accomplish. Do I want to earn a particular camouflage for this weapon, clear out a particular reticle for a sight, or do I want to earn so many crystals? I realize you may not understand what I’m talking about, but you can set goals for literally anything you want to. I like setting goals for daily activities, because it makes it more of a game to me, and keeps my motivation up when I achieve a milestone of sorts for all of my goals. It also makes it easy to measure and assess that I’m on track with a goal or not.

Plan folks. If you have a plan you can adjust it as you go, particularly if it isn’t working. Without a plan, you really don’t have any ability to gauge what you are doing or measure where you are. Both add difficulty and frustration to everything you will try to achieve. When this is added in, it is highly likely you will quit, because you aren’t seeing the success you need and you don’t know how to troubleshoot what you are doing to get something done. Make sense?

Have a great Monday, folks!

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Wisdom Wednesday – William Feather

Tags

American, Author, cheerfulness, Happiness, Lies, Quotes, Success, William Feather, wisdom

Success seems to be largely a matter of hanging on after others have let go.

William Feather

Early morning cheerfulness can be extremely obnoxious.

William Feather

The wisdom of the wise and the experience of the ages is preserved into perpetuity by a nation’s proverbs, fables, folk sayings and quotations.

William Feather

Some of us might find happiness if we quit struggling so desperately for it.

William Feather

Women lie about their age; men lie about their income.

William Feather

I hope you enjoyed these quotes by American author William Feather. I tried to pick a few with some wit, and others that are more solemn.

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Bonus Content – Book Review: The Success Principles

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Goals, habits, Jack Canfield, Janet Switzer, Principles, Roadmap, Strategies, Success

I’ve been a fan of Jack Canfield since I read my first Chicken Soup for the Soul book. This book was a terrific read and provides some great ideas on things we can do to improve our lives. I really enjoyed this one and highly recommend it to you, my readers. You can find it on Amazon, iBooks, Google Books, and Barnes & Noble.

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Motivation Mondays – Never Give Up

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Always a Solution, Always an Answer, Always an Opportunity, End of Year Push, motivation, Persistence, Success

Never, never, never give up.

Winston Churchill

There is always a way. Wise words.

Too many give up on their dreams. They blame others. They stop searching for a solution when one is waiting for them around the next corner. Don’t be one of these people. You can find solutions to your problems. You can find ways to overcome obstacles. You can succeed when it is seemingly all lost.

We only have 15 days left. Try to knock out a little bit more. Take a few more steps. Finish the year strong!

Here’s my schedule for the week:

• Exercise daily
• Meditate daily
• Read daily
• Learn daily
• Code daily
• Finish my assigned tasks and to-dos daily

I know you’ve got family coming in. You’re decorating. You’re doing all of that last-minute shopping. Put a little time each day toward your most important goals. You can still get a lot done, despite the “extras” during the holidays.

If you don’t make it, fine. You have next year. Your goals aren’t missed unless you stop working toward them. Always keep moving forward.

I hope all of you have a great week!

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Wisdom Wednesday – Daily Agenda: What Are You Really Doing?

Tags

5MHW, Agenda, Focus Keeper, Freebooksy, Goal Setting, mini-habits, Scribd, Success, Time Tracking

“The secret of your success is determined by your daily agenda.” – John C. Maxwell

Quote credit: Brainyquote

What do you do every day? What do you really do?

I went through a Dale Carnegie course on leadership about a decade ago. During one of our initial sessions, we were given a few sheets of paper with “:30” on every other line. We were instructed to fill out these sheets for 5 days, tracking what we did every 30 minutes. This is an eye-opening exercise.

When each of us returned to the class, we had to brief the group on our sheets. Almost every person who stood up to brief explained it took at least two days just to get in the habit of tracking their time accurately. It was the same for me. After I began tracking my time I was shocked at what I discovered. I was not working as hard as I thought I was. I was unfocused most of the day, flipping from doing actual work to non-work items almost every 30 minutes. This exercise motivated me to begin looking at not only how I spent my time, but what I wanted to focus on.

Success is different for all of us. We all define it differently. I think some people’s problem with success is that they are having their ideas of success defined for them. Success to me is being healthy, happy, setting, and achieving goals. That’s it. Your definition may be different. What is it?

Think about what you want out of life. Write down the things you want to do. Just write down as many things you can think of, whether it’s learning how to do something new, improving your relationships, improving your health, anything. Your list is your list. No one else’s. Then, once you have gotten your big list, go through the list and identify three things you want to focus on first. Once you have spent some time deciding what your focus will be, write down what you will need to do each day to get yourself closer to achieving these three things.

Here’s an example: Let’s say I want to read 48 books this year. I write down getting books. I also write down reading books. I have two sources for the books I read. The first is a service called Freebooksy. The second service I use is a subscription service called Scribd. Between these services I have no shortage of books to read. Other sources I could use if I needed to are my public library and a Barnes and Noble store. The next step I will take is actually reading the book. One of the things I schedule daily is reading one chapter of a book. That’s it.

Your agenda or daily to-do list should be composed of the things you want to focus on each day. Obviously, you have a job you go to each day. This will eat up 8 hours of your life. Then you have 8 hours of sleep. That leaves you 8 hours to pursue the things you want to. This where you have to make a decision about what it is you want to do and how much time you will dedicate to it. We all have busy lives. I would recommend putting 30 minutes into each of your three things each day. If you want to exercise every day, that’s 30 minutes. If you want to read every day, that’s another 30 minutes. If you want to write every day, that’s another 30 minutes.

Spend 1 hour and 30 minutes each day on the three things you want to work on right now. To get your 30 minutes, you can use a focus timer. I use an app called Focus Keeper. It is a simple Pomodoro timer that will track 25 minutes of focused effort on each of your top three.

Track your progress for 5 days. At the end of the 5 days, did you spend your 30 minutes daily on each of these top three tasks? If not, begin looking at what happened instead. Do the 5 day evaluation of your focus for another work week. Did you make it this time? You’ll find that you may have some work to do in the focus area, if you keep missing your 30 minute times for each of these tasks over a two-week period. You can continue this exercise until you have established the habit of doing your top three things every day.

Here’s another example of what your agenda may look like:

• Read 30 minutes everyday
• Exercise 30 minutes everyday
• Write 30 minutes everyday

Let’s say you try out this exercise of monitoring your focus for 3 weeks and still struggle with putting in your 30 minutes on one or more of your top three tasks. That’s ok. Maybe that’s just too much. You can try the Mini Habits technique to help. With Mini Habits, you won’t be so focused on the time you spend, but rather a specific task that takes minimal effort to accomplish. Instead of reading for 30 minutes each day, you could opt to read 1 chapter every day or read 1-2 pages every day. Instead of exercising for 30 minutes, you could use an app like the 5MHW. Instead of writing for 30 minutes you could write 250 words each day. You see how flexible this can be? This hack is used to establish habits and help you move a little closer to your goals each day.

Try this out, folks. If you struggle with setting and achieving goals, find out what you really want to do, set aside some time for these things each day, and then do them, even if you start out only doing 5-10 minutes of work toward each one of your goals initially. Even this small time commitment will generate results.

Remember, success is what YOU decide it is. Your definition will change over time, but remember success is self-defined. Don’t try to make success what other people define success as, even your favorite self-help guru. Success is yours, no one else’s.

I hope each of you has a terrific Wednesday!

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Motivation Monday – Failure Builds Character

Tags

Character, failure, Learning, motivation, Persistence, primitive brains, Success

Image by yogesh more from Pixabay

“You Learn More From Failure Than From Success. Don’t Let It Stop You. Failure Builds Character.” – Unknown

Quote courtesy of http://www.briantracy.com

Failure. We all fear it. It’s interesting when you think about how our brains work. The brain doesn’t like change. It doesn’t like trying new things. It doesn’t like this because change is fearful to that part of our brain that warns us about danger.

Why? Well, our ancestors needed to be warned about everything by their primitive brains because mistakes could be deadly, particularly when there were creatures all around that wanted a meal. The brain’s warning system worked pretty good. We are still here after all.

How do you counteract this part of your brain to try new things? Our brains are much different from our ancestors’ brains. Our brains are much larger and have evolved to a point that we can override this prehistoric brain. We can choose to make changes despite our brain’s warnings.

Our ability to direct ourselves to do things that are unknown or challenging is a gift. We still have to deal with the fear of failure and all the rest, but now we have the ability to reason with ourselves. We can evaluate an action and deem it safe, despite the risks for failure and move forward. This is challenging, but possible. It merely requires us to be persistent and push forward with our goals.

All of us are unique. Some of us see a threat while others see an opportunity. What I have found to ease my angst is to get out there and learn from other people. I learn from books, online courses, and YouTube videos. If you see someone else doing something you want to do, the fear dissipates somewhat. I say to myself, “If they can do it, so can I.”

Then there’s practice. It’s hard to learn something new without getting your hands dirty. You can read about a topic, learn about a topic, and even watch someone else does something, but it is so much different when you do it. You will make mistakes. You will mess up. Each time you mess up, you learn. You learn that this is not the way. Then, if you are paying attention, you’ll avoid that mistake in the future and go on to the next step.

Fail. There is nothing wrong with it. Learn from it. Start again. Persist. You can’t lose if you don’t quit.

This week is a busy one. I’ve got a few books to finish, a chapter to write in my book, workouts to do, and of course, posting to this blog. It’ll be a great week!

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Ted Talk Tuesday – 8 Secrets of Success

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3-minutes, Interview, questions, Richard St. John, Secrets, Success, Synopsis, Ted Talk

In this funny, 3-minute talk, Richard St. John presents the 8 things that bring success. He derived these 8 things from interviewing 500 members of TED. Enjoy!

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Ted Talk – Alain de Botton – Philosophy of Success

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Alain de Botton, Caste System, Labels, Loser, Meritocracy, Philosophy of Success, Success, Ted Talk, Winner

Photo Credit: Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

Enjoy today’s Ted Talk, presented by Alain De Botton, who prescribes that each of us has our own definition of success. We should pursue that, not what society (advertisers and marketers) describes. Success should be your own, not someone else’s definition.

Have a great Tuesday!

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Motivation Monday – The Empowered vs. Disempowered Life

Tags

Achievement, Disempowerment, Empowerment, Goals, motivation, Persistence, Striving, Success

“The past cannot be changed. The future is yet in your power.” Unknown

Read more at: Brainy Quote

Every wonder why people live in the past? It is something I have recognized in the people I associate with and started wondering why people torture themselves over actions and events they can’t change? I recently learned during a course I am taking currently. It is because they are disempowered.

Disempowered people worry about things outside of their control. They worry about the weather, what other people are going to do or not do, they relive their past daily, particularly if that past event or action is traumatic. They just can’t let go of it. Subsequently, they gloss over the great things that are happening now or miss out on things that are great and working in their life. It is like they are wearing special sun glasses that taint everything that is wrong in the past and paint their present and future with the same filtered view. Why would anyone do that? It is because the brain has wired itself to be protective against a traumatic event that may occur now or again in the future. Instead of starting a new day and living fully in the present, they constantly worry that something bad will happen to them. This, in turn, becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy. Their lives do turn out the way their internal wiring dictates.

It is tough to leave the state of disempowerment. To some, being a victim is a profession. They can’t find the right job. Everyone is out to get them. They can’t find a lover. How could anyone love them like they are? They can’t set or achieve any goals. Why? I’ll fail anyway. This is a dismal way to live, wouldn’t you agree? Victimhood is their comfort zone. It is comfortable because if everything in their life is the fault of some outside entity; they are not responsible. Their life is one HUGE blame game. I can’t lose weight because everyone around me eats garbage. I can’t learn anything new because I sucked at school.

The opposite of a disempowered person is the person who is empowered. They take responsibility for their lives. They realized that they are in control. They are realistic, however. They do know that life will throw them curve balls. It is part of life, after all. Instead of being thwarted, they recognize it is something out of their control and learn ways to overcome the adversity. If they are out of shape, they learn about getting into shape. If they are lacking a skill, they learn how to gain that skill. If they are not finding the right people in their lives, they put themselves out there and meet new people. See the difference?

Choose a life of empowerment. Choose to take responsibility for your life. Choose to accept the things you cannot change and either live with these things or come up with solutions to overcome them. There is always a way—always. You just have to persist and keep trying. Simple, isn’t it?

This week I’ll continue working toward all my goals in writing, reading, learning, meditation, and exercise. I enjoy the daily routine of journaling, blogging, and working on my book. I enjoy the satisfaction of leaving a gym after a grueling workout. I enjoy reading and learning. I enjoy the solitude of getting quiet during meditation.

I hope all of you have a productive and terrific week! If any of you need any advice or help, feel free to reach out. I have some pretty awesome planning and execution hacks I’d love to share in all the areas I am pursuing. See you at the finish line!

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Ted Talk Tuesday

Tags

Adorable, Delayed Gratification, Funny, Joachim De Posada, Marshmallow experiment, Self-discipline, Success

This is a short video featuring Joachim De Posada and the famous marshmallow experiment that demonstrates the importance of being able to delay our gratification for better things. It is really short and the videos of the kids in these experiments are absolutely adorable. Enjoy!

Until next time…

Dave