The first post in this series asked to give some thought to your life purpose. What do you need to have met in order to have lived a life of intention for you? What does your ideal life look like? The second post was the tactical piece of how to bring your intentions to life each day using tools, worksheets, a place to put your intentions. In this final post on this topic we will explore some tips and tricks that will help you stick to your plan and bring those intentions to reality. Time is the great equalizer. No one gets anymore than 24 hours in a day, but there are ways to get more energy into those hours.
The Importance of Miracle Mornings
Even if you don’t consider yourself a morning person I’d encourage you to give some thought to what developing a Miracle Morning routine might do for your day. Think of it like the springboard that gymnasts use to power off into their routine. How can you start your day with a solid boost of power and positivity?
Give some time in reflection to how you start your day now? How rushed are you? How do you feel when you leave the house? How many times do you hit the snooze button, and what are your first feelings about your day? What if you could design a morning that made you feel like you had time to yourself, and already accomplished something of importance to you before you even walk out the door? You can!
Decide what your perfect morning routine consists of, assign a minimum time allotment for each activity. Be realistic. You may not be able to fit in a one hour work out every morning, but maybe you can do 20 minutes. Or maybe you can read or journal for 15 minutes. Decide the time to wake up to support this intention, and go to bed early enough the night before. How great will it feel to have some time for your priorities before the day runs away from you?
Bullet Journaling
Not unlike bulletproof coffee, Bullet Journaling may give you renewed energy and focus. Bullet Journaling is simply tracking activities with symbols. On the daily planner sheet (Weekly Planner) you will see five dots at the top. This is to track whatever items you want as part of your daily routine. What makes you feel like you’ve started the day off right? What give you energy and focus? For me these are things like spiritual reading, meditation, working out, and journaling. If I get all of those done in a day, especially early in the day I have set the tone to be at my best the rest of the day. Assign a color to each activity you want to track. Fill in the dots on the days you do the activity. At the end of the week you can easily see which days you met goal and which you didn’t. You can even track your energy level on the days you hit these items vs. those days you didn’t.
Time Multipliers
Identify where you can Multiply your time. This is not multi-tasking, but rather goals in alignment moved forward at the same time. For example if you want to get in shape and spend time with your tribe is there someone in your tribe you can work out with? If you want to read more, can you combine that with another BIG goal like spending time in nature or walking while listening to audio books? It is multiplying your time. Multi-tasking is trying to do two brain tasks at once, and can’t actually be done as the brain can’t focus on more than one item at one time. But certain tasks that can be done without brain focus can be combined. Brainstorm ways you can multiply your time.
Habit Stacking
The idea is simple. Pick one habit you already do consistently without fail in your day. Then add to the routine of the already ingrained habit your new habit you want to incorporate into your life.
Why does it work so well? Your brain creates neuron pathways each time you perform a task. For tasks you perform hundreds or thousands of times the pathways are so strong you can do the task without much thought or effort. Have you ever forgotten if you brushed your teeth or not because you are just moving through your morning without really thinking? You reach out to check your toothbrush or run your tongue along your teeth to double check yourself. Driving to work is another task that can easily escape your memory in much detail due to your brain being on auto pilot. This little bit of science can work to your advantage in forming new habits. You just hook your habit in process to a formed habit and it works extremely well to establish your new habit. And yes, you do have at least one habit to hook onto – it can even be brushing your teeth or your morning cup of java.
Here are the keys to Habit Stacking:
- Decide on one habit to start with you want to begin, start small
- List your current strong habits you always do without even thinking
- Select which habit to best stack on to, attach to existing habits that are strongly ingrained
- Small daily increments add to big accomplishments
Using Setpoints
Have you ever stepped on the scale after a long period of time and found yourself shocked at the number? Or maybe tried on a pair of jeans from last fall and you can’t get them on? How did this happen? The weight just crept up on you. Other areas of life can do the same. Your fitness level, for example, when did you get so weak or when did running a mile get so difficult? Or, how could it be I haven’t read a book in the last year?
There is one tool that can help you stop this decrease in your performance. Setpoints. Setpoints are just levels at which you implement a strategy. Say you have a setpoint of 150 pounds for your weight. If your weight creeps up to that level that triggers an action. You no longer get a cheat meal and no more carbs past 3:00 until the weight pulls itself back under your setpoint. You can apply this to any area of life. Create a set point for any area that is important for you to maintain. For your fitness it may be the ability to do so many push ups or run a mile in a certain time. For your relationships it may be having a date night twice a month. If you fall below that set point you schedule a long weekend to reconnect. Whatever is important to you, do two things. 1) Establish your set point and 2) Establish your strategy to correct.
Weekly Check-in and Tracking
Last post I included a weekly tracking sheet, which I’ve included again here: Weekly Planner. This tool has a format to track your miracle morning activities through bullet journaling. There is also a place to track your wake time and bedtime, along with your other activities. Once a week is about the right amount of time for most people to be able to evaluate how they are doing with their new intentions. A day can get away from us, easy. But if an entire week wrangles out of control it may be time to revisit your plan. Notice on this sheet I’ve included a spot for you to reflect on what supported your goals vs. detracted from them. There is also a place to reflect on your feelings.
Before you dismiss delving into your feelings, take a second to consider this: Everything we do in life is either to create a feeling or eliminate a feeling. Everything. Think of all the things you did just today. Why did you do them? Go for a walk outside maybe? Was it to relax, enjoy the Fall leaves or create a feeling of wellness? Treat yourself to a pizza? Maybe it was because you were too tired to cook and needed to not feel the stress of cooking.
We are creatures run by our feelings. It serves you to get in touch with what is showing up within you because they drive everything you do. Our emotions and feelings are not uncomfortable nuisances to be avoided, but rather a language to show us the way forward. If you want to change your actions you must first understand the feeling causing the action.
This three part post series could have been a twenty part series on all there is to explore in goal setting and habit forming. Hopefully these last few posts gave you some ideas and excitement to set some new intentions for how you want your life to be lived.
Living intentionally doesn’t happen by accident! You only get one shot at this gig. Make it the best you possibly can. Others are depending on you to shine your light so bright it lifts everyone up around you.
I am always happy to share my knowledge if you have any questions, just reach out to me on the website!