Tag: setting goals

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Learning to Say Yes or No: Always Ask If What You Are Doing Is Really Worth It or Not

One bit of advice that most life coaches will give you regarding living a more balanced life is that you need to say no more often. But sometimes, they aren’t that clear on how you decide if something is a no or a yes. One way to do better than saying no is to learn how to say yes, the right way. Once you learn how to say yes, the right way, it’ll become a habit, and saying no will never be difficult again.

Why Your To-Do Lists Are Failing You

  • Tell Them You’ll Answer by a Certain Time – When anyone asks you to do something unless it’s an enthusiastic “hell yeah,” don’t say yes or no immediately. Tell the person you’ll get back to them by a certain deadline to give them an answer. This gives you time to ensure you really want to do it or not.

 

  • Check Your Schedule – Think about what it will take to do what you are being asked to do. Will you even have enough time? Even if you want to do it and don’t have the time, it might be best to say no.

 

  • Will It Be Worth It? – When you think of the results of doing what is being asked of you, what will be the positive results from it? Is it worth everything else that has to be done to lead up to that moment?

 

  • Does It Fit in With Your Overall Mission in Life or Work? – Sometimes, people ask things of us that no longer fit our life mission. If you know your own principles, morals, values, and what you’re striving to achieve, it will be a lot easier for you to figure out if the ask fits in with your life mission or work before you say yes.

 

  • Will You Have to Give Up Something to Do It? – There is always an opportunity cost for everything you do or don’t do. Try to figure out what it will cost you if you do it versus the cost if you don’t do it.

 

  • What Are the Negatives to Saying No? – Make a list of what will happen when you say no. Then, beside each action that may happen, record what response you will offer? Sometimes asking about what the “worst” thing that can happen given this decision can help.

 

  • What Are the Negatives to saying Yes? – Just like you may miss something when you say no, you may also miss something else when you say yes. Consider the effects of saying yes and how that might look, and what problems might result.

 

When you take the time to hash out each ask, you’ll end up saying yes or no with purpose.

Saying no just to say no isn’t going to be helpful to you in your life but saying yes with purpose – which sometimes will lead to a no instead of a yes – no matter how much you think you want to say yes – can really pay off.

Being purposeful with your answers, even when it’s yes, will make you feel more motivated to do things when you say yes.

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Spend Two Minutes Each Day Unconnected and With Only Yourself and Your Thoughts

Even if you work hard at disconnecting from your notifications and only checking the news twice a day, it’s still important to intentionally disconnect with the world and focus on yourself and your own thoughts each day.

 

How do you really feel about the project you just completed?

 

How do you really feel about what’s going on with your daughter?

 

The way you feel about something may not be clear when clouded by other people’s thoughts and emotions or distractions from the world.

 

Your thoughts build your reality, and your mind – both conscious and subconscious – is what creates your thoughts. You are in charge of what you allow into your mind based on what you read, consume, and whom you surround yourself with, and the sources you choose in which to educate yourself. It’s all up to you.

 

Most thoughts are subconscious and not something you are aware of at all times. This is mostly because you cannot actually think of more than one thing at a time, so thoughts will pop in and out of your mind depending on what you are doing but mostly just go on without your realizing it.

 

For this reason, you must create the habit of tuning out of the world and into your mind at least once a day. You only have to do this for about two minutes a day. It helps if you choose one thing to focus on at a time.

 

To accomplish this, it’ll be best to tie this mindfulness with something else that you need to do, like make the bed. Making the bed will only take you a couple of minutes, and you can combine it with mindful thought. For example, after you’ve made the bed, you can sit on top of it and meditate and think for two minutes before going on with your day as part of your morning ritual.

 

But, since it’s only two minutes, you can literally do this any time you can be alone during the day or night. Turn off any notifications and eliminate any way that you’re likely to be interrupted. Finally, allow your mind to wander and think about all the things you ignore the rest of the time.

 

The good news is that more self-aware people are generally also more empathetic. They know how to notice their own emotional or knowledge blind spots, aren’t afraid to ask for and receive constructive feedback, and are very curious to delve into their own minds and get to know how they are more just as much as they are interested in knowing those who are around them by demonstrating that through their heightened ability to listen more than they talk.

Disconnect Yourself from Distractions and Notifications

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Daily Organizational Habit: Make Your Bed Each Morning

Developing daily habits that take care of your environment keeping it uncluttered is useful for multiple reasons. One, because your home and office will generally be cleaner if you’re committed to daily organization, but secondly because the action creates a transition for your day that can trigger more good behavior all day long, thus increasing your happiness and satisfaction level.

 

  • The Action Creates Transition in Your Mind – When you take the time to clean your room in the morning and make your bed, the action will serve to give you a little more of a wake-up than just leaving the bed messy.

 

  • You’ll Feel Accomplished – The ten minutes it takes to make your bed well will also make you feel more accomplished, and when you start your day feeling like you’re succeeding, it sets you up for even more success.

 

  • Productivity Will Increase for The Day – When you do something productive right away, the feel-good hormones will take over a bit, thus helping motivate you to do even more useful stuff the rest of the day.

 

  • Less Clutter and Mess Means Less Stress – Science has already proven that no one thrives in a cluttered environment. While we can debate what constitutes clutter and disorganization, if it feels organized to you and less messy, it’ll serve the same effect of making you feel less stressed.

 

  • Everything Will Become Cleaner – When you start cleaning things for five or ten minutes at a time, like with bed making, it’s just natural that you’re going to clean other things around the bed. You’re going to put your night clothing away, put anything dirty in the hamper, and probably even notice the dust building on your headboard sooner than if you did not make your bed daily.

 

  • Bedmaking Gives a Reason to Perform Useful Body Movements – Many people are worried about exercising, but some of your workouts can be completed by doing housework. It’s good for your body to stretch to make your bed and bend and pull to get the sheets on. It’s a great two-minute morning workout to wake you up and get the blood pumping that serves dual purposes.

 

  • The Habit Starts a Pattern of More Good Habits – Human nature is such that when you make good choices, more good choices seem to come easy, but when you make one choice, your brain deems ‘bad’ it’s harder to get back on the horse. Start your day positively, and you set yourself up for more positivity.

 

  • Your Home Should Be Your Retreat – So often, especially if you have to work a full-time job under someone else’s hours and rules, we forget that our home is supposed to be our safe place to fall and let it get disorganized and even dirty. But if you want to feel better about yourself and your life, no matter what type of home you live in now, organize it and keep it clean, and you’re going to feel better about everything.

 

To make it more fun to make your bed each morning, make your bedroom a retreat from the world. Invest in the best bedding and mattress you can afford to buy and make it beautiful and comfortable according to your desires and needs. You shouldn’t need to go to a hotel to have an amazing sleeping experience, and making your bed is just part of that effort that will improve your life in amazing ways.

Organization Is A Daily Requirement

 

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Daily Educational Habits: Discover Something New You Did Not Know About Each Month

Learning something new as often as possible is usually the advice the biggest thought leaders, gurus, and grandmas tend to pass down to generations after them when asked what changed their life and made their success possible.

 

This advice to keep learning your entire life can be misconstrued as a call for higher education, but in reality, it’s a call to be open-minded enough to always keep learning the new things about the world and yourself and not to close your mind or doors in the process.

 

Because learning new things keeps you young of mind if not of body, and that’s the best way to arm yourself. Education is required to navigate the world of the future. Because whether you like it or not, the future will come. Keep on learning.

 

  • Improved Self-Confidence – When you keep your mind informed about the world and the new things being discovered depending on your interests, even if you didn’t discover it, your confidence in yourself to understand and know things makes you not only appear self-confident to others but makes you feel confident inside.

 

  • Keep Your Mind Sharp and Your Brain Healthy – Neuroscientists know that when it comes to the brain, it’s a case of losing it if you don’t use it. The more you can use your brain and challenge it to make new synopsis, the healthier your brain will be even if you’re older.

 

  • Learn Useful Life Skills – When you want to know how to do something, it’s easy to learn these days. Whether it’s fixing your own sink or learning coding, you can do it from the comfort of your home using sites like skillshare.com or YouTube.com.

 

  • Boost Your Mental and Emotional Health – When you can do more things for yourself, it feels good, and due to it, you’ll be a lot more emotionally healthy. For example, instead of wringing your hands about something, you can learn all about it and learn how to help.

 

  • Stay Connected to Society – The more you learn about different topics, the more people you will begin to relate to. Being able to relate to more people helps prevent you from feeling isolated and alone. For example, immersing yourself in the Japanese culture will teach you that we’re more alike than we are different.

 

  • Experience a More Successful Career – When you have a basic understanding of how life works, it’s easier to be more successful because you’ll know in advance the basic steps to take to get what you want. For example, if you want to learn more about SMART goal setting, you can devote the time to it, improving everything you do from that day forward due to your superior goal-setting skills.

 

  • Become Happier and More Satisfied with Life – When you have a more open-minded view of the world and a more realistic view of the world, you end up happier and more satisfied because you know the truth that over time the world becomes a better place for everyone – and it doesn’t matter what the sensationalistic media says because you’ve studied the history, know the stats and are focused on truth.

 

  • Have a Longer Life – When you know more about topics you need to know, such as nutrition, money management, and so forth, you’re likely to live a much longer life because you’re more likely to implement it when you know something for sure.

 

Lifelong learning doesn’t mean you have to go to an accredited university to learn. You can learn in more informal ways and still be considered a lifelong learner. As long as you’re committed to learning something new that you wanted to know or need to know each month of your life, you’re always going to stay aware and current, making you feel more successful and satisfied with your life.

Start Investing in Experiences

 

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Ask Open-Ended Questions

One of the best ways to stand out at any event is to let other people talk. The best way to get other people to speak is to learn the art of asking open-ended questions. When you do that, the people come away from the event feeling heard, understood, and as if they like you a lot.

 

When people talk about themselves to someone truly interested and listening, it means so much more, as demonstrated by their actions. It is much more valuable and memorable to them.

 

To focus on asking open-ended questions, you’ll ask them what, how, and why often as they talk, using their own words to ask the questions.

ask question

Keep some of these phrases in mind to keep the conversion flowing:

 

  • What was it like to experience that thing you’re talking about?
  • What was the best part of that thing you’re talking about?
  • What was the hardest part about the thing you’re talking about?
  • How did you feel about the thing you’re talking about?
  • What brought you to this conclusion about the thing you’re talking about?
  • How is this thing you’re talking about similar to this other thing?
  • Tell me more about this specific aspect of the topic you mentioned?
  • What was the best part of your day today?
  • What’s been going well for you today?

 

Open-ended questions are useful because they allow the respondent to include more information than a yes or no question. You’ll get to know the people more deeply as you delve into their answers and the reasons why and how and what they’re doing.

 

It may seem almost contrary advice to listen and let others do all the talking at networking events, but this is how you get remembered as an interesting person. It’s just a little part of human nature that if you learn to exploit for your own purposes will teach you more about others while also allowing you to fit in more at every event you attend while reaping the benefits of the goodwill of others.

What 3 Key Questions to Ask about Online Marketing

As you start experimenting with asking open-ended questions at the events you attend, you’ll begin to notice that people respond to you differently because of it. Over time you’ll learn new ways to ask the questions that get even more profound answers allowing you insight into the people you surround yourself with that you may never have had if you didn’t ask more open-ended questions.

 

Even if you never go to events and are only around your family, spouse, and children, asking them open-ended questions can open communication to you all in a big way bringing you closer to each other in every way over time. Doing it every day after school or other events is a great way to check-in and learn a lot while simply listening.

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Organize your Environment for Success!

When it comes to daily habits that breed success, being organized can’t be understated. Getting your environment organized and keeping it that way will pay off in big ways.

 

Some people experience issues with being organized isn’t due to having some organizational block, but it’s more about not really understanding that there are better ways to get organized for success than just putting things away and being uncluttered.

Your Lack of Focus Is Getting in Your Way

Here are some ways to think about organization so that your entire environment is set up to make success easy for you, whether at home or work.

 

  • Use Your Planner – Whether you use electronic or paper versions, you can’t beat incorporating the habit of using a planner into your daily life to help you be more successful. When you have it all in one place, you can easily look at your days, weeks, months, and years and make the best use of that time. Don’t rely on memory. Write everything down you want to do and block out the time to do it.

If you know your Goal

  • Set Goals Properly – Make it a habit to set up your goals properly to what steps are necessary to be successful and how long it will take to do them. For example, if you want to start making money from your podcast, don’t just start podcasting; take the time to plan your podcast, plan your marketing, and plan each action you need to take to make it all work.

 

  • Make Daily Lists – From your planner the night before take a look and make a list of actions you will take tomorrow to achieve what’s in your planner. Organize the list with the top 3 priorities on the top and be willing to move anything after three to the next day.

 

  • Create Activity Zones – Whether home or office, the best way to organize is to set up activity zones. Putting everything away every time is a roadblock that will stop you from doing more. If you want to bake cookies, you shouldn’t have to redo your entire kitchen for an hour, and you should be able to go over to the baking zone and start within five minutes. The same thing if you’re writing a novel, if you have a writing area set up and ready to go, you can simply move to that writing zone and get it done during the block of time you set aside to do it.

 

  • Have a Place for Everything – Spending time creating the right storage and space to do the things you want to do will help a lot. It’s hard to get motivated to do much when the tools you’re using aren’t right, or the space you’re doing it in isn’t set up right. Spend the time and money investing in setting up your space to do what you want to do in it.

 

  • Be Consistent – No one wants to spend four hours cleaning a cluttered room and area on Saturday. Instead, make it a habit to consistently pick up and clean as you go so that you never have to do that. If you set up routines for each time of day where you habitually do certain behaviors, you won’t need any willpower. Check out com for some prewritten cleaning and organizing routines you can copy.

 

If you make it a habit to clear up right away and set up things for the next time, right away – you’ll experience a lot less procrastination and get a lot more done. Your productivity will increase exponentially just by simple organizational practices each day. The great thing is that most of it will become a habit quickly because the payoff is fast.

 

 

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Exercise For 5 Minutes Each Morning

An important habit to incorporate into your day is to move your body more. Sitting and being sedentary is worse for your health than even being a cigarette smoker, assuming the smoker is physically active.

Walking

Short Term High-Intensity Exercise Benefits Health

 

According to a 2018 study at an Australian University, two minutes of exercise at a high intensity in the morning may be just as good for you as 30 minutes of exercise. Plus, moving boosts your serotonin levels and puts you in a happy mood the rest of the day, not to mention you’ll jump-start your metabolism and thus maintain a healthier weight easier.

 

Morning Exercise Eliminates the Need for Willpower

 

Most of us have good intentions to move more, but we often allow an entire day to go by without ever doing the intentional exercise we planned. This ends up backfiring and causing us to be less healthy and less productive due to increased fatigue and brain fog that happens when you’re sedentary.

 

Make It a Habit

 

From this day forward, right after you get up, as soon as you can move well, do a three-minute warm-up plus two minutes of high-intensity movements until it becomes a habit for you within thirty minutes of rising each day. Since it’s just five minutes, you don’t have to prepare as much as if you were going on a bike ride or a longer run.

 

Mix Up Your Movements or Just Do the Same Thing

 

Some ideas are jumping jacks, jump roping, pushups, jogging in place, jogging down your driveway, squats, running up and down your stairs. Whatever it is that you do, do it at full intensity for just two minutes. You can exercise more later, but this is just something you do upon rising each day before you have your coffee or get ready for the day.

 

The benefits of working out like this each morning are that you’ll feel more energetic all day long, you’ll be more alert, focus better, and due to all that, be a lot more effective in whatever you need to do. Making the workout only five minutes long, including warm-up and the high-intensity two-minute workout, helps eliminate any excuses because you don’t need any equipment, gym, or set up to do this fast workout. But, one thing is clear, it will set you up for a much more successful day.

Avoid Burnout: How to Exercise and Sleep More

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Are You Really Being Accountable?

If you want to achieve your business goals or live a happier life, you must learn how to be more accountable. Accountability means that you take ownership and responsibility for yourself—no matter what challenges and things get in your way.

Are You Really Being Accountable?

It’s excluding excuses from your way of life and harnessing values that increase your productivity. When you better understand how your actions or lack of activities affect everyone around you, you can better control what needs to be done or improved to accomplish your goals.

 

The following are a few ways that can help you become more accountable to achieve more quarterly and daily goals:

 

Honesty Is the Best Policy

Be honest with the mistakes you have made or situations you experience. If you find yourself making excuses or blaming others, then it’s likely you are not accountable for your actions and responses.

 

Understand Expectations Clearly

Take responsibility and learn your expectations inside and out. Don’t wait for others to provide the information for you or use the excuse you didn’t know. Ask as many questions as possible so that you can find resources that build you up.

 

Celebrate Wins and Quickly Forgive Faults

While it is crucial to track your strengths and weaknesses to be more accountable, you should also forgive yourself and quickly move on. You don’t want the process to be about self-doubt and abuse.

 

You want to recognize it for what it is, then figure out what you need to improve and forgive yourself. Owning your mistakes does not mean you should dwell on them. In fact, that only keeps you behind longer. It is okay to make mistakes. You are only human, but not owning up to them or evaluating where you need to improve only harms you in the long run.

 

Value Your Time

When you don’t take accountability, you are using up time no matter if it’s obvious or not. While it can be hard to own up to mistakes, it is even worse to repeat them repeatedly until it’s too late.

 

Have Weekly Check-Ins

Have weekly check-ins with an accountability partner, mentor, or perform self-assessments. Partners and self-assessment tests are valuable as they can ensure and guide you on the right path. They can give you the tough love and recognition you need to take responsibility for yourself and do the work required.

 

As you can see, accountability is a crucial skill needed to increase your productivity and success of your business. It’s about being honest with yourself and what you want from life and evaluating your actions and processes to get there.  If you don’t take accountability, you can be sure you won’t realize your fullest potential.

 

 

 

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Harness the Power of Consistency

Consistency is a skill that is about doing the same habits and routines regularly or repeatedly. It’s about committing to move forward and act no matter what obstacle lies in your way.

 

In other words, consistency is the repetition of the movements that get you closer to your goals. With consistency, you improve your weaknesses, perfect your strengths, empower yourself to accomplish more, and increase your productivity.

If You Don’t Set Hard Deadlines, Plan to Fail

To fully harness the power of consistency, you need to be more accountable, focused, and mindful of your actions. If you don’t, your business will suffer in many different ways.

 

Here are a few ways your lack of consistency is affecting your business and how to improve it:

 

Delays Action and Wastes Valuable Time

Without consistency, you only waste your time and other valuable resources. Your performance suffers, and so does your work.

 

Stalls Momentum

Routines build up the momentum you need to keep going with ease and comfort each day. When you don’t stay consistent, it’s much harder to get your days going as you plan your day unorganized. Consistency gives you a clearer understanding of what you want to do so you can keep going easily.

 

Stalls Personal Growth and Improvement

Consistency allows you to practice, which in turn improves your skills and makes you better. When you don’t take the time to improve or take care of yourself, your business will suffer too as you continue to make poor decisions.

 

Creates Unhealthy Expectations

No success happens overnight. If you don’t think you need consistency to be successful, then you are likely on the wrong path. It takes repeated actions each day over a set amount of time to get there.

 

Unlock Your Resistance

If you want to harness the power of consistency, you must figure out what holds you back. Lack of desire or clearly understanding the direction you want to go in life will create resistance to action. For many, it’s due to fear of success or wanting instant gratification and having an “all or nothing mindset.” Whatever it may be, you need to look deep within yourself and be honest to find the cure and get back on track.

 

Chance Your Perspective and Attitude

Some days, you will not feel the best, and some days, others will get in your way. However, it does not matter what life throws at you. There is always a way to see it more positively and objectively to push forward and get what you want. You only have now, so don’t waste it any longer.

 

Start Small

Find one task or activity that you know you can do every day without a second thought. Then add another step until that action becomes second nature. Test and repeat until you have a full and consistent workflow that works for your needs.

 

Remember, the more consistent you are, the happier you and your customers will be. Over time, the work will become easier, saving you time and energy to create more and be the next leading innovator within your industry.

 

 

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Always Plan First and Last

The thing that marks a good business is planning. A business plan for where they hope to bring their business and daily plans to guide their actions to achieve it.

 

You’ve likely heard the famous quote “If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail” many times before, and that is because it is so powerful and accurate. There is no other way to put it. Just because you don’t plan doesn’t mean you don’t know the direction it will go. As statistics prove over again, you are more likely to go down than up.

Business Plan Resources You Can Use

Here are a few tips and tricks to apply for better planning your day and business:

 

Plan First and Last

An often-used productivity hack by many businesses and entrepreneurs includes creating a to-do list at the beginning and end of their workday. This strategy improves your business overall by increasing your time management skills, consistency, and accountability.

 

When you start and end with a to-do list, you allow flexibility and ensure you are always working on your top priorities and staying on topic—enabling you to cut out unnecessary or mundane tasks that only keep you away from your main objective.

 

Not only that, but it can also be a great reminder and motivational factor. Lists enable you to be ready to go and can give you the push to get started sooner.

 

Make It Simple and Fun

Planning doesn’t have to be complicated, and business isn’t always dull. Use colorful pens or fun phone applications to write down your goals. Add fun and small rewards when you accomplish each step. Remember to keep it simple, and to the point, so it doesn’t overwhelm you.

 

Think Small, Medium, and Large

Think about three objectives you want to accomplish for that day but organize them into three separate categories:

 

  • One Large – The task you want to do right away as it’s the hardest to do and makes the most significant impact on your main objective for that month.
  • One Medium – This is the bulk of your day that isn’t too hard to do but likely to use more of your time—for example, a group meeting or coffee with a client.
  • One Small – This is the task you can focus on at the end of your day and relax. Ideally, you want this task to be easy and pretty mindless.

 

This method aims to give you a starting point and organize your day where you are not running out of energy and momentum.

 

Don’t let your days get away from you anymore with these planning tips. Remember, a business without a plan is one that will likely fail. Don’t let that be you when you have the power and control to make it happen with the right strategy and commitment to daily action.

 

How to Be Realistic About Time