Lead a vivid life that does good

Tag: self-discipline

Every Single Day

The secret to daily exerciseI’m not sure what caused the epiphany. Maybe it was the brief moment I had sitting in crisp fresh air marveling at the lake and mountains nestled in the Swiss Alps. Perhaps it was processing time from long hours of driving. Or something I was reading, I cannot recall.

But on that day, I knew that I was making a decision that would impact the rest of my life.

So I started.

And I’ve done it every day since.

That was 1301 days ago.

Back in October 2013, I decided to exercise everyday for the rest of my life. Which I am aware sounds way more amazing than it actually is.

So here are my two secrets:

First, because I love freedom, I have a very loose definition of exercise. Exercise for me can be the hard, less fun, stuff like running 10km, or going to the gym. Exercise is also going for a walk with my wife, having a walking meeting with a co-worker, or playing basketball with my son. And on the bad days when time is short or I’ve been sick, exercise might be something as simple as some press ups.

To exercise means “activity carried out to improve your health”.

That’s pretty loose.

So why over complicate it?

My second secret. Doing it every single day. (The only leave pass I will give myself is being in a coma.)

Doing anything daily sounds exhausting, but I actually find it rewarding (particularly given the low expectations I have). Once the habit is established, it is significantly easier than trying to remember to do something X times a week.

And I enjoy it.

So what could you do, every single day?

If you made the rules loose enough?

I’m not disciplined. My life experiences and various psych tests prove that.

I also take a photo everyday. When I did the photo of the day, the first time for a year I found it exhausting because I had a bunch of rules. When I started again on my birthday back in 2013, I decided I had no rules. Just take or get a picture.

SO MUCH EASIER!

I’m not disciplined, but doing 1 thing, intentionally, everyday.

Proves to me, that I can be.

And it could prove it to you to.

Finding people not like us

530 amThere is something cool about getting a text at 5:30 am in the morning from a perspective employee. It tells me he was up, into the day and disciplined. I was impressed.

As I thought this over though, I realise that I am more impressed because I am up at that hour. If I wasn’t up early each morning I wouldn’t have noticed and would have thought it was plain stupid.

It’s strange how we seem to form positive opinions of people based on how similar they are to us. In business particularly the more they believe and behave the same way as us, the easier they are to get along with.

The risk of course, if we play this game too long, is that we don’t have people in our lives who are not like us.

People who function at the other end of the day.

People who think different ways.

People with different views.

And therefore…

People who stretch and challenge our personal status quo.

Creating a personal strategy to help you achieve your dream and goals.

GoalsOne of the funny things about returning from annual leave is that I often have this utopic desire to live a more purposeful life. I guess the relaxation, uninterrupted time with family and the space to think, lead me to want to create more of those spaces in my normal life.

Recently after returning from leave I realised that in our business we have strategies to move us towards our vision and these strategies help us choose the right actions.

In my personal life however, I had never put strategies in place and this needed to change.

Understanding the difference between vision and strategy and actions can be difficult so here is a personal example.

  • Vision is your dream or long-term goals. One of my visions is to “be a person of influence” (hopefully a positive one).
  • Strategy is a high level way of getting to your vision. My current strategies for increasing influence are “connecting with 4 people each week” and “writing weekly”.
  • Actions are the things you do each week to get that align to your strategy. My actions are appointments I have with people and time I actually spend writing.

The truth is I haven’t written each week and I haven’t met with 4 people each week. But, I have written more and connected with more people each week. I also track how I am going in my personal weekly check list which I review in my weekly review (this is the key to not forgetting it).

And even though I don’t achieve it each week, my influence is growing, and I am meeting and connecting with more people, which is energizing me and making me a better person.

Most importantly each week is deliberately better than it would be without them.

So what will your strategies be?

If you would like to see my current strategies, I have posted them at outward.me.