5 Steps To A Better Day
Posted by Mitch Mitchell on Jun 30, 2015
Today is the last day to have a shot at purchasing the book package that goes along with my latest book Leadership Is/Isn't Easy. It's been a long and busy campaign, and I've learned a lot from putting it out there.
I'll be the first to admit that the campaign overall wasn't as successful as I might have hoped it would be. The sales didn't come close to matching up to the traffic that went to the site. Still, it is a book on leadership, which may be a necessary topic but isn't quite a sexy one.
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Not that it was the only thing I've been concentrating on for the past six weeks, but now I can at least put it behind me, put an image over on the left and get on with the regular business of... business, life, leadership, health care... all of that.
It all needs to start by having better days. By better days I mean mentally and physically. I've done a lot of reading on how the rich do things the rest of us don't do. Some of it I don't believe, but there are a few things I do believe, and those are the things I'm going to touch on here.
All of us want better days. Turns out we can make better days by starting the day off differently than we might normally do, and if we need to adjust in the afternoon we can still recover and turn it into a pretty nice day... without drugs, alcohol or, dare I say, coffee (I don't drink coffee so this is for y'all lol)?
Yes, I believe this. Yes, I have lived this... sometimes. I need to live it more often though, and to try to get myself to do it more often I decided to share 5 things that help me have better days, which might help you as well.
1. Plan your day. I find that my most productive days happen when I put everything down based on time frames that I want to do. I usually do it late at night, sometimes just before I go to bed. It actually helps clear my mind so I'm not trying to remember everything and most of the time I sleep better, which helps me wake up better.
2. Whether you wake up on your own or by alarm, give yourself 5 or 10 minutes in bed to get your mind fully alert. This is a definite ritual of mine; the only deviation is if I really have to go to the bathroom.
Sometimes I scan email on the phone just to see if anything looks pressing. Sometimes I go through Flipboard to see what's going on in the world. Sometimes I just lay there breathing and thinking, assessing how I feel and getting myself geared up for another day.
3. Start the morning with music. If I have a meeting and need to take a shower, I have a tape player (yes, I said a tape player lol) in the bathroom where I play through my voluminous collection of cassettes. If I don't have a meeting I come to the computer and put on either opera, Michael Jackson music of a category of songs I put together called "motivation".
4. Possibly eat something. This one is tough because I'm not usually hungry first thing in the morning. However, since I've started walking a lot for exercise and glucose control (I'm diabetic) I've found myself waking up to low numbers, which makes my mind a little shaky and I don't always think straight.
Because I don't like to eat a lot in the morning, and for some odd reason I'm not as crazy about toast as I was as a kid, I buy Honey Grahams and, as an extra boost, I put peanut butter on them. Let's face it, in my mind peanut butter goes with everything. Besides that it's relatively low in carbs and calories and helps me to get to the next stage of eating some time later.
5. This one is new to me, so it's yet to become a habit. I've started writing a gratitude journal in the mornings. It doesn't have to be anything spectacular or even particularly long. Overall, my goal is to write 3 or 5 things that I'm grateful for or relatively happy about when I wake up. What happens is, if you can think of things that you're happy for early on, it helps to make the rest of the day go better because you've started out on a good note.
That's my 5 things; I hope they don't sound too hokey. What types of things do you do to get started on the right path every morning, if you do anything?
Planing your day. Yes, I have started to do that using both a pen and small note book along with Evernote. Tim Ferriss says to look for the thing which if done first, could eliminate having to do other things down the line.
News. I am on a news sabatical. I used to flip through Flipboard or Yahoo News. I have not for 13 days now. Saves a lot of time. I figure if something is important I will hear about it. If something is interesting to me, I can search it out and read more. Not looking at Yahoo News saves me the temptation, and time suck, of reading an article about a house some celeb bought in Beverly Hills.
Gratitude Journal. Yes, I should start that.
Music. Michael Jackson. I am starting with the man in the mirror gets me going every time. So does a CD I have of James Bond theme songs.
Thanks for sharing this list Mitch.
Troy, I’ve been on a music sabbatical for a few years now. Unfortunately, I catch a lot because of Twitter, Facebook and now Flipboard. It’s on me to ignore most of it but some stuff you just can’t get away from… okay, I can’t get away from. lol Also, you mentioned one of my favorite Michael Jackson songs of all time; you’re alright in my book! 🙂
Hi Mitch,
I sure got a lot of golden nuggets from your post. For starters, I never start my morning with music (even though I love music). And when I wake, if I stay 1 minute more in bed, I tend to go back to another round of sleeping. Sigh! Guess I am not a typical morning person. To ensure I don’t continue sleeping once I wake, I kinda jerk out of the bed.
I do plan my day often. I have found I am more productive on planned-out days, because I have a set, defined goal for that day. And if I do not achieve that goal, there is no resting for me. I do keep a journal but I am yet to try a gratitude journal where I write 3 – 5 things I am grateful for each morning I wake up. I definitely would try that.
Thanks for sharing this. Now I have more ways to inject excitement into my mornings. Oh! and I do eat breakfast. Hardly ever miss it. How on earth am I going to function properly without fuel? 😉
Great stuff Chioma. Except for the staying in bed part and allowing myself more time to wake up, the rest of that stuff is all new to me. I’ve been pretty good with it so far except this weekend, with all that was going on, I missed the gratitude journal. That I really need!