THE POWER OF THE EARLY MORNING RITUAL & WHAT TO DO

If you're anything like me then you are by far not a morning person naturally, and that's okay. If you are naturally a morning person, congratulations, I salute you.

I'm going to share with you the power of the early morning ritual, and what things should be included in it.

WHY IS IT POWERFUL

The morning ritual is powerful in many ways. Before you can do great things for you, your family, your friends, and society as a whole you have to take care of yourself first.

A Morning Ritual Establishes A Rhythm and Sets the Tone For the Day:

 How you wake up and what you feel will carry on with you as the day progresses. It then makes sense to only participate in activities that bring us good vibes in the morning. Have you ever heard someone ask you, "did you wake up on the wrong side of the bed?" Just on little incident in the morning can carry bad vibes with you for the rest of the day and put you into a funk.

Increased Creativity:

Taking time to tune into yourself before you get caught up in your everyday busy life will give you more clarity and help spark new ideas. I got the majority of my best ideas in the morning and before I retire at night. Treating your mind, body, and soul to a morning ritual allows you to think and take action at prime levels. 

Increased Productivity:

You'll find that you feel better, you're more focussed resulting in quicker and smarter decisions, you have more energy, and you handle stress more efficiently just to name a few benefits in your productivity. When you feel good going into taking care of your daily task, you will notice that you just do them better.

Increased Self-Awareness & Peace of Mind:

Taking just a few moments in the morning to clear your mind with meditation leads to an overall peace of mind. You'll learn things about your body that you didn't pay attention to before and you'll feel better afterwards. 

WHAT TO DO

Now I would like to share with you exactly what I do every morning and my schedule. You don't have to have the same schedule, fine one that works for you, the main idea is to implement these activities into your schedule.

1. Express Gratitude - As soon as my conscious mind awakens I immediately start thinking of everything I am grateful for at that very moment. This puts me in a great mindset and really sets the tone for the rest of the day.

2. Meditate - This gives my mind 10 minutes to not worry about what needs to be done that day and to be in the now. I look at it like a massage for the mind. Afterwards I feel rested, relaxed, and more in tune with my body.

3. Read - About 95% of our daily actions is run on autopilot. Our subconscious mind is running the show. By feeding your subconscious first thing in the morning with positive personal development literature, you are setting yourself up for a great day and a fantastic life. There are also proven scientific health benefits from reading as discussed in Reader's Digest: Benefits of Reading

4. Exercise - One of my favorite feelings is after I get done crushing a workout. There's nothing quite like endorphins swimming in you and sweat pouring out of you.

5. Review Your Goals & Schedule - This is how I wrap up my morning ritual. Right after I get my mind, body, and soul primed for the day I like to review what I need to take care of that day, then I get to work.

MY SCHEDULE:

4:30 am - Wake Up & Express Gratitude

4:45 am - Meditate

5:00 am - Eat Eggs

5:15 am - Read

6/6:30    - Get Kids Ready For The Day

7:00 am - Eat Pre Workout Meal

7:15 am - Read Again

8:00 am - Exercise

10 am    - Review Goals & Schedule

Remember, that is just an example. Design your own schedule to fit your own needs, I would just encourage you to incorporate the 5 activities that I listed above. Also, I get up early because I have a wife and kids and it can get very busy in the morning to say the least. This is a time for you to have some alone time, so if you have family or roommates, make sure to wake up early enough without being interrupted.

HOW TO SET GOALS AND WHY IT'S IMPORTANT

Only 3% of adults have clear, written, specific, measurable, time-bounded goals, and by every statistic, they accomplish ten times as much as people with no goals at all.

If you want to accomplish anything significant, the first step is to write it down. When you write it down, it is no longer just a thought, it has become real and you now have a clear target. If you aim at nothing, you'll hit it every time.

I'm going to share with you my exact method of setting goals. I've adopted a lot of strategies from Grant Cardone's book The 10X Rule and integrated some of my own. Let's get right to it.

10X Your Goals

I really don't understand why anyone would tell another person to set realistic goals. Realistic to me is average. Who wants to be average? I look around everywhere I go and see average all the time, and I don't want anything to do with average. And most of the time, neither do any of these people who are getting these results.

Anyone who has ever went on to accomplish anything great did not have realistic goals. They more than likely had goals so big and gigantic that other people thought they were crazy and delusional before they accomplished them. Take a look at Steve Jobs, Henry Ford, the Wright brothers, or Thomas Edison. Do you think they set average goals?

Take your goal and times it by 10, then take what you think it will take to reach your new target and times that by 10. Why is this so effective?

10Xing your goals will give you the drive to maintain persistence when you run into obstacles and resistance just like you will face with any goal. If you set average goals the payout is more than likely not enough to keep you motivated when faced with these challenges.

Another reason why this method is so effective is that whether you set average goals or massive one's, you are very likely to come up just short on them often. Let's say your goal was to make $100,000 dollars this year. 10X that goal and what you think you have to do to accomplish it, and now your target is $1,000,000 dollars this year. Which one of these goals would you rather come up short on?

Start With The End Result

Something I have found to be extremely productive in setting goals is to start with the end result and then work backwards. What do I mean by this?

On a piece of paper I write down all of my dreams that I want to make a reality (10Xed of course). Then I write out all of my 10 year goals based off of my dreams. After that I write out my 5 year goals based off of my 10 year goals. Then I write down my 1 year goals based off of the 5. I then write down my 6 month goals based off of my 1 year goals. Then I write down my monthly goals based off of my 6 month goals. After that I write down my weekly goals based off of my monthly goals. Finally I write down my daily goals that are based off of my weekly goals.

I highly recommend using a Passion Planner which utilizes a time blocking method along with many other features to help you crush your goals.

When you break your goals down with this method you have clarity of where you are going and what needs to be done. You also are not feeling overwhelmed by a gigantic goal that is going to take a lot of time and energy to complete because you have now broken it down into baby steps in your daily goals.

Proclaim Your Goals As Already Accomplished

Instead of writing down, "I want to lose 20 pounds." or "I will lose 20 pounds." try this, "I have lost 20 pounds."

When you write it down this way you are sending that message to your subconscious mind so that it can act on those commands. About 95% of what we do is subconscious. If you are sending this message to your subconscious mind and you believe it backed by persistent action, then it will begin to act accordingly to the commands that you are sending it. You will begin to act in line with your goals and start attracting the resources necessary to achieve them. The key is to believe these affirmations, review them multiple times daily, and to take action on them.

Set Completion Dates

Every time you 10X a goal, have written it down starting with the end result, and proclaimed as already accomplished, finish it with the date that you will have it achieved by.

Deadlines force you to think about what it will take to complete your goal, they will help you prioritize what you'll work on (and for how long), and they push you by creating a sense of urgency to complete your goals.

You may even want to have an accountability partner to help you stay on track with your deadlines for your goals. This is a great external motivator in achieving your goals.

By implementing these methods when setting your goals you will have a focussed, purposeful energy and you will accomplish more of your dreams. The key is to write your goals down using these methods, believe that you can do it, and take action on them daily.

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WHY IT'S IMPORTANT TO STEP OUT OF YOUR COMFORT ZONE

HOW TO DEVELOP PERSISTENCE

WHY IT'S IMPORTANT TO STEP OUT OF YOUR COMFORT ZONE

The comfort zone, as defined by Lifehacker, is a “behavioral space where your activities and behaviors fit a routine and pattern that minimizes stress and risk” - we have a sense of security, familiarity, and certainty in our comfort zone. A lot of people settle for a mediocre life because they are afraid of the unknown, so much so, that they almost become paralyzed at just the thought of trying something new.

So comfort zones are not really about comfort, they are about fear, aren't they? Some of the fears that hold so many people back from reaching their potential may include, fear of failure, fear of success, fear of rejection, fear of loss, and many more.

Leaving your comfort zone helps you grow.

The only time we can become more is when we step out of our comfort zone into the unknown. In my book, Prison To Promised Land, I talk about how you can't attain new heights of success without stepping out of your comfort zone and facing some kind of difficulty. That's what success is, overcoming a challenge with the accomplishment of an aim or purpose.

Now let's think about that. Failure is not a bad thing. Failure is part of the learning process to reach your target goal. Let me ask you this: When you were born, were you able to walk like a normal adult as soon as you came out of the womb? No. It took you months, maybe even years, of numerous failed attempts to walk, didn't it? Yes. Yet that didn't stop you then and look now, you are able walk on two feet without even thinking about it. Have you ever seen a baby fail attempting to walk then say, "Oh the heck with this man, I'm just going to crawl and stay in my comfort zone for the rest of my life.", and then never attempt walking again? Very unlikely.

We are natural risk-takers as children. But as we get older we learn to fear failure and start holding ourselves back and attempting fewer new things.

When I first started my sales career, I would not approach strangers because that was completely out of my comfort zone and I was afraid of rejection. Who knows how many sales I missed out on because I was afraid to step out of my comfort zone. Finally, I thought to myself, "Just go talk to them and ask for the sale. What's the worst that could happen? If they say no, that's the same result I'd get if I didn't ask, and if they say yes, that's a sale I would have never made had I not asked.

Taking on new challenges can help you age better

That's right. Your overall health improves when you push yourself to become more. Have you noticed how much more alive you feel after you do something that you're normally afraid of doing? When you take on something challenging, you experience an endorphin rush and often feel recharged.

A 2013 study revealed that learning new and demanding life skills in a social setting, can help us stay mentally sharp as we get older.

As we get older our comfort zone generally shrinks with age. however, if you are always expanding your comfort zone, you will be more keen to try new things and will have developed more courage over time.

You'll be more productive

Pushing your personal boundaries can help you hit your stride sooner, get more done, and find smarter ways to work. Without the sense of unease that comes from having deadlines and expectations, we tend to do the minimum required to get by. comfort kills productivity. 

You'll find new ways to handle certain task or accomplish goals by stepping out of your comfort zone. Always look to learn while doing something that makes you uncomfortable.

Trying new things is is difficult. If it weren't, breaking out of your comfort zone would be easy and we'd do it all the time. It's just as important to understand how habits form and how we can break them as it is to press yourself out of your comfort zone by doing specific things. And you can't live outside of your comfort zone all the time. you need to come back from time to time to process your experiences.

7 STEPS TO HELP YOU TAKE MASSIVE ACTION AND ATTAIN INCREDIBLE RESULTS

You can be the greatest dreamer in the world. You can have the most prolific ideas on earth, but without taking action, it means nothing.

When I came home from prison the last time I didn't have anything. No job, no money, no special education, no work history, nothing. What i did have were my 8 month old twin sons and family to provide for, a bunch of bills to pay, an extensive felony conviction record, and a burning desire to be successful the propelled me into taking massive action on my dreams.

Here are 7 steps I used to take massive action in transforming my life from prison to becoming a successful entrepreneur, and that I continue to use for any goal I set.

1) Create Your Tomorrows Today

Never start a day without planning it out the day before. Write down all of your assignments, meetings, and task for the day then turn your to-do list into a full-fledged schedule using the time blocking method.

2) Soak In The Big Picture

Have the end result in mind. Write your goals down then break them down into smaller steps but always have the end result in mind. Review your goals often. Clarity equals power.

3) Focus On One Thing At A Time

There is no such thing as multitasking, it's been proven by scientist. Humans don't do lots of things simultaneously. Instead, we switch our attention from task to task extremely quickly. Rather than saving time, it cost time. It's less efficient, we make more mistakes, and over time it can be energy sapping. Nothing is more powerful than a focussed, purposeful energy.

4) Get Addicted To Results

Don't confuse taking action for results. There's a very big difference between doing and results. You have to value tangible results.

5) Keep Your Foot On The Gas

Just keep taking massive action until it becomes second nature to you. When things are not going well, because that will happen, keep your foot on the gas of action. When things are going great and you're making huge progress, put the pedal to the metal until you cross the finish line.

6) Say Yes To Everything

You can't expand, grow, and attain new levels of success if you're always saying no to everything. life is meant to be lived. A lot of us never live because we are always saying no to experience new things. When it comes to advancing you closer to attaining your goal, whether you are tired or not, say yes to everything.

7) Take Baby Steps Everyday 

Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out. A bunch of small actions daily toward the attainment of your goal turns into massive action and incredible results.

I challenge you to apply these steps to your goals immediately. Not tomorrow morning, not next week, not next month, or next year, but right now. The price you pay is minute compared to what you will receive in life for taking massive action.

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