Category: Productivity

Achieve Your Dreams

Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. – Coach Carter

Know Your Enemy

Who is your enemy? Who is stopping you from accomplishing that goal/dream that you have set ? Can you see them? Are you looking in the mirror?

The number one enemy to what you want to accomplish in life isn’t The Man, or the devil, or your boss that won’t promote you. Your number one, top of the list, enemy is YOU! We get in our own way more often than we will admit or like to admit. It’s a lot easier to blame someone else for our problems than it is to take responsibility for them. Once we do take responsibility for our life, then we can change our life. It can be the life that we dreamed of.

It's time to look in the mirror. There is greatness on the inside of you
It’s time to look in the mirror

Run your own race. It’s your life, it’s up to you on how your life turns out. What will be accomplished in your lifetime?  Choose to accomplish your dreams and build the life that you want. Too many times we settle for the life that society gives us. We can have an attitude that goes with the flow. Where we do the things that we think we’re supposed to do.

Where was I Going

I grew up in a middle class town where graduating from high school was a given and it was assumed that you would go to college. I’m grateful for this place and position that I’m in, but I’m also not going to settle for being average. A lot people learn from trial and error that college isn’t for them. In either case, I know I had not spent time thinking about what I wanted my life to look like. Most high school students would say the same thing. I don’t want a life that consists of working day in and day out with no impact on the world. I honestly don’t believe that most of us want that either. Yet, somehow we find ourselves in this very location.

I dream of a future where my children can work to pursue their dreams, not where they work because they need the paycheck. Does this happen with a average mindset? I don’t think it does. I look to others who have accomplished their dreams, not to compare myself but as inspiration that what I dream is possible.

Comparisons Will Stop You

Forbes recently published an article that dives into the effects of comparing ourselves to other people. The article highlights how comparing ourselves to what we see online can lead to a more negative view of ourselves . In a world of Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram we are comparing ourselves to someone else’s curated content.

Social media and reality tv have lead us to a place where we would rather watch people live their lives rather than live our own. In a time where we are supposed to be a more connected to the world, we’ve never been more isolated.

We need to run our own race. Not our friends race, not a celebrities race, but our own. The world needs the great ideas that you have on the inside of you. There is a light on the inside of you that needs to shine. We can do this! We were made to walk on water!

What is keeping you from going after your dream?

 

10 Easy Ways to Build Better Habits

“A long healthy life is no accident. It begins with good genes, but it also depends on good habits.” – Dan Buettner

I like this quote because I want a long healthy life.  Most of us would say the same. I’m convinced now more than ever before is a great time to be alive. We live in a time where you can really do just about anything that you can think of.

Life Assessment
Morning Routine

Habits Determine Everything

Start a business, grow an online following, or write a book, there’s nothing that is out of your reach. One of the main differences from people we see doing these great things and us, are that they have better habits than us.

From YouTube to podcast exerts, people that are successful in these different areas have developed habits that help them to be consistent. We like to think that they are an overnight success, but the truth is that they have been doing YouTube, writing, whatever it is, they’ve been doing it for years before we noticed.

I remember one time that I wanted to change my exercise habits. Well I wanted to actually have an exercise habit. I was looking to get into shape, but I wasn’t really looking to join a gym. So, I bought P90X. I did my research, got really excited about the program. I even did it for about 2 weeks. Something came up and then something else came up and before I knew it, P90X was in my basement and I had moved on.

Overnight Success?

Changing our lives is never an overnight success. It takes good habits that will push us toward our goal. Good habits lead to good character and a changed life. If you have a story like the above one that I had, you know what it’s like to start something, do it for a little while and then give up or forget about it. We have to be able to push through that cycle.

Here are some things we can do to establish better habits and stick to them.

  1. Start small, choose one thing
  2. Make it SMART, click here for what a SMART goal is
  3. Look at your schedule to see what you will be adding or subtracting to make room for this new habit
  4. Ask why. Make sure it’s really what YOU want, not what you feel you should do
  5. Establish some accountability
  6. Automate as much or as best as you can {I don’t know what this means, you might want to expound because it might help others like myself}
  7. Take small steps
  8. Celebrate the small victories along the way
  9. For goals or habits that are longer than a year, have times reviewing the habit/goal to see how you’re doing. I recommend every 90 days
  10. Stick with it, the longer you do it the more it will be a part of your makeup.

What habits are you looking to establish? What goals do you want to reach?

5 Things to Add to Your Morning Routine

Netflix & What Would’ve Been

Has this ever happened to you?If you’re like me, you have a “free day” marked on your calendar and you expect  to do whatever you need or want. However, the great plans that you had disappeared when you sit down to catch up on your Netflix queue. Before you know it, you’ve watched an entire season of Luke Cage, it’s 6 o’clock and you still haven’t showered! Time w/ God I like to get the most out of my day. I feel like it is a good day when at night I can look back and feel like I accomplished something. It’s a good feeling to have days where you feel productive. Productivity has a way of making you feel better in every area of your life.

Start the Right Way

One of the most important things that I’ve learned over the last couple of years is how important your morning routine is to the start of a great day. You can pretty much Google“How to have a great morning,” and get plenty of advice on how to get the most out of your day. What I see from these tips and morning routines are the biblical principles that God has laid out for us. So what does God say about how we are to start our day.

  1. Plan the night before

The start to a great day actually begins the night before. Proverbs 21:5 Says that “the plans of the diligent leads to abundance”. A successful day actually begins the day before. Too many times we just let the day happen to us. We need to plan how we want our days to look in advance.

  1. Devotional

Having a good devotional is a  benefit. Most devotionals give a daily scripture, some reflection and a prayer at the end. I really like devotionals because they offer a focus for the day. It provides context and gives me a reference for what I can refer to throughout the day. Joshua 1:8 says it best. We are to “meditate on God’s word day and night.” Devotionals are great for this.

  1. Pray

By this point in the morning routine, there you should flow from one thing to the next. It can be easy to flow from the devotional time to a time of personal prayer. For me, I like to begin my personal time with expressing to God how thankful I am. Our prayer time should focus on God rather than ourselves. While there are times we do need to express issues of our lives to God, there should also be times where we are praying for our families, friends and communities.

  1. Journal

I am a big fan of writing in a journal. For me, it’s a great way to reflect on the previous day, and a way to transfer the thoughts in my head out on paper. Sitting down to journal after a time of prayer is a great way of getting in the habit of writing the things down that God tells us. Using a journal as part of your morning routine helps to value God’s voice and His word.

  1. Confessions/Affirmations

Ending the morning routine with confessions or affirmations is an awesome way to build up our confidence and self-esteem before  we step into the world. God’s word is most powerful when we speak it out of our mouths. We don’t just become the things we see and hear, we become what we say. Confessing God’s word over lives builds us up for so many things that we attack during the day. Have you developed a morning routine? If not, what is holding you back? Let’s start today with getting the most out of our days.