So we’ve covered the five most important things. The things that if you do them will more than likely, put you on the right track for your life. But it’s one thing to know these things and another to have a plan to bring them into your life. That’s what we’re going to cover today. How to go from where you are now to a man who has made these five things a critical part of his life.
Who has made these things habits and who’s life has benefitted immeasurably from it. What we’ll cover is how to set goals, change habits, and change your life in the process. Because after all, where we end up in life is determined by the actions we take each and every day. The actions we take each and every day are the ones that make us who we are and therefore make up the life that we have.
Our habits not only define us but recreate us, day by day.
So let’s figure out how to have the best ones possible.
It All Started With A Goal
First you have to have goals. Things that you want to accomplish. It’s best to have goals that are measurable and that have a time limit attached to them. For example, a bad goal would be “lose weight”, its so vague it could mean anything and because it could mean anything it also means nothing. Compare that with a more specific goal, that’s measurable and has a time limit attached to it. I want to lose 10 lbs of body fat but June 12.” now that’s a goal that’ll get your brain working.
SMART is a good acronym for goal making. Goals that are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time bound. Set up goals of your own. I usually like to have three goals in three categories. Here’s what I mean. I like to have three long term goals (a year or longer to accomplish), three medium goals (1-6 months usually), and then I have daily goals which is something separate. So for an example of each.
Long Term Goal: To get house renovation business profitable, putting 10k a month in the bank, by September 25th, 20XX
Medium Goal: To get to 12% body fat by March 3rd, 20XX
Daily goals: To be covered later.
Do yourself a favor and write out three long term goals and three medium term goals. Write them out with pen and paper, not just typing them on a keyboard or “remembering them”. There is great power in writing something out in ink and paper, or pencil and paper. It gets it deeper into your brain.
The Daily Grind?
Next you want to break down what you need to do day by day to accomplish those goals. Only you will know what these actions are. So for the examples above. To get renovation business profitable. Your daily goals could.
- Follow up on a lead.
- Take one marketing activity (you’ll define what these are).
- Call one person who could help.
And so on and so forth. And what you’ll do is everyday you’ll have these daily goals written out in the morning and you’ll check them off at night, each one that was accomplished. Again this is all done with pen and paper by hand. Please do not underestimate the importance of that part of it. Then you’ll keep track. Day in and day out are you hitting your goals.
But here’s the thing.
At first you’ll fail…
And that’s okay.
Changing Good To Bad
But failing will show you something. It’ll show you where your “problem areas” are. So instead of trying to fix everything at once here’s what to do.
Pick one bad habit you’d like to do less and one good habit you’d like to do more. Each and every day ensure you get the good thing done and record how often the bad thing gets done. Keep the rest on a list and try to to hit them. But only really concern yourself with the one thing. Do this month by month as I feel 21 days is too quick to switch things up.
So for example.
February.
Good Habit – I will eat at least 100 grams of protein a day.
Bad Habit – I will stick to one pack of cigarettes a week.
Do what works for you. Make it specific and measurable. You have to be able to record if you are doing this every day or not. Day in and day out. Focus on one good thing and one bad thing at a time. One to lessen and one to gain. A yin and a yang. Look to the five things that I feel will make the biggest difference in your life.
Choose one of them.
Put that on the list.
And then work towards making it a habit. I recommend starting with health related things as they tend to help other things. For example eating right will give you more willpower to go and then accomplish other things. Meditation is also a good one to always start with, same with working out. As they will give you strength to do the others.
It’s Not Rocket Science, But…
It’s not easy either. But it is effective and when properly applied can absolutely be life changing. And if you’re not sure where to start then start with your health as its much easier to change things when you have a healthy mind which comes from a healthy body. Eat the right foods, get enough sleep, workout, destress, meditate. All those will make the other work that much easier.
I never thought this series would run this long but there is one more thing that I wanted to talk about. But we don’t have room here. So next week I’ll add in one other thing that I think you should be doing and that I think can make a big difference in your life.
Until Then,
-Charles Sledge
