Robin Sharma: Morning Domination

http://www.newhustle.net/tag/robin-sharma/

My mornings usually go something like this (mentally): ‘Alarm? Need more sleep … oh yeah, it’s Monday … work … bills … so much to do today …. work … bills … [insert errands here] … coffee please?’

Most of us then proceed to go through our routine until we’re somewhat coherent enough to feel the weight of reality set in on our shoulders after our peaceful slumber.

From this point on, we’re either dreading the day before us or anticipating the day ahead … it’s all about perspective. Our minds are conditioned to view each day as a potential disaster, or a masterpiece to be created – it all depends on how well we’ve reigned in our ability to control our thoughts. To dominate our mornings, we have to be in control – or the day will dominate us.

What the experts say


But after a while I couldn’t ignore the high correlation between success and rising early, even in my own life. On those rare occasions where I did get up early, I noticed that my productivity was almost always higher, not just in the morning but all throughout the day. ~Steve Pavlina

Not everyone is an early riser, and in my attempts to do so I’ve been met with sub-par success so far – but I’m still trying. Nonetheless, I always try to make sure I get in a good workout before my workday – and if I don’t I still feel the drag of sleep long in to the morning.

Robin Sharma promotes the idea of giving ourselves a ‘holy-hour’ in the morning. Waking up an hour earlier than we’re accustomed to to devote time to the self – this makes sense, it’s just hard to get our bodies (and minds) accustomed to doing.

During my Holy Hour, I journal, I read inspirational books, I review my goals and plans and I simply make the time to think. Because clarity precedes mastery and the more clear you can get on what you want to create in life, the more focused you will be in your daily behaviors. Every day can be a platform to get you closer to your mountaintop. And yet, too many people live life by accident. ~Robin Sharma

I can attest to this, when I’m successful at doing so. The hard part is convincing myself while I lay in my comfortable bed that I would benefit from waking up at 5:00am. I used to get discouraged when I didn’t – but that just sets ourselves up for a discouraging day, which brings me to my next point.

What matters most
Whether a morning person or not, the most important thing to do when we first wake up is to start thinking positively. Difficult as it may be, it is possible. It’s all about our attitude towards the day ahead.

Simply put – would you rather own your day, or let your day own you? Would you rather let life have it’s way, or create the life you want to live? Or as Robin Sharma puts it – don’t live your life by accident.

At this realization things became more clear to me – if I want to get where I want to go I need to ensure that the start of my day is nothing more than extraordinary – even if I feel like I’m lying to myself to get to there.

My perfect morning (Monday through Friday)
Ideally, in the present, this is how my perfect morning would go:
5:00am: Up at the first alarm, eat something (snoozing is evil, what good is 5 extra minutes really?)
5:00-5:30: Cardio workout (the best way to awaken my senses is to work them)
5:30-6:30: ‘Holy-hour’ – day planning, reading, reflecting, etc.
6:30-7:00: Personal Training w/clients
7:00-7:30: Weight training for myself
8:00: Enter my 8-5 grind with the satisfaction of morning domination.

Of course it doesn’t go like this every day, but I’ll keep trying until it does. As stated previously, if you beat yourself up for not waking up or doing the things you wanted to do, you’re setting the tone for the rest of your day. As hard as you can, think positively – envision the great day ahead and be grateful that you’re still breathing – that you can still experience life to the fullest.

I’m a work in progress, we all are. Slowly but surely I’ll dominate each and every morning – setting myself up for content, productive and fulfilling days – and as each day goes on like this I’m one day closer to my ideal life:

Big idea: Your days are your life in miniature. As you live your days, so you craft your life. What you do today is actually creating your future. The words you speak, the thoughts you think, the food you eat and the actions you take are defining your destiny – shaping who you are becoming and what your life will stand for. There’s no such thing as an unimportant day. ~Robin Sharma

Stop Feeling Depressed

http://www.pickthebrain.com/blog/stop-feeling-depressed/

Do any of these gloomy thoughts sound familiar? It’s likely they do. The occasional case of the blues is perfectly normal, but that doesn’t make dealing with it any easier. If you allow them to, negative thoughts can fester and lead to serious depression. That’s why it’s important to take action early to bust yourself out of a slump.

While these suggestions won’t eliminate your problems, they can help you break a negative thought pattern and stop feeling depressed. If you think you might have a serious mental health problem, don’t hesitate to see a medical professional.

1. Understand the emotional cycle – Life is an emotional roller coaster. Some days you feel like nothing can stop you. Other days you feel utterly hopeless. Most of the time you’re somewhere in between. Understanding the pattern of positive and negative emotions will help you put your feelings in perspective. Next time you feel down, just remember that it’s a natural emotion that will inevitably pass. Knowing that a feeling of depression is only temporary makes it less dreadful.

2. Spend time with positive people – Nothing affects the way you think and feel more than the people you interact with. Thoughts (both positive and negative) are contagious. If you are surrounded by negative people, it’s only natural that you’ll start to think and feel the same way. To improve your outlook on life, spend time with positive people. Search them out and try to understand the way they see the world. Chances are their happiness will rub off.

3. Reflect on past success – In the wake of a colossal failure, it’s easy to forget everything you’ve ever done right. Take a few minutes to remember your past accomplishments and build yourself up. What made you successful before? What are your strengths? Frequently, this exercise will build self confidence, help you figure out what went wrong, and generate ideas for success in the future.

4. Focus on gratitude – It’s human nature to measure ourselves against those ahead of us on the social ladder. Studies have shown that people care more about being richer than their friends than actually making more money. When you consider everything good in your life and compare it to the problems of less fortunate people, the issue that’s making you depressed won’t seem as serious.

5. Change of scenery – One of the best ways to change the way you feel is to change your environment. When you get in a slump, you start to associate your problems with everything around you. It can get to the point where your environment is a constant reminder of your problems. This can be a dangerous cycle. The solution is to change things. Change doesn’t have to be radical. Cleaning up, adding more lights, or including pleasant decorations can completely change the mood of a room.

6. Break your routine - Going through the same routine, day after day, can be monotonous and depressing. It often leads to getting caught in a rut. To get out of it you need to temporarily change your routine. If you can, take a day off from work. Do something you don’t normally have time for or something you’ve never tried. In the long run, taking a day off every now and then to get out of slump will make you happier and more productive.

7. Interact with animals and nature – It’s funny when you consider how humans put so much importance on their own tiny problems. Animals don’t think this way. A little bird doesn’t mope around because it isn’t an eagle or because another bird beat it to a tasty seed. Animals live in the present moment and they show love unconditionally. Observing and interacting with them will help you get over your problems.

8. Get moving – As Johnny Cash famously suggested, “Get a rhythm, when you get the blues.” Moving to a beat makes everyone feel better. The same is true for movement in general. Hitting the gym or going for a walk will help you shed the lethargy that comes with feeling depressed. The more enthusiastic your moments, the better you will start to feel.

9. Think about the big picture – As Carl Sagan made evident with the Pale Blue Dot, we’re insignificant creatures living in a vast universe on a tiny planet. In the long run, everything we do will probably be forgotten. Some might find this depressing, but it shouldn’t be. It means that all our problems are illusory. In a million years no one will remember what you did or didn’t do. What matters is the present moment and enjoying every second of life that we’re blessed with.

10. Do something to help yourself – Above all, the best way to stop feeling depressed is to take action. What is your biggest problem? How can you alleviate it? Once you decide to stop moping and start moving forward you won’t have time to feel depressed. Action will occupy your mind and give you something to look forward to. Once you get some results, you’ll build momentum and positive thinking will keep getting easier.

Be Wise, Early Rise

I gave the keynote address for the leadership team of the telephone banking division of CIBC yesterday. Impressive team. CIBC is one of Canada's leading banks and the audience was full of energy, passion and intelligence. I shared my ideas on building a high-performance culture, developing deeper relationships and showing genuine leadership. Then I offered some insights on personal leadership – beginning with the imperative of getting up early if one wants to get to world-class as a human being. The room fell silent. Thought I lost them.

After my presentation, I had the joy of signing copies of “Leadership Wisdom from The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari” that CIBC had purchased for each participant. Amazing how many people asked me what they needed to do to build the early rising habit. “I want to get a lot more from life” one manager said. “I loved your point about taking a Holy Hour each morning – 60 minutes to feed your mind and nourish my soul,” said another.

It's so easy to forget that you cannot do good until you feel good. Organizational leadership begins with self-leadership. Getting up early to do your inner work, to sculpt your character, to sharpen your life's philosophy or to review your goals is not a waste of time. That Holy Hour infuses every remaining minute of your day with a perspective that elevates each area of your life. It'll transform you. Make you better as a leader. As a parent. As a human being.

Here are 5 practical tactics to help you get up early (5am is nice):

#1. Don't eat after 7pm. You will sleep more deeply as well as more sweetly. It's the quality not the quantity of sleep that's most important.

#2. Don't lounge in bed after your alarm clock goes off. Jump out of bed and start your day. The more time you lie in bed after the alarm clock goes off, the greater the likelihood that the chatter of your mind will say something like “stay in bed. Sleep a bit more. You deserve it.”

#3. Get into world-class physical condition. When I am in excellent physical shape – working out 5 to 6 times a week and eating ultra-well, I jump out of bed at 5am or even 4am with ease. Being superbly fit is a brilliant move.

#4. Set BHAGs. Jim Collins coined the term “BHAGs”, meaning Big Hairy Audacious Goals. Goals breathe life and energy into your days. Goals inspire you and give you something to get out of bed for each morning. Taking out your journal and articulating 10, 5, 3 and 1 year goals for the core dimensions of your life will focus your mind and drive tremendous results. It will light a fire in your belly and flood you with passion.

#5. Set your alarm clock 30 minutes early. I shared this point at a recent The Awakening Best Self Weekend where people had come from all around the world to learn how to break through their fears and live their greatest lives. I just got an email from one participant from Spain. This little trick has changed her life. She thinks she's getting up at 6am. By the time she's up and out of bed, she realizes it's only 5:30am. She uses the newfound time to meditate or read or exercise. Her business is more successful than ever. Her family life is at its best. And she's happier than she's been in years.

Get up early. I dare you to do it for a few weeks. Your life is too precious a thing to waste. You know you were meant for your own unique form of greatness. You know you can do more, have more and be more. You know that you can be bigger than you currently are. So join The 5 O'Clock Club. Win The Battle of The Bed. Put mind over mattress. Get up early. And as Benjamin Franklin once noted: “there will be plenty of time to sleep when you are dead.” Smart guy.

It's Not All Your Fault: Taking Fair Responsibility

By Ali Hale

http://www.thechangeblog.com/its-not-your-fault/

Do you blame yourself for other people’s problems? Are you constantly apologizing for things which aren’t your fault, or your responsibility?

Some of us have a tendency to carry the weight of the world on our shoulders. We worry about our partners, our friends and our children, trying to do everything in our power to ensure that they’re happy.

When something goes awry for someone close to us, we blame ourselves:

A colleague forgets a deadline, and we think I should have reminded him!
Our partner is stressed by her tax return, struggling (like every year) to get her figures together, and we think I should have done it for her!
A child is upset by an argument in the playground, and we think I should have chosen a different school!
The list can go on, and on, and on. There are all sorts of ways in which we’re great at blaming ourselves for situations which were outside our control and which weren’t our responsibility in the first place.


You Can’t Make People Happy
Before going any further, it’s crucial to remember that we can’t make other people happy. Some people will reject our efforts, spurn our help and turn their backs on our friendship. There’s no point wasting energy thinking I should have tried harder. Although we can often help to cheer people up, and support them with our friendship, we cannot take responsibility for their happiness.

We can’t make them change, either. As Mark explained in Five Myths About Change:

Other people cannot be forced to change under any circumstances.
To try to change another person by force is a waste of time and energy.
A wise man once observed that you shouldn’t try to teach a pig how to sing: it doesn’t get you anywhere and it annoys the pig.

De-centering Yourself
I’m going to be a little bold in writing this section, because I know that I suffer from this problem myself. When we try to take on responsibility for everyone else’s happiness and success, there is a strong element of egotism here.

I know it may feel like it should be the opposite – after all, we’re concerned with other people, not with ourselves – but the truth is, trying to take too much responsibility is a way of putting ourselves at the center of everything.

If you feel that it’s your job to make sure that your friends are happy, you’re trying to frame yourself as the most important factor in their lives.

If you blame yourself whenever your spouse forgets a birthday or loses his keys, your mental model of the world has you as the “responsible adult” and them as the “irresponsible child”.

To end the guilt-tripping, you need to start de-centering yourself. Of course you’re important, loved and special – but you are not the source of all your partner, friend or kids’ happiness.

Letting Others Take Responsibility
If you really want the best for your loved ones, you’ll let them take responsibility for themselves. Not just because that ends your self-recriminations (“Oh, I’m so sorry, if only I’d thought to check that you really had posted that letter when you’d said you were going to…) but also because it lets them grow up.

I’m sure you’ve come across kids whose parents did every little thing for them – and who struggled when they left home. Although it might feel like an expression of your love to be your kids’ personal taxi service, to do their chores for them, and even to complete their homework for them … it’s not helping them to learn anything.

Similarly, if you’re constantly chasing around after your colleagues, tidying up mistakes or loose ends so that they don’t get into trouble, are you really doing them a favour in the long term?

There’s a difference between taking on someone else’s duties to help out during a brief busy period (which is a perfectly valid and loving act), and trying to solve all their problems for them. The latter is likely to build up your resentment at the same time as preventing them from ever growing or taking responsibility for their own lives.

It can be particularly hard if you know that a loved one is unhappy. Perhaps your friend is awful with money, and it’s really difficult for you to see her stressed out about her overdraft and credit card payments. You might be tempted to blame yourself – to think I should have stopped her buying that. You may even want to help out by loaning money. But is that really going to help her in the long term?

Of course, there’ll always be times when, out of love, we’ll do something kind and unexpected for a friend or relative. That’s a great thing. But if you’re taking on the responsibility for the smooth-running of someone else’s life, or if you’re blaming yourself for problems which someone else should be facing, then it’s gone too far.

Whose problems are you taking an unfair share of responsibility for? How can you ditch the guilt and allow them – and you – to move on?