Hey peeps, as mentioned in my last post, for some time now I had been frustrated by my lack of discipline and focus in my work. Despite having a LOT of spare time to work on my goals I was actually getting very little done.
Upon reflection it occurred to me that the times when I've been most disciplined was while I was HATING my day job! Working on a passionate project was my coping strategy, it's what kept me sane. Each morning I used to get up at 5am to work on a project that I desperately dreamed would save me from the job I loathed.
It turns out that "pain avoidance" more strongly motivates me than "pleasure-seeking."
While my current day job isn't all that fulfilling, I don't hate it. It is easy and I earn just enough to pay my bills.
And that's a problem! Why? Because I had become complacent with tolerating low income and doing easy but unfulfilling work. While I have a fairly clear vision of what I want to create, the drive to create it hasn't been enough to kickstart a new discipline regime.
I've noticed a life pattern that as I transcend one dominating concern, another rises to the fore. Right now, my lack of discipline and focus is feeling the most pressing to resolve. Sure, I've been frustrated by this for a long time but it wasn't the most pressing challenge on my plate. But now it is. And thus, I'm now ready to correct this pattern by installing new, healthy, life-changing habits.
My Inspiration For Installing New Habits
My inspiration started with mindful awareness that the frustration with my severe procrastination was now a priority to face and transcend. My sacral responded "YES!" when I stumbled upon "The 5am Club" audiobook by Robin Sharma on Spotify which I began listening to about 2 weeks ago. An exercise from "The Art of Manifesting" program helped me to wake up to what I've been tolerating in each area of my life and needed to make a firm decision not to tolerate anymore. This was the catalyst I had apparently been waiting for.
For years I've held a vision of the man I dreamt of becoming. A key attribute of this vision is being highly disciplined in all areas of live. In "The 5am Club" Robin Sharma teaches that discipline is a muscle that we have to train for it to grow. We train it through the act of discipline itself. With each success, you bolster your belief in how disciplined you are.
While I've been waking up with the sun throughout this spring and summer, anywhere from 4am - 5:30am each day, I hadn't been all that disciplined with how I was using those early morning hours.
The truth is that what I'm doing now is just a compilation of what I've experimented with in the past. It's nothing new for me and yet this time I feel it is going to stick! Why? Because now it matters more than ever because I now know my purpose and the resulting feeling each morning feels so incredible that it is having a huge positive impact on the rest of my day... but more on that in a moment.
My New Daily Discipline
- 1Getting up early to begin work in an alpha brainwave state is the first key.
- 2The second is to "Eat the frog first" which means to smash out the most important task of the day that I would normally procrastinate on. Committing to get it done before breakfast is also key for me because I need an incentive and a deadline that will motivate me. If getting up early and "eating the frog" is all I did, I am confident this will achieve life-changing results already. However, my gate 15 likes to take things to extremes so let's continue.
- 3Next, I've adopted a habit that Vishen Lakhiani of MindValley strongly advocates and that's managing my tasks via a calendar. The advantage of this over a To Do list is that I am allocating blocks of time to complete each task. It gives me a deadline to work towards. This deadline is what I've been needing most of all. To be honest, I didn't think an arbitrary deadline was going to give me the discipline I needed, but I was wrong. Perhaps it's because I can see all the task time blocks sitting behind it. To avoid having to move them and to avoid feeling that I haven't achieved enough, I need to stick to the deadline (there's the pain avoidance). What pushed me to test this habit again was a friend's testimony of how it has dramatically increased her productivity this year.
- 4I set myself little rewards for completing important tasks which is a vital step in installing new habits. It's an extra incentive for maintaining my discipline.
- 5Being grateful for each new insight I receive, particularly in my alpha state, and for all the tasks and learnings I complete on this day.
What I'm Also Trying To Turn Into A Daily Habit
- 6Planning the next set of important work for the next day and chunking them down into bite-sized tasks such that they are easy to execute.
- 7Pepper in the following after breakfast if needed or if time before starting my current day job: address urgent and personal tasks, spend some time on learning, journaling etc. to elevate my Mind-Set, Heart-Set, Health-Set, and Soul-Set.
Now let's talk about the results...
At the time of this writing, I'm on Day 3 of getting up early to "Eat the frog" and working via my calendar.
This is already a game changer for me. From Day 1 I began experiencing:
Are you now tempted to eat the frog too?