Well, love shouldn't be limited to just one month but it's a good way to structure your month - learning to love yourself so that you can give so much more to others.
Following yesterday's post which was about reviewing the month that just ended, now we have to address the upcoming month if we want to see progress toward our goal. Remember that breaking things down into little chunks helps maintain your motivation.
I will again use my own process to show you how easy it is. It may be easy but it's also essential to keep yourself on track. If you have your own method, that's great and you could even share but my point is simply that the year (or years) is a chain link fence and in order to keep the links in line we have to address each section. No matter how good your memory is, you won't be able to remember in September what you said you were going to do or even what you did in February. Write it down. It took me 5 minutes this morning. Those 5 minutes have given me laser focus to guide my actions and decisions this month.
Here are the questions I ask: - How can I make the most of this month? - What's my goal(s) for this month? - What do I need to continue to have a better chance of reaching my goal? - What do I need to work on to ensure I reach this month's goal?
How can I make the most of this month? - Continue my morning routine - Refine my digital shutdown and evening routine - Begin to seriously train for Vol State - Optimize - Edit on a daily basis - write
What is my goal for the month? - complete this edit and then revise the structure of my book - Firm up and start my Vol State training plan
What do I need to continue doing to reach my goal? - Continue daily editing blocks of at least 2 hours - Continue my daily routine (a.m. and p.m. routines with digital shutdown)
What do I need to work on or refine in order to reach this month's goal? - Refining my evening routine - Better sleep - Improved nutrition - Begin weight program
Why don't you try this if you don't have another system? What do you have to lose? You certainly have a lot to gain and I think you'll be surprised.
Today's the last day of the first month of this year.
Use today to review this past month. Or, if you're happy just going along and letting things happen to you, then don't. But if you have set some goals for the year, this is the best way to make sure you're on the right course. It's not like autopilot yet you know. You have to install the programs in you before you can just cruise along. I think one of the biggest mistakes we make is to not look back.
This process is easy and only takes a few minutes and I will be vulnerable and share some of what I wrote down to show you how easy it is.
Start with what your intent (or goal) for the month was. If you're sitting there saying "but my goal was for the year, i didn't have a specific goal for January" then you can help yourself by breaking that big goal into chunks. That's one way that massive goals become do-able and how we can stay motivated. You've heard me talk about how thinking about 314 MORE miles on day 1 would have been intolerable but thinking about 16 miles in the next 12 hours was very doable and not frightening. Then you just rinse and repeat. Let's say you want to take off 50 pounds by the end of the year. That is ominous because your mind is going from "let's have desert" to "i'll never be able to have desert again" to "this is too hard, i can't lose 50 pounds". But what if you thought "I can lose 4 pounds this month"? Doesn't that sound more palatable? To me it does. Or maybe you just have a 1 or 3 month goal. Still break it down into the smallest possible pieces. That will exponentially improve your chances of success.
So you have your goal for the month. Mine was to continue my growth through my daily routine while working on editing my book 2 hours a day.
Then move to something along the lines of "what went well this month" - here is what i wrote: 1) I finished Across the Years and turned a somewhat disappointing experience into the positives 2) Started editing my book and have continued to do 2 hours a day every day PLUS i'm also enjoying the process and have learned to look at things differently and this will help with my next book 3) Started slowly learning spanish via Babbel practicing every day 4) Began consistently getting up at 0400 and getting at least 8 hours of sleep 5) Discovered and started Optimize coaching 6) Got my Day Runner organized finally so that I can keep track of what i need to 7) Began the chronic pain course and have practiced 30 minutes every day and am seeing results 8) i CALLED the RV company for 3 Days at the Fair using one of the "tools" I've learned. It was so empowering 9) I felt happy most of the time this month and that's a first 10) prioritized my time by asking "does this bring me towards or away from my goal" 11) I've come up with ideas for my future books and posts
See, just 11 things that tell me what happened this month and what propelled me toward my goal. and it didn't take me long to jot them down
Next I listed what didn't go well and I am happy to report that I don't have many things on this list this month. 1) I'm not getting the editing done as fast as I thought and would like. That's ok because I'm getting so much more out of than when i thought it would just be a tedious process. I am enjoying it and restructuring the book as I go. Plus I'm getting more ideas 2) I had a bit of trouble adjusting to the "cost" of prioritizing my time but quickly rebounded
Don't get into the future until tomorrow. Review January today
I decided to call this series "Ancient" because I'm old and "Lessons" because it's what I learned and although I'd like to call it wisdom, who am I to judge how wise these musings are. The definition of wisdom is "knowledge that is gained by having many experiences in life." I am not a scholar but that's not really how i view wisdom. I view it as something that will be of use to others as they go through life. I have had a lot of experiences that have given me knowledge but I'm not sure how much they would help others.
But enough of the philosophical...let's get down to the meat of the this first lesson.
It's simple: Process over Outcome.
Pay attention to the outcome or as John Wooden said "Focus on the journey and the destination will take care of itself."
I learned this early on but not early enough. From the time i was four I knew i was going to be a doctor (God had told me so) and as a result, everything i ever did was focused on becoming a doctor.
I eventually made it but on the day of graduation from medical school, i felt despondent and depressed. "Now what?" I thought and "is that all there is?"
You see, i had focused only on becoming a doctor, not on what i really was learning along the way. Even more importantly i never once thought about what i would do once i "became" a doctor. I was focused on the destination.
I have learned with all the races I've done to enjoy getting there and I don't' only mean all the long drives I've done but the training and getting ready and feeling excitement BEFORE getting there. Making sure you find joy in what you're doing on a daily basis and in training (thanks Scotty). Have fun, planningi your training, reviewing what's going well and what needs tweaks (remember there is no failure, there is only feedback but that's another whole post).
Enjoy everything about every day. Who did you meet? Who did you talk to? What did you feel good about? How were you of service today? What do you want to do better tomorrow? Don't just let the day rush by like water down the drain. Cherish each moment. Your kids, your family, your friends will all get older really quickly if we don't just stop to take it all in.
Take some time to reflect on your life - and make no mistake about it, this is hard. Have you focused only on the destination but not enjoyed every day it took to get there? If you are honest, I bet you'll find several of those occasions. Now ask yourself what you can do to change that so that you enjoy every single moment of your life no matter where you end up.
Ponder this for the week and there will be more Ancient Lessons in the weeks to come
