So what exactly is this “slight edge” and can it help you too?

You Reap What You Sow

“Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant.” – Robert Louis Stevenson

The slight edge is nothing more than a simple, yet powerful philosophy. It’s a way to change the small and seemingly meaningless decisions you make every day in such a way that it affects your entire attitude towards life.

The philosophy behind the slight edge is to do all the tiny things that appear to be inconsequential, but have a tremendous impact when done consistently over time. These actions usually don’t produce any immediate results (and that’s why most people don’t do them), but with time, they become the seeds of your future.

“The harvest which is our life as we now live it, is the result of seeds planted at an earlier time. Some of the seeds we planted ourselves, through unbreakable habits.” – Jim Rohn

Attitude is everything, and the slight edge is a way of looking at and processing information in such a way that it changes your attitude completely.

“Everything in life that’s easy to do is easy not to do” – Jim Rohn

It’s easy to be successful.

But if this was true, then how come there aren’t a lot more successful people in the world?

The answer is simple.

It’s because it’s easy not to be successful.

“Successful people do the things that unsuccessful people are unwilling to do.” – John C. Maxwell

What Successful People do Differently

Successful people make the simple decisions and follow the simple disciplines that when practiced consistently over time, propel them towards success. They do all the little things that seem to have no effect in the moment, but they do it because they understand that compounded over time, it leads to dramatic results.

Unsuccessful people make simple errors in judgement. They avoid doing the simple things that they know they can/should do. They avoid these “easy to do” things because they don’t see the immediate benefit and conclude that it’s “meaningless to do”. However, the slight edge tells us that every decision we make matters and it matter a lot. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but every decision when compounded over time, either propels you up or down, closer or further from success.

Until I learned about the slight edge, I was avoiding all the small tasks which I thought were a “waste of time.’ I had no idea that all these tiny decisions were actually putting me on the “negative edge.” I only realized that I wasn’t where I wanted to be, but couldn’t understand how I got there. I felt like a victim of circumstance.

2 Things You Need Before Your Actions “Work For You”

1. Good Philosophy – Everything from the way you think to what you know can affect your attitude. It can affect how you think and what you do.

2. Good Attitude – Good attitude comes from having a good philosophy. Attitude is the number one thing that directs your actions. Your actions direct your results, and your results direct your life. In other words, good philosophy leads to good/positive attitude and action, which ultimately leads to a positive lifestyle.

Your attitude affects your actions in such a slight way that you usually can’t see it when it’s happening. But when carried out consistently over time, it can completely change the direction of your life.

If someone eats a burger today, does the person instantly become unhealthy?

How about if someone decides to work out today? Are they instantly healthy?

Probably not.

However, do this on a consistent basis and the compound effect will kick in. Then the results become obviously apparent.

How to Make Better Decisions and Take Better Action

The foundation for making better decisions/actions is having better knowledge.

Make the simple slight edge decision every day to read at least 1 page of a good book that can affect your philosophy in a positive way.

Doing this won’t affect you today. It probably won’t even affect you this week (aside from a little motivation). However, this simple action over time can change your entire attitude, which in turn affects the simple actions you take.

Even if you only read 1 page a day, that’s 365 pages of life altering information. Now, imagine doing this for 10 or 20 years…

This is something that’s very easy to do, but don’t fall into the trap of not doing it. Your life and your circumstance are defined by the actions you take every single day.

Every little decision you make is a slight edge decision. Most people don’t bother with it because it doesn’t seem to do anything for them in the moment. They’re unaware of the compound effect and just how much our small “insignificant” actions can control our future.

The Difference Between a “Winner” And a “Loser”

The Small Actions Make All The Difference

It’s the small actions and decisions that separate the successful from the unsuccessful.

Unsuccessful people usually only see the end result, and they often attribute it to some invisible force called “luck”. There is no such thing as a quantum leap when it comes to success (at least the ones who are self made and stay successful). Successful people simply make all the small decisions that don’t seem to do anything in the moment, and have the slight edge working for them instead of against them.

The slight edge is always in effect, whether you’re aware of it or not.

In other words, I’ve been on the negative edge almost my entire life. The worst part was I didn’t even know it was happening. When a friend of mine from my childhood introduced me to the book “The Slight Edge” by Jeff Olsen, that when it all began for me. You could even say it changed me from the inside out. Every action I took from that day forward was built on top of this very foundation. It was the book that had the biggest influence on me and it was also the one that set me on my journey towards success.

Make the decision today and have the slight edge work for you. Please remember to share this post and help spread the message.

Here is the link if you missed it: 3 Signs You Might Be a Victim of Circumstance

When things don’t go as planned, we often blame it on circumstance, and then rationalize how it was out of our control.

We can’t always control our surroundings, but we can control how we react to it.

Our “emotional brain” is responsible for many of our unconscious decisions, which steer us in a certain direction. It’s one of the reasons we always find ourselves in undesirable situations.

“The decisions you make in the thick of today’s circumstance are the defining factor in what your circumstances will be in the future.” – rockyourday.com

Changing Your Focus

Since you can’t directly control your unconscious/emotional brain, you have to change your focus to something else.

In other words, you have to change your focus to something that you do have control over. Something that can influence the way your unconscious mind makes decisions.

Namely, you want to be focusing on changing certain aspects of your inner self.

Here are the 4 things you can start doing right now to change the way your unconscious mind reacts to its environment.

1. Eliminate negative self talk

The way we think (internal) affects the way we react (external).

The other way around is also true, and this is where you have to be careful.

The way we interpret our environment (external) affects the way we think (internal). This can often be experienced as “self talk,” which can be negative, or positive.

Negative self talk can really limit your power and control in any given situation.

Whenever you allow your environment or circumstance to control the way you feel, you give up your power and become a “victim of circumstance.”

Eliminating negative self talk is something you can choose to consciously do.

You have to make the decision that you’re going to stop yourself whenever you feel it happening. Whenever your mind starts feeding you self-defeating thoughts, you have to interrupt it.

The way I’ve learned to do this is by using pattern interrupts.

As the name suggests, a pattern interrupt is basically interrupting a pattern or stimulus over and over until it begins to lose its initial effect. The way I do it is by abruptly stopping myself whenever I sense a self-defeating thought forming.

I tend to quickly think of something else that’s completely random, unrelated, ridiculous, and nonsensical.

In fact, the less it makes sense, the more likely it will interrupt your thought pattern and weaken the negative thought.

This is an old NLP trick that works extremely well and I recommend you try it next time your in a situation, and you feel negative self-defeating thoughts creeping up.

Interrupt yourself as many times as it takes until the negative thought loses its effect.

It might take some practice before you learn how to recognize a negative thought forming, but once you’ve done it a few times, it gets easier and easier. I can attest to that.

Another way to stop negative self talk before it starts, is to have a rule for yourself, that whenever you feel it coming, you’ll take a deep breath, and list off 5 things that you’re grateful for that week.

Gratitude has been shown to be a powerful method for dealing with negative self talk.

By focusing on gratitude, you’re mind is forced to change it’s focus completely.

If you can’t come up with anything you’re grateful for right away, change the angle of the question. Ask something like “If I was to be grateful for something this week, what would it be?”

You’re mind will eventually find the answer. It always finds some kind of answer to whatever question you ask it, even if it’s a self-defeating question! (we’ll talk about how important it is to phrase your questions properly in a future post)

Life is not always about what happens to you, sometimes it’s about how you react to it.

If you allow your inner self to be a direct, unfiltered reflection of your environment, then you are allowing yourself to become a bystander or victim of circumstance.

2. Acknowledge That You’re Not Always in Control

Whenever you find yourself in a situation where you have to make a decision, it’s important to understand that your “thinking” or “logical” brain is not the one in control. (Learn more: The Emotional Brain)

“The emotional brain responds to an event more quickly than the thinking brain.” – Daniel Goleman

In my previous post, I mentioned that most decisions are made on an emotional level, and then rationalized afterwards by our logical brain.

By simply acknowledging and accepting the way your brain works, you give yourself the power to “step out” and observe situations in a higher perspective.

Below is a quick video which suggests that by learning about how your brain thinks, you actually improve your ability to think.

What I’ve personally found to be helpful in making better decisions, is to have  many preventative measures in place.

In other words, I create certain rules that I’ll follow in any specific type of situation, especially situations that I feel I’m bound to end up in.

A general rule that I might create for myself could be something like, “if I find myself in such-and-such situation, I’ll make sure to step back and create a cushion of space between the stimulus and my reaction.”

Another thing I do is I force myself to step back and ask specifically-crafted questions, which force me to engage my thinking brain. This helps me regain a bit more control of my situation and reduce the amount of emotional response. The question can be anything you want, but I like to use: “How will this decision affect me long-term?” and “Will this decision bring me closer or further away from my ultimate goal in life?”

Asking questions that relate to the “bigger picture” allows your brain to change its focus and see things from a wider perspective. Making decisions in this way, will allow you to have more control over the chain of events that follow.

3. “Stack the Odds in Your Favor”

Be prepared.

It’s impossible to control how you react in every situation, but what you can do is to stack the odds in your favor.

“Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win.”

You can stack the odds in your favor simply by focusing your attention on improving the aspects of your life that can influence your unconscious decision making process.

They are things that you have power over, like your ideals, morals, mood, mindset, principals, health, wellness, etc.

Here are 11 things you can start doing now to positively affect the way your mind unconsciously reacts:

1. 8 Tips for Managing Stress – Manage your stress levels.
2. Personal Goal Setting – Set goals that can lead to last-lasting fulfillment.
3. 25 Killer Actions to Boost Your Self-Confidence – Work on boosting your self confidence.
4. 5 Great Ways to Conquer Self Doubt – Work on eliminating self-doubt.
5. 12 Things Happy People do Differently – Find contentment in everyday life.
6. How You May Be Sabotaging Your Life Without Knowing It – Eliminate self sabotage.
7. 7 Simple Ways to be More Positive – Try to maintain a positive state of mind.
8. How to Live Life with Full Self-Expression – Find new ways to express yourself.
9. 15 Strategies Dr. OZ Recommends For Eating Healthy and Feeling Good – Maintain better health.
10. Yoga: More Than a Workout – Start doing yoga.
11. 10 Ways People Choose Happiness – Choose happiness.

These are just a few examples that can positively affect your inner state, and affect your mind’s ability to make more rational decisions. I recommend expanding on this list and modifying it to suit your personal needs.

4. Be Prepared For “Unexpected” Circumstances

You often hear people say things like “knowing is half the battle.”

When you know something in advance, you’re able to take action and avoid many pitfalls.

For example, imagine that you’re enjoying the night out with friends.

The energy is high and everyone is having a good time.

Your friend offers you some dessert (a high calorie one), which you know you shouldn’t be having because your goal is to lose 5lb by the end of the month.

Since you’re in the moment, you rationalize your situation (emotional decision, logical rationalization) and you give yourself reasons why it’ll be okay just this once.

Now if you don’t understand how decisions are made and how emotion affects your decision making process, there’s a good chance that when you’re presented with another similar situation in the near future, you’ll probably make the exact same choice.

You’re decision is made on an emotional level before you’re even aware of it, and you’re logical or thinking brain will protect its own integrity, by making you believe that you’re consciously choosing it (rationalization). Over time, this leads to feelings of guilt and disappointment in yourself. You may even begin to ask yourself negative questions like “why do I always do this to myself?” Your brain will then look for the answer and let you know the answer in a form of negative self talk.

Now imagine a different but similar scenario.

You’re still on a diet, but this time, you understand how decision making works. You know that you’ll be going out with your friends tonight to have a great time, and you also know that there’s a good chance one of your friends will offer you something you shouldn’t have. You know it will be a temping offer and that you’re decision will be made on an emotional level before your thinking brain even has a chance to process it.

In this scenario, you understand that your thinking brain is not the one in control when it comes to these kinds of situations (although we all want to believe that it is). So what you do instead is you make the decision right there and then, that if someone were to make you that offer, you will respond politely with “no, thank you.”

Now when you find yourself in the same situation, you already know what you’re going to say before your emotional brain even has a chance to process it. It’s pre-rehearsal and requires very little “on the spot” decision making (minimal emotional influence).

Being prepared for unexpected events that might occur, allows you to make the most rational decisions.

It’s kind of like preparing for a job interview and pre-rehearsing answers for questions that the interview may or may not ask.

Behind Every Effect, There is a Cause

Life is a never ending sequence of cause and effect and this cannot be avoided.

When we see the weather on the news, we react.

When the car in front of you slams the brakes, we react.

When someone says something that we don’t like, we react.

When a child falls on the ground, we react.

The way we react depends on many factors, but it’s mostly unconscious and based on who we are as a person and the mental state we’re currently in.

You can’t control your surroundings, but you can control how you react to them.

In my opinion, preparation and self-education are the two of the most effective strategies for dealing with this.

By learning to take responsibility for the things you have control of, you’ll start to notice your circumstances change dramatically.

You won’t be able to avoid or change your circumstance completely, but you’ll have more control of where you find yourself and how you respond to it.

This is something that’s taken me a very long time to learn, but more importantly, to accept.

Making the decision to take responsibility for everything that happens to you isn’t easy, but by doing this, you gain the ability to create powerful change in your life.

A good way to start on this journey, is with a simple morning ritual.

I hope you found this post useful and that you’ll take the necessary steps to making your own circumstance. Remember to share this post with anyone you know that may feel like they’re a “victim of circumstance”.

Do you sometimes find yourself blaming your circumstances on fate or bad luck when things don’t go your way?

Or perhaps you like to sit back and hope “things” get better?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, then there’s a good chance that you’re a “victim of circumstance.”

But don’t worry.

In this post, I’m going to share something interesting I’ve learned that’s dramatically improved my life. and has helped me increase the amount of control I have over my circumstances.

I used to blame everybody and everything around me whenever things didn’t go as planned.

The result?

I spiraled downwards (in all areas of my life) a bit more each day until I realized how bad my circumstances had become. That’s when I made the decision to get this area of my life handled. When I finally started to understand some of the things I’m going to tell you about, my life and my circumstance began to change dramatically in positive ways.

After reading this, you’re going to understand exactly what has to happen in order for you to go from  “victimhood” to “master of your own environment”.

Are You “Sleep Walking” Through Your Day?

When I say “sleep walking”, I don’t mean that in a literal sense.

What I’m trying to say is that most people go through an entire day without ever realizing that their mind is unconsciously making hundreds of small, seamless decisions that have life altering consequences.

The important thing to understand here is not the fact that it’s happening but that it can actually be affecting the direction of your life, without you even knowing.

Many of the undesirable circumstances you often find yourself in actually stems from this unconscious decision-making process.

It’s Happening Every Day

From the moment you wake up, until you go to sleep at night, you’re mind and body reacts to just about everything the environment throws at you, regardless of whether you’re aware of it or not.

An unconscious reaction can be something as simple as picking up a spoon or a piece of paper off the ground. It can also be something a bit more complicated like making an excuse, or finding reasons not to go to the gym that day.

What a lot of people don’t realize is that even when we’re consciously making a decision, most of the time, our unconscious mind has already determined the outcome.

The “decision making” we do when we realize we have a decision to make, up until the decision is made, is simply a form of rationalization.

We rationalize our unconscious decision and fool ourselves into thinking that we’re actually making the decision right there and then. This is known as “rationalization of unconscious decisions“.

It’s Going to Happen Regardless

You’re mind is going to make a decision on what to do for every situation it finds itself in, even if it doesn’t receive any conscious input from you. The choice it makes will depend on a number of internal factors and variables.

It may seem inconsequential at first, but if you look at the “compound effect“ behind it (over the course of a few years), you’ll begin to notice that there’s a powerful “ripple effect.”

Let’s use a hypothetical scenario to try and highlight this a bit better.

An Unlikely, But Not Impossible Scenario

• It’s 8:00 AM and you’re getting ready for work. You notice a piece of paper on the ground, and without a second thought, you unconscious make the decision to ignore it. After all, it’s too early in the morning for you to be bothered with something so insignificant (although it would have taken you only 10 seconds).
• At 8:20 AM, You walk outside of your house and as you approach the bus stop, a bird flies right over your head and leaves you with a little surprise. You don’t realize it yet (or ever), but if your mind had just made the unconscious decision to pick up the piece of paper on the ground, you would have missed the birds entirely by 10 seconds.

Now let’s go a bit further shall we? (This is a bad and unlikely scenario I know, but it gets the points across, I think…)

• You make a decision to run back to your house quickly and wash your hair because you know you can’t show up to work like that. The time is now 8:31 AM and you’ve just left your house for the second time. You arrive at the bus stop at 8:41 AM, just in time to see the bus leave without you. The next bus doesn’t come until 8:55 AM. However, you have no choice but to wait.
• At 9:15 AM, you finally arrive at work and you’re boss is having a bad day (of all the days, it just had to be today…), so he decides to give you a hard time even though you’re only 15 minutes late. You feel a bit victimized by him and you end up having a horrible and extremely draining day at work. You can’t wait to get home and forget about everything.
• You arrive home at 5:35 PM and you realize that you’re physically and mentally exhausted because of the rough day your boss put you through. You decide to take a short nap to re-energize, so you set an alarm clock for 6:30 PM because you know you have a date at 7:30 PM with a girl you met last week.
• 9:00 PM rolls around and you quickly throw yourself out of bed and into panic mode because you realize that you overslept big time.

How could you have overslept? You must have been a lot more exhausted than you thought!

• At 9:10 PM, you’ve calmed yourself down a bit and decide that you’ll give her a call, apologize, and explain what happened. You dial her up, but there’s no reply. You try a few more times, but still no reply. It’s pretty obvious that shes purposely ignoring your calls.
• Feeling a bit depressed at what’s happened so far, you end up fixing a quick dinner for yourself and you decide to watch TV until you fall asleep on the coach. Just before you fall asleep, you tell yourself that you’re merely “a victim of circumstance” and that “things will get better.”

But, it doesn’t end here.

There’s a good chance that you’ll wake up tomorrow feeling drained because of what happened today.

This lack of energy will probably also carry over to your personal and work life, causing you to make decisions which are more negative than usual. You may even misinterpret other people’s intentions, leading to even more negative energy.

This negative energy can then carry over to the following day and further affect your decision making ability.

I think you get the point.

I didn’t choose the best example to illustrate it, but what I’m trying to show is that a single unconscious reaction, compounded over 2-3 days can really cause a huge ripple effect, no matter how insignificant it may seem.

The average person makes over hundreds of these unconscious choices each day, and if we compound the effects (Read: The Slight Edge) over a 10+ year period instead of 2-3 day, I’m sure you can imagine just how significant these small choices really become. You can probably also imagine just how many undesirable circumstances you may find yourself in if you constantly make all the “bad” choices.

In the example above, the entire situation could have been avoided if your unconscious mind had made the decision to pick up the paper instead of leaving it there.

If all this is happening unconsciously, then what’s the solution?

The most common reaction we as human beings have when confronted with such situations, is to blame it on everything that we don’t have control over. It’s so much easier to blame than to take responsibility, but when you blame, you give up your power to change.

The solution to this problem is actually easier than you might think. But keep in mind that “things that are easy to do, are also easy not to do.”

Although the unconscious decisions you make happen in a split second and require very little to no conscious effort from you, your mind does take into consideration many variables in order to come to a final decision. These variables can include many factors such as your current mood, personality, mentality, ideal, morals, principals, etc.

The Solution

Since you can’t directly control the unconscious decisions that your mind makes, what you can control are the variables that your mind takes into consideration as its making these decisions. In other words, you have to take responsibility for the things you do have control over, which are the factors that directly affect the unconscious decision making process. Your mind, mood, mentality, mindset, etc.

The law of cause and effect states that every cause has an effect and every effect becomes the cause of something else. This law suggests that the universe is always in motion and progressed from a chain of events.

If you want to look at this law from a philosophical point of view, every cause and effect had its worldly purpose to what we are experiencing today.

- The Law Of Cause and Effect Is The Law Of All Laws…..(n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.creative-wealthbuilding.com/law-of-cause-and-effect.html

Make sure to subscribe to my blog for future updates because in my next post, I’m going to share with you 4 simple and actionable steps you can start using right away to set yourself up for better unconscious decision-making. This will help you move from “victim of circumstance” to “master of your own fate.”

If you haven’t had the chance to read it yet, I highly recommend you do that first because it’s going to explain exactly what a morning routine is and how it’s going to affect your entire day. (Image by The Hamster Factor)

Consciously Taking Control of Your Day

Did you know that having a morning routine is probably one of the simplest, yet most overlooked things you can do to take control of your day?

Having a morning routine is like having a solid foundation where you build the rest of your day upon. It helps you avoid that ‘reactive state’, which a lot of people find themselves falling into. This is where you REACT to everything life throws at you, instead of properly responding to it.

How to Create a Successful Morning Routine

To put it simply, the best morning routine is always going to be the one that caters to your specific needs and goals. What’s best for one person isn’t necessarily best for you.

You want to try and follow a ritual that’s specifically geared towards your current situation and needs.

For example, if you want to be healthier, consider adding a balanced meal each morning as a part of your morning ritual. If you want to be more focused throughout the day, consider incorporating a bit of meditation or morning stress-reduction mantras. The best morning routine is one that’s made to address whatever it is you want to focus your attention on.

Creating a good morning ritual involves figuring out what you want to attain/achieve in life, and then setting up actionable steps that point you in the right direction. Here are the 3 things you must do in order to create a successful morning routine.

1. Narrow Your Focus

It’s extremely important to avoid distractions and focus only on completing your ritual each and every morning. Remind yourself that you’re only going to focus on completing the task at hand. Nothing more.

This should help steer your mind away from a lot of doubt and inner resistance.

It’s easy to get excited and motivated when you first start out, but once the motivation wears off, it’s going to take a lot of will power and discipline to keep it up. The good news is, knowing about this is half the battle.

2. Create a ‘Buffer’

Unexpected things happen all the time.

The best way to prepare yourself against this, is to expect that it’s going to happen. This is why I recommend having some kind of ‘buffer’.

In other words, set aside a bit of extra time or leeway whenever you can, and anticipate that unexpected events can and probably will occur from time to time.

Having said that, I recommend allocating a bit more time for your morning routine than the actual length of your routine. This extra time will act as a cushion in the event that something “unexpected” occurs.

By having a buffer, you can avoid many situations that would normally disrupt your “rhythm” or flow.

Another way to create a buffer is to allow yourself 1 or 2 “cheat days” each week. This means that if you happen to miss one of your morning routines, instead of feeling bad about it and letting it affect your entire day, you simply mark the day down as one of your allotted “cheat days.”

The fact is, none of us are perfect, and that’s why I recommend having these preventative measures. We can’t control everything that happens to us, but we can control how we respond to it.

These strategies are meant to help you stick to your morning ritual until it can become a ‘success habit.’ Something that you can carry out almost automatically each morning without a lot of conscious effort.

3. Be Specific and Stick to It

It’s important to make sure that the morning ritual you create is very specific.

Don’t leave any room for guessing.

It’s been shown that people are more likely to stick to a plan that’s more specific as opposed to one that’s vague or incomplete.

Although it can be a bit difficult at first, especially once your motivation starts to dwindle, if you can stick to your plan for at least 21 days, it will start to become a habit, and momentum will begin to take over for you.

My Current Morning Ritual

I know some of you learn best through example, so I’m going to share my personal morning ritual here.

Although it changes from time to time depending on where I am in my life, it’s always geared to my specific needs.

I recommend you do the same too and use this only as an example.

Before I begin, I’d like to mention that within the first hour of waking up, I always avoid eating any kind of solid food.

I’ve learned that from the moment we wake up until our first meal, our body is fasting and detoxifying itself. Hence our first meal of the day is called “break fast” (The fast that occurs while you sleep).

Anyways, here is the simple morning ritual I follow for maximizing my day:

1. Drink a liter of water (You might feel a bit sick until your body gets used to it) along with a scoop of Vegegreens to alkalize and rehydrate my body.
2. Spend 10 minutes focusing on deep breathing and clearing my mind of any other thoughts. I inhale for 2 seconds, hold it for 8 seconds, and then exhale for 4 seconds.
3. Spend 15 minutes doing static stretches to increase blood flow, stimulate the lymph system, and eliminate toxins.
4. Spend 15 minutes listening, watching, or focusing on something motivational to create the right mindset that I can build my day upon.
5. Proceed with my day.

As you can see, my routine isn’t complicated at all.

I simply do this every morning right after I wake up. I spend less than 45 minutes on it, and it doubles my productivity for the entire day.

You can build your own routine any way you like, but just be sure to mix in as many “good” practices as you can. Tailor it towards your own life and the areas you want to focus on.

I hope you’ve found this post useful in one way or another. Don’t forget to take immediate action and turn this into something that could benefit you for life.

Do you have any suggestions, or even a morning ritual of your own, that you’d like to share? Use the comment section below and let us know.

A morning ritual is like the secret key that unlocks your hidden potential and unleashes maximum productivity.

If you don’t have a morning ritual yet, I highly recommend you read on. Missing out on this could easily be costing you half your entire day. (Image by HilaryQuinn)

Why a Ritual?

Tony Schwartz explains it best when he says:

Will and discipline are wildly overrated. As the researcher Roy Baumeister has found, none of us have very much of it. The best way to insure you’ll take on difficult tasks is to ritualize them – build specific, inviolable times at which you do them, so that over time you do them without having to squander energy thinking about them.

Tony Schwartz: 6 Keys to Being Excellent at Anything. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tony-schwartz/six-keys-to-being-excelle_b_695333.html

How Does a Morning Ritual Increase Your Productivity?

A lot of what we do every day happens unconsciously. In other words, we do things without even thinking about it.

This can be both a good and bad. But for most of us, it’s a bad thing. It takes up a lot of valuable time, and the actions usually don’t match up with the goals you have in mind for yourself.

Understanding that these unconscious behaviors happen daily, is the first step to fixing it.

Let’s begin by talking a bit about some of the dangers of not having a morning ritual.

3 Ways NOT Having a Morning Ritual is Robbing You Blind

By choosing not to have a morning ritual:

1. You are negatively affecting your own physical health.

Your first meal is your most important meal. It sets the context for every other meal that day.

Imagine this.

You wake up in the morning and you decide to have a delicious, but it’s not the most healthy breakfast. You know in your heart that you probably shouldn’t have it, but you rationalize in your head that it’ll just be a “cheat meal”.

The time for your next meal rolls along, and you start thinking to yourself, “well, I’ve already cheated today, I might as well just have this this (another unhealthy meal) and tomorrow I’ll get back on track for sure.”

What just happened here?

Have you ever experienced something like this before? I know I have.

This is just an example of how your mind likes consistency and will always try to rationalize your actions, in an attempt to remain consistent.

Now imagine this scenario.

You wake up in the morning and you already have a morning ritual in place. As a part of your ritual, you have yourself a healthy breakfast, and you feel great that you didn’t have that other meal. You’re off to a great start.

The next meal of the day comes along, and now you subconsciously think to yourself “I’m on a roll, I have to keep this great day going.” So you end up having another healthy meal, and it took little to no effort at all!

This is just an example of how your mind can either work with you, or against you.

Your mind is always trying to either maintain consistency, or resist change. If you start off your day well, your mind work with you and give your reasons why you should keep going. However, if you start it off bad, your mind will rationalize why its okay to keep going too.

2. You are negatively affecting your mental state.

In the same way your first meal sets the context of the day for the rest of your meals, the mindset you slip into each morning also sets the context for the rest of the day.

The state that your mind will be in for the entire day, is usually determined within the first hour after you wake up.

Just like you set the context of the day with your first meal, you also set the context of the day depending on the mindset you allow yourself to slip in first thing in the morning. You might have even heard of the phrase “looks like someone got up on the wrong side of the bed this morning.” This could just mean that they set the context for their day wrong.

Setting the context for the day is very important. If you set a good context, then you’re going to have a good day. If you have a lot of good days, it means you had a good week and if you have a lot of good weeks, it means you had a good month, and so on.

We are always spiraling. We either spiral upwards or downwards towards our ideal situation/self on any given day. By not having a morning ritual in place to help shape your day, you are leaving it all to chance and this can cause you to spiral downwards, away from what you want in life.

Always keep in mind that the first few things you do after you wake up have the biggest leverage on the rest of your day. This takes us to our next point.

The first things you do after you first wake up have a very high leverage on your entire day. This takes us to point 3.

3. You are negatively affecting and limiting your highest leverage point

Your mindset, or the way your think, is the highest leverage point in your life. It’s one of the single most important thing that guides all your actions, decisions and even reactions throughout the day.

This is why it’s so important to have a morning ritual. A morning ritual allows you to renew, refresh and recharge this leverage point, potentially doubling your productivity.

Start your day off with a morning ritual that makes you feel strong, and you’ll be ready to take on whatever the world throws at you. Not having a morning routine that sets you in the right direction each day is very time consuming because you unconsciously carry out tasks which tend to be counterproductive to what you want for yourself.

Getting Started

Your morning ritual doesn’t have to be perfect, it only needs to address the areas where you want to improve on. If your main concern is health, create your ritual to include health routines which set you on the right path each morning.

If you’re new to all this, you can start with something really simple. It’s all about taking action and implementing the things you learn. Go ahead and create a 10 minute morning routine if that’s what it takes for you to get started.

In my next post, I’m going to talk about the 3 steps you have to follow to create a successful morning routine. I’m also going to give a quick example of a morning ritual that I’m currently using.

Until then, let me leave you with this question.

Do you know which area of your life you really want to improve on and have you set aside the time each day to steer towards that goal?

Feel free to leave any responses in the comment section below.

For example, if your happiness comes from buying shiny new toys or winning the lottery, I have some bad news for you…

It’s probably not going to last.

Happiness that comes from this kind of unsustainable source tends to be unsustainable itself. Of course, you could always keep doing the action that’s bringing you this happiness, but what happens when you’re unable to do it anymore?

Happiness that wears off over time (excitement) is not really the type of happiness most of us want for the long term.

So, what exactly is “long term” happiness then?

Whenever I ask someone what they want in life, they usually tell me, “I just want to be happy.”

When I go a step further and ask what makes them happy. This is when they start listing off things that money can buy them.

Although these things are all real, and they can definitely make you happy, the question is…

“for how long?”

Long term happiness has to be a sustainable kind of happiness. This usually only comes from within.

Being Happy All The Time

No one can stay happy all the time. Even the happiest people in the world have their moments.

If there’s anything I’ve learned over the years, it’s that happiness is an emotional state, and like all emotional states, it’s quite volatile.

Emotions come and go all the time.

It just means that if you want to keep it long-term, you have to get it from a source that’s sustainable, namely yourself.

This kind of happiness really does exist, but you have to stop looking outside of yourself for it.

Happiness from fulfillment

Fulfillment is the secret key to long-term, sustainable happiness.

It’s defined as “satisfaction or happiness as a result of fully developing one’s abilities or character.”

Happiness that comes from fulfillment doesn’t rely on external sources for its existence.

It’s real, and it comes from within.

51 Things You Can do to Feel Fulfilled in Life

Here are 51 ways you can obtain happiness through fulfillment:

1. Pursue your passions.

2. Connect with people that can help you grow as an individual.

3. Prioritize your life.

4. Carry out the small actions that lead to massive results over time.

5. Enjoy your personal journey called “life”.

6. Forgive people and things in your past.

7. Think about how your actions can affect you in the long run.

8. Share your life lessons and experiences with others.

9. Be humble.

10. Be grateful for the things you have.

11. Keep an open mind and avoid generalizing things.

12. Never give up on yourself.

13. Wear clothing that make you feel good about yourself.

14. Accept yourself just the way you are.

15. Take action towards achieving your goals.

16. Practice to be self disciplined.

17. Fill your life with music.

18. Create lots of value for others.

19. Accept the flaws in yourself as well as in others.

20. Practice some form of self expression. (singing, dancing, martial arts, meditation, yoga, etc.)

21. Focus on your strengths, not your weaknesses.

22. See and embrace difficulties as challenges.

23. Set standards for what you will and won’t accept in life.

24. Live in the present moment.

25. Surround yourself with positive-thinking people.

26. Try and discover your life’s purpose.

27. Celebrate your achievements.

28. Create your own definition of success.

29. Travel and see the world.

30. Practice delayed gratification.

31. Volunteer your time to help your community.

32. Create a vision of a better future for yourself.

33. Be honest and truthful with yourself.

34. Eat healthy meals and avoid unnecessary junk foods.

35. Consciously make the right choices.

36. Be good to your body and treat it will.

37. Focus on the things in your life that you can control.

38. Strive and become the best person you can be, in every aspect of your life.

39. Explore your full potential.

40. Understand that life isn’t always going to fair.

41. Be the type of person people can rely on.

42. Take full responsibility for your own life.

43. Be patient.

44. Properly manage your stress levels.

45. Always trust yourself.

46. Create positive success habits.

47. Exercise on a regular basis.

48. Be as authentic as you can.

49. Maintain a positive outlook on life.

50. Care for others as you would care for yourself.

51. Love yourself and love others.

The first and most important thing you have to do in order to be happy is to give yourself permission to be happy.

No matter where you are right now, there’s always things you can do in the present moment that will help increase your happiness and feeling of fulfillment.

Keep in mind that whatever ‘happiness blueprint’ you decide to create for yourself, make sure it’s one where you can win!

I encourage you to share this list with friends and family. Everyone deserves a bit more happiness and fulfillment in their life.

The good news, for the rest of us “unlucky” people, is that productivity, can in fact be learned and honed with practice.

I’m going to share with you 7 small changes which I’ve made in my own life that’s doubled my productivity.

Before we start, you have to understand that there’s a big distinction between working to get things done and working to get the right things done. Some people work a lot and they’re always busy, but they never seem to get any of the important things done.

This is not what we’re after.

I’m talking about real productivity; Ways to maximize the efficiency and effectiveness of the time you spend working, in order to achieve whatever goals you’ve set for yourself.

Here, are the 7 small changes you can implement in your life right now to start doubling your productivity:

1. Focus on only one thing at a time

We’re moving towards a culture of multitasking, where our daily focus is being split into thousand different directions. This is really counter-productive when it comes to maximizing productivity.

You want to make it a habit to focus on only one task at a time. Focus your attention like a laser, on your most important task. Complete the task properly and thoroughly before moving on to the next one.

Multitasking can reduce productivity by approximately 40-percent according to some researchers.

Switching from one task to another makes it difficult to tune out distractions and can cause mental blocks that can slow down your progress.

- Multitasking – The Cognitive Costs of Multitasking. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://psychology.about.com/od/cognitivepsychology/a/costs-of-multitasking.htm

2.  Work in 60 minute chunks of time

Schedule your work into fixed chunks of time, followed by a period of “disconnect”, where you completely change your focus to something non-work related.

Your body has many natural rhythms which occurs automatically, whether you’re aware of it or not.

One such rhythm is called the Ultradian Rhythm.

For most people Ultradian Rhythms occur at intervals of 90-120 minutes throughout the day, during which they feel energized and are able to get things done. This is followed by a 30 minute stretch of low energy levels. Then the cycle starts again and you’re on your way towards another period of peak performance.

- Don’t Work Hard For More Than 90 Minutes Straight – Stratford … (n.d.). Retrieved from http://stratford.patch.com/blog_posts/dont-work-hard-for-more-than-90-minutes-straight

Our body naturally goes through periods of high energy followed by periods of low energy, also known as the energy renewal and restoration stage.

The problem with our culture today is that whenever we feel a bit tired, we like to turn to stimulants like coffee, instead of letting our body renew itself as it was intended to do.

This is very taxing on the adrenal system and also burns your willpower very inefficiently.

Doing this consistently over a period of time can lead to feelings of being chronically burned out.

Working in 60 minute chunks of time will allow you to take advantage of this natural cycle.

I recommend scheduling all your work into two consecutive 60-minute “work blocks”, followed by a 30-minute break where you disconnect from your work and focus on something complete unrelated to your work.

3. Eliminate distractions and interruptions

Create uninterrupted work blocks where you can focus 100% on your planned task and nothing else.

It takes a bit of time for your mind to go back to your original activity every time you’re interrupted, no matter how small the interruption is.

Keep a notepad near you at all times. If there’s an urgent interruption that can’t wait, write it down on your notepad and go back to it at a later time.

As always, use your judgement too because some interruptions may be urgent and time-sensitive.

4. Stay organized in your own way

Stay as organized as you can and create a system for yourself which allows you to find what you need, when you need it.

Spending time on small tasks might seem insignificant to you, but add it all up, and it can really damage your focus and greatly diminish your productivity because of the time it takes for your mind to re-focus on the task at hand.

Keep your workspace organized and you’ll notice a huge increase in overall productivity. Read Getting Things Done by David Allen.

5. Become more productive, not more busy

Prioritize all your work so you don’t end up working for the sake of working.

You have to look at the results, not just the work you put in.

Ask yourself if the work you’re doing right now is bringing you closer to your goal. If it’s not, then you have to consider whether it’s worth your time doing. Read The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss.

6. Don’t try to manage time better, manage yourself better

Managing time is such a misnomer.

People who try to manage time are often referring to managing themselves because you can’t really manage time, it just flows, and you have no control over it.

Since time is an external thing, when you try to manage time, its almost as if you’re not taking the full responsibility for the outcome.

What you want to do is manage yourself better as it implies that you’re taking full responsibility for whatever happens. It’s a small change in the way you think, but by accepting responsibility, you eliminate excuses and dramatically improve your productivity.

7. Create a to-do AND a must-do list

Before you go to sleep each night, sit down for about 15 minutes and create yourself a to-do list along with a “must-do” list for the following day.

Figure out what your long term goals are and use it to derive a series of short term goals.

Create an action plan consisting of the most basic level steps required to reach your short term goals. Prioritize them and add it to your list as “60-minute work blocks”. If you have a bunch of smaller tasks, go ahead and combine them together to form a single 60 min block whenever possible.

Tasks that are vital towards your goal should be listed under the “must-do” category while the regular tasks should just go into your to-do list.

Make sure you complete your must-do list every day without fail, before you start working on your to-do list. This creates a sense of urgency as you’re not allowed to start your to-do list until your most important tasks are out of the way. This will stop you from working on unimportant menial tasks as a way to procrastinate on the important high-value tasks.

It will take a bit of discipline when you first get started, but over time it will become second nature to you and your productivity will skyrocket.

Don’t forget to share this article with anyone you know that might benefit from having a little extra productivity in their life.

As long as you continue to doing these things, you’re going to find it very hard to be happy. As least in the long term.

I made this list as a way to remind you of things you might be doing that’s jeopardizing your chances of obtaining true, sustainable happiness. I highly recommend you read it and then do the exact opposite.

If you want to stay unhappy forever:

1. Listen and believe everything people say about you.
2. Get involved in other people’s drama.
3. Avoid trying new things, especially the thing’s you’ve always wanted to do.
4. Generalize everything and everyone around you.
5. Want everything, especially the things you can’t have.
6. Engage in self-defeating self-talk.
7. Try to do things that please everyone except yourself.
8. Try to change other people’s behavior.
9. Stop learning new things about yourself and the world.
10. Create lots of goals and don’t take any action towards achieving them.
11. Never ask yourself what makes you happy.
12. Lock away your inner child and never let it out.
13. Pretend to be someone you’re not.
14. Hang around unhappy people.
15. Stay confined in your comfort zone and never engage in anything that might jeopardize that.
16. Find reasons why you don’t like your job.
17. Never admit that you need help.
18. Make it a point to be right every time.
19. Talk about what you don’t want, instead of what you do want.
20. Compare yourself to everyone but yourself.
21. Assume responsibility for negative actions and thoughts of everyone around you.
22. Allow bad habits to accumulate over time.
23. Convince yourself that you’ll do it tomorrow.
24. Follow the same routine your entire life and never change it.
25. Deprive yourself of sleep on a regular and consistent basis.
26. Don’t invest any time into self-growth.
27. Assume the worst about everyone.
28. Find things that you and your friends can complain about.
29. Live paycheck to paycheck, never setting aside a small amount for emergencies.
30. Complain about all the things that you don’t have in life.
31. Never spend any time to celebrate your “mini” victories.
32. Try to live up to other people’s expectations for you.
33. Attach yourself to your goals, things, people and outcomes.
34. Don’t set any goals for yourself.
35. Assume the worst of every situation.
36. Give yourself plenty of excuses why you can’t do something.
37. Push everyone around you down so you can feel better about yourself in the short term.
38. Use age as an excuse why you can’t do something.
39. Make sure everything you do has instant gratification.
40. Always make sure to try and impress someone.
41. Be a perfectionist and accept nothing but perfection.
42. Rely on alcohol to make all your sufferings go away.
43. Never forgive anyone.
44. Be ungrateful for everything you have.
45. Don’t trust anyone besides yourself.
46. Repeat the same mistakes over and over, but never learn anything from it.
47. Be as inactive as you can on a daily basis.
48. Invest more of your time in worrying than action taking.
49. Equate your past with your present and your future.
50. Never finish anything you start.
51. Assume other people will plan your life out for you.
52. Always focus on the past and never live in the present moment.
53. Never trust your own instincts about anything.
54. Never contribute to society or the people around you.
55. Allow negative thoughts to dictate your actions.
56. Consistently remind yourself why you’re not worthy of being with someone.
57. Don’t smile.
58. Undermine your own self worth with every chance you get.
59. Don’t allow yourself to fall in love again.
60. Put up an emotional shield that doesn’t allow anyone to get close to you.
61. Avoid doing things you would probably enjoy, because of what others might say.
62. Overindulge in everything and convince yourself that life is too short to care.
63. Take everything personally.
64. Always focus on the future and never live in the present moment.
65. Worry about things that hasn’t even happened yet.
66. Spend a good amount of time each day watching and reading the news.
67. Associate lack of happiness with lack of money.
68. Walk around with your shoulders slumped.
69. Expect everyone around you to act a certain way.
70. Run from your fears and never face them.
71. Don’t laugh.
72. Worry about the things that you can’t change.
73. Consistently choose today’s pleasures over tomorrow’s fortune.
74. Try to change things that you have no control over.
75. Walk around with your head down.
76. Find reasons why you don’t like your co-workers.
77. Lie to yourself.
78. Rely on drugs to make your suffering go away.
79. Always be right, no matter what.
80. Dwell on negative things in your past.
81. Stop challenging yourself to improve.
82. Don’t accept any compliments because there could be an ulterior motive.
83. Don’t set aide any time for yourself.
84. Be and do less than what you know you’re capable of.
85. Focus on the things you don’t have instead of the things you do.
86. Choose to be comfortable today instead of following your dreams.
87. Stop loving yourself.
88. Associate yourself with negative people.
89. Plan for and expect to encounter failure at every turn.
90. Underplay all the small achievements in your life.
91. Draw conclusions about life based on what you see on TV.
92. Regret your past and wish things were different.
93. Expect a positive outcome from every action with a good intention.
94. Choose to be unhappy and justify why you don’t deserve happiness.
95. Spend more money than you earn.
96. Blame your failures on someone else.
97. Avoid any form of exercise or physical activity.
98. Don’t prioritize the important things in your life.
99. Wish you were someone else.

100. Remind yourself everyday why you don’t have money.
101. Keep doing what you always do, but expect things to be different this time.

If you do all the things that make you happy, but you don’t stop doing the things that keep you unhappy, you’re going to find yourself trapped in a never-ending cycle, constantly struggling for happiness.

I recommend you read, and then reread the list above many times, until you’ve cut out as many of them as you can from your life. Do this, and you’ll start to notice significant and positive changes happening all around you.

Please take a moment and share this post with anyone you know that might be doing these things and sabotaging their chance at happiness.

Design Your Own Happiness

Most of them were learned the hard way, but I’m very grateful for learning them when I did.

I hope you find them useful in some way.

1. Never ever try to change someone who has no desire to change.

2. The most successful people in the world, are also the same people with the most failures.

3. Bad things can and do happen to good people, but it still doesn’t give you an excuse not to do the right thing.

4. Pursuing happiness rarely ever leads to true and long-lasting happiness. Fulfillment, on the other hand, is consistent and can provide you with a sustainable stream of happiness.

5. If you can’t be happy right now with what you currently have, chances are you won’t be happy once you get the “thing” you think you need, in order to be happy.

6. Don’t believe everything people tell you. Half of what they say results from their own short-sightedness.

7. You can’t fix something about yourself, until you’re able to admit you have something that needs fixing.

8. The first hour of your day sets the course for the rest of your day. Take advantage of this hour and make the best of it.

9. Will power is a depletable resource and motivation often comes in short bursts. Replenishing these resources takes time, so make the most of it when you have it.

10. Formed habits require less willpower and motivation to sustain. This applies to both good and bad habits.

11. It takes about 21 days to either form or break a new habit. Until then, you’re running on pure willpower and motivation (or lack thereof).

12.Failure is our guide to success. Not learning from your failure, is just as bad as not having any. Failure is the pillar of success:

13. The road to success or failure, is paved by your habits. Knowing this, it makes sense to create as many “success habits” as you can, while eliminating the bad ones.

14. Learning to take responsibility for your actions and failures can be extremely hard, but it’s also a vital asset to have in your journey towards success.

We must all suffer from one of two pains: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret. The difference is discipline weighs ounces while regret weighs tons. – Jim Rohn. The Power of Ambition.

15. It’s often hard to see or predict what comes next, if you haven’t even taken the first step yet.

16. You probably won’t see the big picture, if you’re always focused on the little details. Sometimes its necessary to put your worries aside, in order to see the step that’s right front of you.

17. Learning how to “step out of yourself” for a moment and place yourself into the shoe’s of another person, will help prevent and diffuse a lot of unnecessary arguments down the road.

18. In almost all cases, when a person goes out of their way just to put you down, its never personal. Most of the time, it’s an indirect result of a “wound” that the person is carrying, whether they’re aware of it or not.

19. There are 2 interesting types of people in this world that work to move up in life. There are those who work consistently to push themselves up, and then there are those who work consistently to push everyone around them down. Have you asked yourself which one you are?

20. Many times, trusting your own intuition is better than listening to what everyone tells you, although there are times when your intuition is wrong. An adult has to be able to make a decision and then take responsibility for it, regardless of the outcome.

21. Small changes, actions and decisions made each day and compounded over time, lead to the big changes that we see. However, most people only ever see the big changes, and they often attribute this to a mystical force called “luck”. Read The Slight Edge.

22. Wealth can be defined in so many ways, not just in terms of monetary value.

23. There is a strong synergy between your health, wealth and relationship. A lack in any one area will carry over to the other two.

24. Learning never stops. There will always be room for learning something new, whether it’s a new skill or simply more knowledge. Once you’ve reached as far as you can see, you’ll find that you’re able to see even further.

25. The big difference between someone on a path of success and someone on a path of failure, is one administers responsibility, while the other administers blame.

Please leave a comment below and let me know what you think.

I’d love to know if you found them useful for not.

If you have any of your own life lessons to share, feel free to post it in the comment section below.