Month: November 2020

Magical Mornings – How to Get More Done Before Breakfast

self-help

There is something special about waking up early each day.

It is a secret sauce for getting a heck of a lot more done in life.

Almost 3 weeks ago I decided to change my daily schedule by waking up at 4am each day.

4am you say?!

You bet!

Let me tell you how to do it shortly.

But first, let me quickly tell you why I have chosen to do this.

Why wake up so early?

There are literally zero distractions. Your willpower is at its highest. You can focus 100 percent on whatever your biggest goal in life is.

Think about this:

If you were to wake up at 4am each day and get in 3 hours of deep, focused, work before most people wake up at around 7am, that totals 21 hours of work a week, 82 hours of work a month, and over 1,000 hours of work for the year.

1,000 hours of focused, deep work a year is equal to 125x 8hour working days… but these are not your typical 8hr working days with interruptions, meetings, and breaks. These are 8 hours of FOCUSED, DEEP WORK on your most important goals.

Taking it a step further, 125x 8 hr working days is equal to working full-time, in a deep and focused state on your most important goals for 25 weeks of the year! That is just shy of 6 months.

It is crazy how these numbers stack up.

And all it takes it simply waking up earlier and getting focused on what matters most and being consistent with it.

Does it really work?

Most definitely!

In the last three weeks I have:

  • Completely updated my Change Your Life program.
  • Ran a Flash Sale for you guys.
  • Overhauled my website – new theme, new homepage, mostly a lot of backend and design elements that will make things simpler moving forward (check it out if interested and tell me what you think).
  • Created a side hustle which I have been hustling on for the last couple of weeks (unfortunately it is not going as well as I had planned… I rapidly launched this to test the idea and so far, it is a slow start).
  • Created two other multi-page websites (fully designed and complete) as part of the new side hustle.
  • Got more exercise in… being able to go for a walk or a bicycle ride at 5am while the sun is rising is incredibly special… there is something about it that is magical.
  • Read 3 books… although this one is because I have changed my night-time routine (to help me start effectively with my morning).

Just writing the above makes me feel in awe of this process. It is simply amazing the output that can be created when this time stacks up each day.

But it is not as simple as it sounds… mostly because I have three young children between the ages of 1 and 5. So, as any parent would understand, trying to stick to a schedule is incredibly hard!

The mornings are the easy part because everyone is sleeping. The hardest part is getting to sleep on time.

I need at LEAST 8 hours of sleep each night to perform at my best. So, to wake up at 4am means getting to bed no later than 8pm. But even then, it is impossible to get a full 8 hours of sleep in because my kids are always waking up each night. I have not had a full-night’s sleep for 5 years now, except for the odd occasion when I am away for business travel. Any parents with young children reading this know exactly what I am talking about!

Here is the reality.

I have only actually woken up at 4am twice during this time (well, one time I got up at 3:57am which was ever better).

To get an 8 hour sleep I really need “bed time” of 8.5 hours, and preferably 9 hours.

Getting to bed at 8pm is tricky. My kids are often still mucking around until 8pm, or sometimes even 8:30pm!

And then there is that time I used to spend with my wife – after the kids are sleep and before our own sleep. This was our quality time together. Going to bed at 8pm took this way.

As a result, I have been tweaking my strategy over the past few weeks and my typical day now looks like:

  • Bed-time between 8:30pm and 9pm
  • Awake at 5:30am.

So, my goal of 4am has only been achieved twice. But that’s ok, because every other day over the past 3 weeks I have been up by 6am at the very latest.

This has given me at least one hour every day, and probably about 1 hour and 45minutes on average over the past 3 weeks to really focus deeply on these goals.

Even just 1 hour of deep, focused, work a day, will tally up to 45 rock solid 8 hr days with no breaks, which tallies 2 and a half months of full-time work a year. And again, this is time purely on deep, focused, work. Incredible!

How do you do it?

I found it quite simple.

You simply set a strict rule for yourself in terms of your bedtime and wake up time.

Make sure you push all your bed-time rituals forward to meet your deadline. ie, stop drinking caffeine earlier in the day, stop all your screen time earlier than usual, eat earlier if need be, and so forth.

The main thing is to really internalise the benefits of doing this. The primary benefit being that you will get undistracted, highly focused work done on your most important goals in life. Whether that is working on a big project at work, perhaps it is doing your side hustle, or perhaps it is writing your book, or perhaps it is getting your daily exercise in.

Whatever it is, you need to internalise the benefit of doing this and achieving it.

The other thing is to plan the night before what you will do in the morning.

You do not want to wake up, hit your desk, and then use your willpower and waste time trying to figure out what you are going to do.

Instead, have it planned… know exactly what you are going to do.

Perhaps its that you will write 1,000 words of your book, or that you are going to go for a bicycle ride through the park, or that you are going to research a certain topic.

Having it planned means that within five minutes of waking up, you are focused and doing productive work.

My first 3 weeks have been amazing.

The challenge for me now is to keep this up. I have no intention of stopping this.

I challenge you to experience the magic of the mornings.

This is the time you can really change your life, by working at it every single day.

When you win your mornings, you win the day.

Are you with me?

Brendan

The post Magical Mornings – How to Get More Done Before Breakfast appeared first on The Start of Happiness.

How to Find Peace and Happiness After a Divorce – 3 Steps to Rediscovering Joy

self-help

Note from M2bH: No one enters a marriage expecting it to fall apart. No one wants a marriage to fail—at least not at the beginning. There are steps that can be taken to help heal wounds and resolve issues and return love to the marital relationship. We encourage you to take those steps.

But some marriages are entered into inadvisably. Sometimes people change and love withers and abusive language and behavior replaces the thoughtful attention that defined the relationship in its happier years.

What then?

There are often feelings of shame and embarrassment, regret and disappointment, loneliness and a sense of failure that follow a divorce. But unhappiness is not your destined lot in life for having severed a marital relationship. Happiness can return. It can be rebuilt and rediscovered.

For those of you who have gone through a divorce and still struggle to find your way back to joy, today’s post is a guest write-up from Jade Gallagher meant to offer a way back to happiness.

Enjoy…

 

There is no need to feel like your life has reached a dead end just because your marriage is over. You need to take the positive view that you can and will find life after divorce.

If you can develop some good survival strategies to get you through the initial pain of separation, this will definitely help to set you on the path to finding happiness again.

Let’s look at how to get through your divorce in the best way possible. How do you approach this situation in a positive way? Why is it important to create a reliable support network? There are also some tips on how to re-launch a better version of your old self.

Don’t subscribe to the stereotype

Getting divorced can be a traumatic and confrontational experience, but it is fair to say that not all divorcees hate each other after they have officially ended their marital relationship.

There are many different reasons why people get divorced. Specialists can help people sort through unique divorce issues. From fighting couples who have fallen out of love and friendship to those whose marriages have become verbally or physically violent.

Divorcing in a loving and compassionate way is not always possible. However, it is useful to attempt to find an amicable solution where possible. It will make it easier to recover from your divorce and get your life back on track as quickly as possible.

Reach out to others

If there was a simple strategy to help you cope with the feelings of pain and loss that you can experience with divorce, we would all be doing it, but there is rarely a magic solution to such a complex relationship problem.

One of the most important aspects of going through a divorce is being able to rely on a good support network of family and friends who will help you get through this difficult period in your life.

It is often not about the quantity of friends and family you can lean on that counts, as the quality matters more. Even if you only have one really good friend who offers a strong shoulder to cry on when you need it, this can be more valuable than a whole group of friends who offer some support but don’t always know what to say to you.

You should be prepared for some old friends to go missing when you get divorced as this can, and does, happen. Focus your efforts on finding the right people to reach out to, so that you get a great support network that you can truly rely on.

A new you

We all change in subtle ways over the years and if you had been married for a long while, you are almost certainly not the same person who fell in love all those years ago.

Getting divorced means you go through quite a life-altering change from being one-half of a couple to becoming a single person again. This can cause an identity crises that is difficult to adjust to.

Work on finding a way to redefine yourself and become the person you want to be now that you are on your own and, frankly speaking, have more personal freedom to explore new options.

Psychologists suggest that exploring previously untapped hobbies and interests is a good strategy for removing any feelings of grief after divorce.

You should find that a period of self-exploration can be very liberating and exciting. Taking up new hobbies and interests is a great way to combat any feelings of isolation that you might be experiencing.

Take a positive approach to your current situation and your future prospects and there is every chance that you can find happiness again after your divorce.

Jade Gallagher went through a messy divorce 18 months ago but is now stronger, and happier than ever before. She supports other women going through divorce (as well as the occasional guy) online through social media sites and her writing. For professional support check out DivorceGuru who help people in California.

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The post How to Find Peace and Happiness After a Divorce – 3 Steps to Rediscovering Joy first appeared on Meant to be Happy.

57 Of The Best Quotes About Living In The Moment

self-help

You’ve heard about “living in the moment,” and it sounds great. You’re ready to give it a go. But it would be great to have someone there to guide you along. And if no one can be there with you in the flesh, it would help to read the words of those who’ve learned how …

Read More57 Of The Best Quotes About Living In The Moment

The post 57 Of The Best Quotes About Living In The Moment appeared first on Live Bold and Bloom.