When you do less, you can rest more.
When you rest more, you’ll have more energy to do what’s hard.
When you do more of what’s hard, you’ll get ahead.
Don’t let people fool you into thinking you always have to do more—it’s a trap.
When you take your total energy and divide it amongst more tasks it equals less energy for all of the tasks: including (and most importantly) the hard ones.
And less energy for the hard tasks is how you fall behind.
Don’t fall for it.
Do less.
Rather than thinking about what you can ADD to your to-do list…
Think about what you can SUBTRACT.
The reality is… we do WAY too much stupid stuff every day.
And by eliminating more of the stupid stuff… VOILA—you’ll have more time for the not-stupid stuff.
Which is ultimately what we’re really after when we make to-do lists isn’t it?
Before you answer the question, make sure it’s the best possible version of the question you can ask.
Certain questions leave no room for good answers.
In fact, many of the questions we ask ourselves beget demeaning/ self-limiting/ hateful answers—and we’re better off not answering them at all.
Want to level up your life? You’ll need better answers for that.
And nothing will lead to better answers faster than asking better questions.
P.s. In case you missed it, you can read the best of what I posted to MoveMe Quotes last week, here.
1% gains is the philosophy that guides my life.
Each day, I try to:
But, I don’t always reach this goal.
Sometimes, what 1% gains ACTUALLY looks like is:
While 1% might feel infinitely achievable… the reality is, we’re imperfect creatures immersed in an imperfect world and we have to account for the ebb and flow of life.
There will be days when you’re feeling it and crush your daily tasks (maybe even with 2-5% gains)… and there will be days when you’re not feeling it and you dip into the negatives.
Don’t let this discourage you—stay the path.
Keep investing in yourself like you would your retirement investment account. Continue to reinvest with the goal of the overall average being a 1% increase rather than the actual increase being 1% every single day.
The real power of the gains come from the long-term compounding of regular reinvestments. Just ask your financial advisor. Trying to get a forever positive return on any stock/fund in the market simply isn’t practical. And neither is a forever positive return on any task you undertake in life.
You don’t get 1% returns each and every single day.
You get 1% returns on average over the course of years and years of regular investing.
THAT is how you get the real 10/15/30% gains and that is how you get the most out of your personal development habits in life.
Stay. The. Path.
Sometimes, what your negative/ demeaning/ hateful thoughts need is a freaking way out.
Moving the thought from the head, through the body, to the hand or mouth, and out into paper/ keyboard/ conversation are all excellent strategies.
Nothing fancy required.
No special journals, questions, or prompts… Just plainly writing/ expressing/ sharing what’s on your mind so as to give your mind space from the thing it’s holding.
It’s not always obvious to people that this works.
They think more thinking is what needs to be done. But, what ends up happening is that the brain becomes overwhelmed with remembering—which throttles its thinking ability and essentially handicaps it from coming up with new thoughts (solutions).
By relieving the brain of some of that info, new space is freed up for fresh thinking that’ll eventually lead to either solutions or releasing (which is sometimes all we really need).
Don’t underestimate the power of writing, typing, and discussing what’s on your mind. It’s one of the most powerful means for moving forward in thought.
P.s. I asked: “How do YOU stop negative thinking” on Twitter. Here are the answers. I hope they help. 🌱
Sounds like a contradiction, eh?
Well, with this one ingredient, you can change everything about your day while simultaneously changing nothing about your day.
What’s that ingredient you ask?
Intentionality.
With intention, everything we do changes:
Sprinkle a little intention into every task of your day and watch how everything changes without even one task being added or subtracted or moved.
Know someone who may enjoy reading these? This is me kindly asking if you’d forward it to them :) …Did you get this forwarded to you? You can subscribe here :)
When it comes to habit change… “black-and-white” rules are much better than “gray” rules.
It’s hard to draw a line in a gradient of gray. And drawing clear lines is what habit change is all about.
My advice is commit 100% to whatever you’re trying to change or change the habit you’re trying to change to something you can commit to 100% of the time.
On Thursday, July 28th, I’ll be hosting a LIVE chat on Twitter on the Art of Stillness—and why/how stillness can help us live better lives. Join me if you’re free/ interested. Details here.