Observations

LCShippy

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Is there a downside?

Should you take the cart back to the entrance of the grocery store? Should you get some flowers for a friend having a rough day? Should you send an encouraging note to a coworker? Lots of little thoughts like this cross our minds throughout the day and often times we hesitate before acting on them - we say, "I'm too busy", "that won't really be helpful", or "they might think it's weird", and the list of excuses continues on. But have we stopped to ask the question: what is the downside? And is there a chance this could make someone else's day better? Most of the time, the answer is that there is no downside and yes it will make someone's day better, or at least put a smile on their face. Obviously there are going to be moments where we truly do have too much on our plate, but 90% of the time, these small actions we can take to lift each other up will make our day and someone else's day brighter, in the end encouraging us to keep pressing forward.

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51%

When trying to develop a new habit as part of your day, it may be hard to carve out time or seem overwhelming. So use the 51% rule to get you through. Put forward 51% if you can’t do 100%, just so you can stick with the new “habit” you’re forming. Something is better than nothing and the repetition of the activity creates new pathways in your brain that lead to the long term formation of habits.

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flexible in thought

There are slight tweaks that can make your day easier if every once in awhile you commit to going over your day and identifying frustration points or draining activities. List them out on a sheet of paper and brainstorm ways to actively combat these frustrations with systems, clearer communication or help from others. If you get stuck during the process, seek the advice of a close friend of mentor to help you think through it.

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Not wanting to do the hard work.

Often times we don’t want to put the hard work in upfront that it takes to get successful results, but looking back we realize that if we just bite the bullet initially and do the hard work, the good results will last much longer than the hard work.

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Always take time to state the obvious, while things may be obvious to you, they may not be to others. Stating them provides a chance for growth and vulnerability.

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The 5 Hour Rule.

Ben Franklin was a constant learner, and while he may have sacrificed some productivity daily, it certainly paid off for him in the long run. His daily schedule consisted of spending 1 hour per day of intentional learning, 5 days a week, so 5 hours a week (hence the 5 hour rule). 

Learning time consisted of:

Waking up early to read and write

Setting personal-growth goals (i.e., virtues list) and tracking the results

Creating a club for "like-minded aspiring artisans and tradesmen who hoped to improve themselves while they improved their community"

Turning his ideas into experiments

Having morning and evening reflection questions

There is a direct correlation between constant learning and long term success. What does it look like to implement this into our daily schedules?

The core of the concept revolves around creating “empty space” or “slack” in your daily schedule, this allows us to:

plan what/how we want to learn

practice learning

ruminate

set aside just for learning

test your ideas

Learning doesn’t have to look like being hunched over a textbook, we need to be careful not to let our preconceived notions of learning discourage us from practicing this concept. Leaning can look like painting or playing music or trying a new workout or many other things. We will reap what we sow, so the more time we spend “learning” the things that are important to us in life, the more we will be satisfied with our lives. 

For the full Inc. article: http://www.inc.com/empact/why-constant-learners-all-embrace-the-5-hour-rule.html 

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“I learned that structure allows us to invest in the things that are important to us but don’t exist inside of us yet. There are plenty of other existing tasks, challenges, and crises that threaten to derail us, but for the things we want to build—for those getting-better goals we want to achieve—we have to create a space and a routine for bringing them into existence. That means replacing old patterns and habits with new ones. Structure helps us do that”

Henry Cloud, The Power of the Other

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The power of habits.

I just finished the book 5 Habits of a Women Who Doesn't Quit and in it I discovered one of the biggest secrets of not quitting important things that we start in our lives. It revolves around the successful creation of habits. Habits create routine and routine creates structure and encourages self discipline (not that this is necessary all the time but for the priorities in our lives it is essential). "Our habits explain us, the patterns of our lives reveal the form of our souls." "Small things done consistently, make the biggest changes." "Habits are the spine of our self-control." "You change your life when you change what you do everyday." "Change your habits and you can change anything into a possibility." Spend some time reflecting on your habits, good and bad. Write them out, highlight what you'd like to change, and work on creating one new productive habit at a time. It might start out as spending 5 minutes a day on a new habit, but the consistency of this repetition will allow for great success.

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Make it a habit.

Are there things you always want to do but can’t seem to implement into your schedule, like reading more books, learning how to cook, or working out? There are two things that are needed in order to form new productive habits: structure and accountability. Both of these encourage the formation of discipline into your life. In order to implement structure, write out your daily schedule (what your week normally looks like) and write out the top 3-5 new habits that you want to develop. Then look at your weekly schedule and carve out pockets of time for your new “habits”. Accountability is the piece that will allow this to continue to happen. Habits have to be recurring for a period of a few months to stick, and when we know someone will hold us accountable we will be pushed to continue to form our habits so that they can be successfully implemented into our schedule.  

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Be a problem solver.

You will encounter roadblocks everyday all day. As you take on more responsibility, the number of obstacles you face will increase even more. You will constantly have to take on the mindset of a problem solver in order to be successful. Small hurdles can often be worked through on your own by asking questions about the situations and looking at your options. Larger hurdles can be worked through by writing out your situation or talking through it with a mentor, coworker or friend that shares a positive, problem solving mentality. Surround yourself with problem solvers.

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Do what you like.

I’ve been getting up 20 minutes earlier lately to do something that fills me up first. It has helped me to start my day feeling accomplished and refreshed. I start immediately after brushing my teeth and I have to be intentional about not letting anything else get in the way. Do what you like first to start your day off on the right foot. 

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Give yourself the tools to do the job.

The development of new routines in order to accomplish goals is difficult because it requires consistency and tenacity. Say you want to start reading more books, in order to make that happen you have to carve out time in your schedule, figure out which book you want to start with and most importantly have it handy. The process becomes easier to accomplish when you make these goals into “habits”, which become part of your daily routine. Start out with the goal of reading one page a day. In order to make this happen, give yourself the tools you need to do the job by having the book available on your phone, computer, or iPad or having it right next to your bed, so if your plan is to read before bed it’s already there. Carve out a time in your day that you’ll take 5 minutes to read and practice doing that everyday. Over a period of time it will become a new productive habit.

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Do what seems good to you.

Often times, we are looking for the next step in life. This is when we want a map, but there is no map. It sounds simple, but sometimes the best answer is to “do what seems good to you”. When you have time alone to think through things, thoughts often pop into your mind and during those moments of clarity, those are usually the best next steps. One foot in front of the other. 

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#henrycloud #poweroftheother