What's your daily ritual?
"Wake up and smell the routine"
I've been spending a lot of time recently reading and listening to interviews and various snippets on YouTube etc about mindset and the things that successful people do to create and build momentum and success in their lives.
It's a really interesting topic because it always seems that routine, focusing on the small / simple things and being consistent are all key factors in success in all factors of life: whether that's business, personal life, wellbeing, fitness etc. And let's face it, that's stuff we can all do no matter where we come from or what our background / situation is.
I'm no expert on the topic, but I'm inspired to work out my own routine for success and as part of that I want to start building deeper connections with people on LinkedIn and other social networks and to provide value and content through these channels.
So what about daily habits then?
Mark Zuckerberg wears the same thing everyday. Why? Because it reduces the number of decisions he needs to make. Steve Jobs did the same. It was a daily ritual that freed up their time and energy for the more important decisions.
I love listening to Tony Robbins. He always speaks about the rituals he uses to get himself 'in-state' so that before he arrives to a meeting or an event, he is ready to go with high-powered energy and conviction in what he is doing.
To me all of the following concepts stand out as common treads in successful people's daily routines:
- Gratitude - think of things that you are genuinely grateful for. Feel it, write it down and keep a little journal / notebook so you can look at it and remind yourself of the positive things in your life
- Exercise - even if you're super busy, it's important to look after your physical and mental health. That's exactly what exercise does. The benefits of exercise are well documented, but successful people always carve out some time every day to do some physical activity - whether that's a quick walk or a 60 minute gym workout.
- Goal setting - many people have New Year's resolutions, a common trend of high achievers is setting monthly, weekly and daily goals. All activities are prioritised based on these goals. And not only do they set these goals, but they have routine morning or evening check-ins to see how their activities are contributing or have contributed to these goals.
- Reading and learning. Jim Rohn once said, "formal education will make you a living, self education will make you a fortune". He's right - everything changes so quickly today that you have to be geared to spend at least some time educating yourself and learning new things to keep up with changes. At the minute I love doing personal development and mindset training - success begins in the mind and truly believing that you can achieve it, so it's as good a place as any to start
- The Compound Effect. I love Darren Hardy's book the Compound Effect. It's a great read. Literally it's about making small actions every day towards your end goals and how these will have a massive compound effect. He also says, "What's easy to do, is also easy not to do". He's right about compounding actions - just look up what happens when you double a penny for 31 days...
Currently I'm making a conscious decision to build some success habits in my daily routine including: writing one thing in my gratitude notebook daily, a 10 minute morning walk with my dog, 10 minutes reading (I'm currently reading 'The Magic of Thinking Big'), producing one piece of content daily, contacting 3 people a day on LinkedIn to build that connection...
What are your daily rituals? Share in the comments below, I'd love to hear from you!