Why you should build better habits to be more productive.

One of the key aspects to being mentally tough comprises  consistently setting and then achieving your goals. For those familiar with the MTQ 4C’s mental toughness framework this relates to the Commitment ‘C’ . Those that score highly on Commitment are generally resilient and tenacious ,able to deal effectively with obstacles and sustain high levels of effort to get stuff done . They are incredibly productive in no small part to their high energy generated from sound energy habits.

Below , I have recommended six good habits  to keep your energy levels high , reproduced from a quality post by Scott H Young in the outstanding online journal Medium.com .

Habit #1: Align Your Life

This first habit isn’t a one-time process, but an ongoing effort to bring the different elements of your life out of conflict and into alignment with one another.

A lot of energy is squandered because the different parts of our lives, both internal and external, are in conflict with each other. That could be the colleague at work who doesn’t want you to get promoted, the friends who make fun of your goals or even the internal fears and assumptions that keep you hesitating.

Spend some time untangling the different conflicts in your life to see how you could resolve them. Sometimes that can be done in the short-term, by making a change. Sometimes, it requires a long-term plan to escape the toxic environment, social circle or belief system that holds you back.

Try this: Sit down for an hour and brainstorm all the things which assist your goals and all the things which hold you back. How could you resolve those tensions?

Habit #2: Go to Sleep Early

Sleep is the foundation of your energy. If you don’t get enough sleep, you’ll start to underperform.

While some people claim to work best on six or less hours of sleep, research says they’re kidding themselves. Seven to eight hours are pretty much mandatory if you’re going to stay cognitively sharp in the long-run.

For some people the sleep deprivation may have mentally plateaued, meaning they feel slightly tired all day, but they don’t think they’re getting any worse. An interesting experiment  showed that sleep deprivation caused continuous declines in mental performance, even though subjects felt like they were holding steady.

Try this: Go to bed by 10pm every night, including weekends, for the next thirty days.

Habit #3: Exercise Every Day

Exercise is a long-term investment in your energy levels. It’s easy to cut in the short-term, but over time you’ll reduce your overall fitness, making it harder to think straight and stay alert throughout the day.

If you struggle to find time for exercise, don’t make going to the gym your prerequisite. Make a habit of doing some pushups or burpees every day throughout the day. These will get your heart pumping and blood moving, and they don’t require setting aside two hours from your already busy schedule.

You can add a walk or gym or fitness classes on top of this foundational habit, but this basic investment in exercise will keep you sharp when you can’t make it to the gym.

Try this: Do at least 10 pushups and a 30 min brisk walk every day.

Habit #4: Do Your Hard Work in the Morning

Aim to get your most important work done in the first four hours of the workday, starting as soon as possible.

The benefits to your energy here are mostly psychological. My energy levels depend a lot on my mood. If I’ve gotten some important work done, my mood is usually good and I feel productive. If I’ve wasted time on emails, meetings, calls or failed to produce something valuable, I’m often frustrated and exhausted entering the second half of the day.

The other reason for this approach is that deep work isn’t always sustainable for the full workday. Better to concentrate it into a specific period than randomly insert it across chunks of time.

Try this: Make the first four hours of your morning a quiet, deep work zone.

Habit #5: Be Clear on Your Goals the Night  Before

Energy is often about momentum. Start working hard and you’ll overcome procrastination and keep going throughout the day. Start slow and you may end up struggling against your own impulses, wasting the energy on things that aren’t productive.

One way to avoid this is to set a very clear intention of how your day will go, particularly in the beginning, the night before. Visualizing this intention and writing it down into your schedule can make it happen more automatically when you wake up.

Try this: Before you go to bed, write down your plan for the next day and visualize it.

Habit #6 : Sell Yourself on Your Goals

Many people simultaneously hold two contradictory beliefs: that other people (marketers) are really good at persuading them to do all sorts of things they wouldn’t do otherwise, but that they themselves have no ability to change their own motivation to do the things they have to do.

The truth is, you need to become the salesperson for your own goals. Not for other people, but for yourself.

Part of that starts with packaging — how you frame your goals and projects can have a huge effect on your motivation. Is this something you have to do? Or an exciting challenge?

Next it comes from refreshing and reminding yourself of your inspirations. Why did you get started down this path? What were you hoping to achieve. Good marketers know to focus the customer on visualizing what they want to drive sales. You can focus yourself on what you want to have the energy to get it done.

Try this: Set aside ten minutes every day to think about what today’s actions are helping you build towards.

To read Scott Young’s full article on Medium click here; 

https://medium.com/swlh/9-habits-to-increase-your-energy-69d65265beaa

Photo by Ani Kolleshi on Unsplash

To learn more on mental toughness contact Mental Toughness Partners

Paul Lyons is an experienced CEO who coaches leaders to improve their performance and wellbeing by developing their mental toughness. 

View our range of workshops and coaching packages

To learn more contact Paul or Mental Toughness Partners

View my daily posts

If you would like to learn more about MTQ assessments, Mental Toughness or the Mental Toughness Partners website please contact us.