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These tips are the combination of years of blood, sweat and tears. Follow them to the letter, and I promise you will feel an enormous amount of momentum backing you up on a day to day basis, the likes of which you have never felt before.
I’m not a guru & I don’t mean to be cocky. However I have noticed some things, which I think would be of great help to pass on to anyone who reads this post.
1. Age is just a number.
Most importantly of all, never forget age is just a number. The day you decide to take your age in your stride is the day you become unstoppable. Age can be an extremely powerful asset for you.
Embrace your youth wholeheartedly, accept that you are the young gun everyone wants to be and use your stamina and adolescent innocence to ask for forgiveness rather than permission.
If you are not young anymore, well then you’ve got a fountain of wisdom on your side. You’ve been there and done that. You can assess a situation far better than 95% of the younger generations due to experience, and you can do it twice as fast as they can.
If you believe that you can make it, well guess what? You will. It’s the Placebo Effect. Forget Murphy’s Law. You can and will use your age, education, intelligence, looks and anything else you can to achieve your goals. There is nothing that people want to see more than hard working, talented & intelligent individuals paving the way of the future.
2. Reinvest in yourself.
The safest way you can ensure your future success is to consistently focus on upping YOUR game. Read something interesting and invaluable for 30 minutes a day. Learn to cook your favourite meals and more. Work out regularly and kill your workouts. Turn off the tv. Throw away the junk food. Start talking and thinking positively.
Consume knowledge from each and every situation and experience in your life. Breathe information into your mind just like you would breathe oxygen into your lungs. Don’t just learn about your profession, learn about business, relationships with everyone around you, biology, learn about the goddamn capitals of the world while you are at it. Be a well rounded genius, so far as you can be that person that can confidently talk about the majority of topics and awe others and yourself with what you know. Call it your party trick.
Don’t forget, you need to spoil yourself from time to time. Nothing too over the top (unless you really deserve it), but without a doubt you need to take care of number one. And it’s healthy to reward yourself. It allows you to avoid burnout, and keeps you motivated to constantly move forward.
3. Avoid decision fatigue.
Somebody once said that you can only make a finite number of decisions in any give day or waking period. Now I don’t remember who that was and I don’t care to Google it either, but I am a firm believer in this concept. I mean your body gets tired after doing a lot of exercise, so why wouldn’t your mind get tired after doing a lot of thinking?
There are plenty of techniques you can employ to ensure that you have enough mental power to get you through the day and beyond. For example, before you go to bed you should decide what you’re going to wear and the work you’re going to do the following day. Here each item of clothing you put on is basically another cognitive decision, & this quickly adds up for each item of clothing. Another good idea would be to pre-cook multiple meals to avoid shopping and the mental strain of cooking on a daily basis. Again, each ingredient to your meal is one decision point, whereas if you cook in bulk one decision point can be worth several.
Simple follow this pattern: make easily reversible decisions as quickly as possible and make repeating decisions in batches. You will literally cut your decision making brain power expenditure in half.
4. Achieve laser focus.
The number one most prominent differentiator between mediocrity and meteoric success is the ability to work productively for hours at a time. Once you can achieve that zen zone i.e. combination of techniques that grant you the perfect concentration, the results will be remarkable. You will get mountains of work done and you will feel incredible.
You will struggle to keep up with those who have achieved such if you don’t hop on the train right now, and train yourself to achieve laser focus. It’s like making a down payment on your success, with the highest rate of return.
Of course there are loads of things you can do to ensure optimum focus. From dimming the lights to turning off your phone. Listening to music, working out regularly, doing something fun just before long periods of work, in between or just after as a reward. Everyone is different, and only you know what you need to focus.
5. Think big. Be big.
There is a lot of science backed proof that has well established how important goal setting is. It’s your only sure fire way to ensure that you know what you want to achieve and that you are working towards those goals. If you have not already, you should immediately write down your one, five and ten year goals and stick them to the wall. Right above your desk.
Not only write them down, but write down bullet points on how you are going to achieve those goals. What are you going to do to get to where you want to be? What’s the knock on affect on one task or goal? How will it improve your future and help you reach supplementary heights?
The power of acknowledging a goal reached, one you previously thought was unreachable, is ultimately the driving factor in creating waves of momentum and motivation. Be sure to reward yourself for each goal reached while keeping an eye on how achieving this goal has improved your life.
6. Create systems.
A wise man once said “fail to prepare, prepare to fail”, or thereabouts. I believe that besides the obvious, this quote has a hidden meaning. The hidden meaning being that you should put various systems in place that prepare you for tasks that you know you will have to do on a regular basis.
Take your common tasks down a notch, by putting something in place, whether it be code to auto post your new blog posts to twitter or installing a cat flap so you don’t have to constantly open the door.
Simply put, you just have to find ways to reduce the amount of times (down to zero if possible) you have to repeatedly carry out laborious tasks which can easily be automated. Tim Ferris wrote a whole book on this topic for God sake, called the four hour work week.
7. Believe in yourself.
Ok so I may have touched on this point in some of the other points before. You should never underestimate the power of being a positive person. The power of seeing that the cup is half full and not half empty. Knowing that you have your own back and that you are strong enough to carry yourself and others is extremely empowering.
It really does not matter how you build up the power to believe in yourself (within reason of course), it only matter that you do. You have to be confident in your own abilities. You can and will be a force ( Star Wars reference 😀 ) to be reckoned with if you so believe.
Watch motivational videos, read inspirational quotes, reassure yourself in the mirror every damn day if you have to. Do whatever it takes to build up the confidence to believe that you can make a difference. Follow this point before you follow any of the other six in this post. It’s the bullet to your chamber, and without it, your just shooting blanks.
